Wim Demeere's Blog

Martial Arts and Self-Defense Blog by Wim Demeere | Techniques, Books, Podcasts

How to refill a heavy bag without having to empty it first

by 1 Comment

One of the most annoying things about training on a heavy bag is that you eventually have to refill it. Invariably (especially with the less expensive models) the filler ends up bunched together and it makes the bottom part of the bag rock-hard while the top becomes empty. When that happens, your joints take a beating when you strike the bottom part as there isn’t enough “give” in it anymore. Striking the top part is just as bad as it has too much give there and doesn’t absorb the impacts enough. So you risk hyper-extending your knees and elbows when you punch and kick high. The only option you have left then is to empty out the heavy bag and refill it.

Talk about a boring and mind-numbing job…

This is something I encountered a lot when I was doing research for my heavy bag book. Almost everybody I interviewed said they always postponed refilling the bag because they hated it so much. It felt like a total waste of time to them. Which I completely understand. However, you have to do it because, as I mentioned before, you risk serious injuries if you don’t.

That’s why I started looking into ways to get the bag in good working order without having to empty it out completely first. I’ll explain a couple things you can do here below but first a caveat: they aren’t perfect. Eventually, you’ll still have to empty out the bag and refill it manually. But with these tricks, you won’t have to do it nearly so often. You’ll also get some extra training in too, so there are no downsides here.

Here’s how you go about it: [Read more…]

How to transition from competitor to coach

by 2 Comments

A while ago, Mike wrote something on my Facebook page.

I have a topic suggestion for you: Making the transition from competing to coaching.

And that’s how this “How to transition from competitor to coach” guide was born.  I’ll try to give you some thoughts here but have to say upfront that I’m not the best guy to write about this. Because I’m a bit of a special case (Peanut gallery dwellers, keep your mouthes shut…) Here’s why.

A long, long time ago…

When I was 16 or 17, my teacher asked me to start class for him. He’d come in a bit later (he had a real long drive to get there) and I’d do the warm up and get everybody started. After a while, he asked me to start teaching beginners. So I did. More time goes by and I’m teaching a full class now. Fast forward a few years, and my teacher asks me to take over and run the school. Which I did.

I was 18 when I started competing so by that time, I’d already been teaching (or something that passes for teaching anyway) for a little while. By the time I started competing internationally, I had been teaching for several years. In that regard, I didn’t really make a smooth transition from competing to coaching as I started out the other way around.

But there’s something else:  I competed in Sanshou (IWUF rules). Think of it as kick boxing but with throws and take downs, no groundwork. Back in the day, it wasn’t all that popular so finding teachers was hard. My own teacher had fought under different rules decades earlier and he couldn’t help me much either. So I was left to fend for myself and figure it out on my own. Which explains why I’m such an opinionated asshole sometimes, but I digress…

That meant looking at all the information I could find: kick boxing, muay Thai, wrestling, judo, etc. If people competed in it, I tried to learn from that art. For the record, I don’t claim I was all that good at those arts, just that I looked for inspiration there because there were precious few books or videos on Sanshou back then.  As a result, I developed a personal, hybrid style that incorporated a lot of the elements from other arts but tweaked and adapted to the Sanshou format.  When I looked at what my fellow competitors were doing, I wasn’t that far off the mark.

What’s your point?

I was a coach and a competitor at the same time; I didn’t transition from the one to the other.

I coached myself because I didn’t have a choice: I didn’t have the means to go study abroad and didn’t know of any local teachers who specifically taught fighting under Sanshou rules.  Obviously, I made tons and tons of mistakes. I lost to fighters I shouldn’t have because I trained in the wrong way, messed up my conditioning, didn’t know enough about strategy and tactics, etc.

Looking at the other guys out there, I wasn’t bad, but I most certainly was not the best fighter out there.

But despite all these downsides, I learned a lot. I learned to look for information, analyze it and try to apply it. The real irony is that I became a much better fighter after I had stopped competing. With some time and distance between me and the competitions, I saw things in a different light, with a better perspective. And I made huge progress in my fighting skills. But it was too late to do anything with them because there was no money in Sanshou fights (still isn’t really) and I was married, bought a house, etc.  All nice things to have but incompatible with a competitor’s life, especially one who isn’t sponsored.

The biggest upside is that it made me a better coach. Primarily because I learned firsthand what not to do and can now help my students avoid those pitfalls. Here are some of the things I picked up along the way and you can use to transition form competitor to coach: [Read more…]

How to train on a slippery surface, Part Two

by 13 Comments

In part one of “How to train on a slippery surface“, I demonstrated training on a slippery tiled floor. The video quality was pretty poor because of the low lighting so I decided to give it another try during daylight hours. This new video still isn’t all that great because my cellphone only records at 15 frames/second. So it looks choppy. Can’t help that. Anyway, here’s the video:

As you can see, I didn’t fall once. Ha! And for the smarty-pants among you: I didn’t fall when the camera was off either (though you should have seen me sliding all over the place when I walked to my car last week…) .

Whether you fall or not isn’t all that important anyway. What counts is that you try to push the limits of your martial arts or self defense skills and explore new ways of doing your techniques while you’re sliding on ice.

Some background information:

  • There was no plan. I was just having fun experimenting, trying out techniques. I mixed combat sports techniques with self defense moves. Why? Because I felt like it. That’s all.
  • The high kicks were for fun, not for practical use. Fun, but also to see how far I could take it before I lost my balance. So don’t go thinking I’m advocating high kicks when you fight on ice…
  • The surface was cut up. This wasn’t a nice, smooth ice rink. The ice-surface was irregular form where cars had been driving all over it. Most of it was slippery as hell with here and there a small spot where it wasn’t as bad. But I wasn’t looking down so I didn’t know where those spots were until I stepped on them. That was part of the fun.
  • I’m wearing normal shoes. No fancy soles or anything, just regular Nike’s. Speaking of wardrobe: I look like the Michelin man because I’m wearing loads of layers; it was frikkin’ cold!


So what worked?

This iced up parking lot was very different from my humid garage floor. Some things were similar, others different. Some thoughts: [Read more…]

How to shadowbox, part 3

by 5 Comments

In Part 1 of “How to Shadowbox“, I covered the basic reasons for this type of training. Part Two gave you some examples of how to apply them. But that still doesn’t tell you how to begin shadowboxing. There are so many different things you can do, it can be difficult to find a starting point. Especially if you’re new to MMA, muay Thai, boxing or whatever art you practice.  As you know by now, I like a structured, progressive approach in my training. So here’s an example of a shadowboxing workout.

First, a couple of things:

  • After the warm-up, you’ll work in 3 min. rounds with 1 min. rest. I use my wristwatch, which has a good timer, to sound the alarm in cycles of 3 and 1 min.
  • Be extremely careful about not snapping your joints completely. Don’t open up your knees and elbows at 100% as that can lead to tendinitis, hyper-extension, muscle tears, etc. I usually stay in the 95% extension range.
  • Focus on staying in balance. It’s easy to allow yourself to take a step when your punch drags you off balance, simply because there’s no opponent to punish you for it. But it’s a bad habit to get into, one that’ll cause you pain in a real fight.
  • Train on a stable surface. I sometimes like to train on a slippery surface but that shouldn’t be the standard way of training because it makes improving your techniques more difficult. Find a good floor to train on and wear the appropriate shoes to get the most out of your workout.

OK, here’s the actual work out: [Read more…]

How to train on a slippery surface

by 10 Comments

Ever since I started reading martial arts and self-defense books, I saw one piece of advice come back over and over: don’t always train in the dojo or gym, go train on a different surface and in a different environment. Being somewhat inquisitive of nature (OK, I just want to know everything.) I did just that many times and one of my favorite challenges was experimenting with how to train on a slippery surface.

You don’t always fight on a perfectly dry and solid surface. In real life, you fight wherever you are when the bad guy decides to take a swing at you. That could be:

  • On a wet, tiled floor like the one in my garage.
  • In a bar where the floor is full of spilled drinks and other fluids (you probably don’t want to know which ones…)
  • On wet grass.
  • On snow or ice. If you’re really unlucky (or Swedish… Hi Paul, hi Mark!), on both at the same time.
  • In the sand on the beach.
  • In mud.
  • Wearing shoes with crappy soles that make you slide all over the place but you have to wear them because they match your new suit and if you don’t, your wife/GF/significant other will be on your case about “that time you wore those awful shoes” forever…

With some imagination, I’m sure you can find even more more situations where you’re on a slippery surface and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you have to defend yourself right then and there, here are some questions you first have to answer in training:

  • Which techniques can I do without slipping and falling?
  • How are these performed differently from when you do them on a normal surface. (Hint: there will be differences…)
  • Which techniques are still possible but with some specific technical adaptations?
  • Which are out of the question?

You’ll probably answer these quesitons differently than I do and that’s perfectly fine. We’re different people with different skills, preferences, etc. The key issue is that you do ask these questions and find the answers that work for you, before you need them in the street.

Here’s how I do it:

[Read more…]

Popular posts

Recent Posts

Search this blog

Custom Search