Wim Demeere's Blog

Martial Arts, Self Defense and a Whole Lot More.

MMA sucks, traditional martial arts suck more, Part Two

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I hadn’t really intended to write a second part to this “MMA sucks!” post but the amount of reactions I’ve received pushed me to it; so it’s all your own fault!

Seriously, I seem to have given the impression that I dislike MMA. Despite having clearly stated otherwise, this is still the response I got the most. So I’ll repeat it: I have nothing against MMA, at all. On the contrary, if I had more time, I’d resume my shootfighting training because I enjoyed it immensely. What’s more, I have tremendous respect for everybody who steps into the ring, cage or onto a lei tai. Those who haven’t fought full contact (I don’t care which rules, it all hurts)  don’t know what they’re talking about and should at the very least respect the courage these athletes show. Which brings us to my first point:

Pressure testing

Over at Neil’s blog, somebody commented on his MMA post and said this: [Read more…]

Book review: Meditations on Violence by Rory Miller

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Here’s the book review of “Meditations on Violence” by Rory Miller I promised a while ago. I met Rory a while ago and he’s become a friend of mine, just so you know where I’m coming from. That said, we don’t agree on everything (that would be boring…) so I feel comfortable enough writing an honest and objective review of his bestselling book.

Here goes:

Book review - Meditations on Violence by Rory Miller
Rory and me doing so light sparring, having a great time. Barry Eisler and Kris Wilder in the background.

 

Book review: Meditations on Violence by Rory Miller

Meditations on Violence starts with a foreword by Steve Barnes, followed by a short introduction and preface.

Chapter one covers “The Matrix” but Keanu Reeves doesn’t show up anywhere so don’t worry. Instead,Rory explains a tactical and strategic framework that helps you determine what your martial arts is best suited for.

The next chapter covers “how to think” and gives you some interesting concepts on how to approach learning and training for self defense or martial arts. Rory talks about how you can fool yourself easily, even if you’ve trained for a long time. He also takes a critical look at the different sources knowledge can come from and how to think in the moment when you’re smack in the middle of a fight.

Then we move on to the different types of violence where he describes the common characteristics of real-world violence and the human body’s reaction to it. Another topic is how violence is time-related and happens in specific places. [Read more…]

Book Review: “Fighting in the Clinch” by Loren W. Christensen and Mark Mireless

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Another book review for you: “Fighting in the Clinch“ by Loren W. Christensen and Mark Mireless:

The book starts with a foreword by Big John McCarthy of UFC fame and then goes right into the nuts and bolts of clinching. The authors briefly cover clinch models for Greco-Roman, Freestyle, Judo, Sambo, Western Boxing, Muay Thai and what they call “Street Slop”

Next up is the fighting stance and some footwork drills. Chapter three goes into the outer-perimeter clinch and goes into detail on concepts like the tie ups, controlling the box, the post, clearing his arms, inside control, hand fighting, set ups and much more.

Chapter four is a big one, it covers a variety of takedowns for the street and how to get them. The chapter starts off with an interesting section of “do’s and dont’s” and then delves into the techniques: double leg, single leg, high C, lift  and slam, they’re all there.

[Read more…]

Martial intent, Maori-style

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No matter how hard you train, if you don’t work on “martial intent”, you’re better of trying out line-dancing or playing darts. Most practitioners recognize this and start incorporating it at a certain stage in their training. Once you do, your effectiveness jumps to the next level and a whole lot of stuff in your style suddenly makes more sense. Many forms are dead until you add “intent” to them, the same goes for drills.

Sure, there’s a time when you shouldn’t add it: when you learn something new or when you’re troubleshooting and tweaking technical aspects. But intent is still a key factor in your performance under live conditions. Like the boyscout say, be prepared.  Because unless you train it regularly, you probably won’t have the proper intent when you suddenly have to fight.

The question I get most from students is what it is exactly. How do you define it? There are different kinds of intent and it can become hard to explain it correctly. So I often refer to these Haka clips here:

In this one, the intent is more drawn in. [Read more…]

Kelly McCann shows how it’s done

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Take a look at this clip from Kelly McCann’s DVD series Inside the Crucible :

A lot of martial artists, self defense enthusiasts but especially the hardcore RBSD crowd (not all of them, I did specify which part) could do worse than to consider the methodology of how Kelly teaches his class. They might like to believe they have a killer-combat-tested-ultimate-fighting style and that may be true. Or it may be a case of self-delusion, who knows?
The point is they focus way too much on ripping the bad guy to shreds and not enough on other factors. In just a couple of minutes, Mr. McCann covers a truckload of solid teaching principles as well as training methodology. Here’s a quick list: [Read more…]

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