Wim Demeere's Blog

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

Roots of fight

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I just stumbled on this cool website called Roots of Fight. It looks like it’s a blend between documentary videos and an on-line gear shop. It mixes the two quite nicely so don’t be surprised you end up buying some of their T-shirts. That said, the videos are well worth watching because they feature a bunch of well known fighters in a range of sports: muay Thai, MMA, boxing and more.

Click on this link to see a bunch of them but also take a look at their blog.

 

Here are a couple of videos I enjoyed the most:

First one is of course the incomparable Bas Rutten, explaining how he ended up breaking the shin bone of an opponent in a leg lock:

 

But my favorite is of course this one on Mike Tyson with comments by Randy Couture, Forrest Griffin and Ray Mancini: [Read more…]

Small guy sucker punches tall guy

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Here’s one that is making the rounds of the internet right now:  A small guy and a tall guy are having an argument (no idea what it’s about). Things seem to heat up and then the small guy sucker punches the tall one with a left hook. The tall guy crashes to the floor unconscious.

Here’s what happened.

Small guy sucker punches and KOs tall guy

There are a couple lessons here: [Read more…]

Self-defense against a whale

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In my post on How to survive a street brawl, I talked about how people forgo all reason and common sense when they’re in a violent situation like that. You’d think any semi-intelligent person would get the hell out of there when dozens of people start fighting. But as you could see in that video, very few people did just that. In fact, several of them placed themselves in even greater danger by doing foolish acts like turning their backs to the brawlers or walking right into the middle of the fight.

Several people talked about this point, both here in the comments section and on my Facebook page. The question that often comes back is “Why?”

  • Why do men feel the need to get in a cheap shot when they see others fighting in front of them?
  • Are women oblivious to the danger a brawl represents to their own health, even if they aren’t participating?
  • Do men feel (subconscious?) pressure from their girlfriends to act all alpha male when a fight breaks out and join the fracas?

And the list of questions goes on but the theme is always similar: why do people do stupid things like that? 

I’m no scientist so what I’m about to write is purely subjective. It’s nothing more than my personal opinion and I reserve the right to change it at any point if additional information or experience tells me otherwise. That qualifier out of the way, here’s what I think:

People are increasingly out of touch with reality.

I’ll give you a couple examples in a minute but let me explain what I mean first. [Read more…]

Reverse Pyramid Interval Training on the Heavy Bag

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I just uploaded my video called “Reverse Pyramid Interval Training on the Heavy Bag”, which is part of the training I’m doing to keep in shape.

I’ve been doing a lot of this type of training lately both in class and by myself. The main reason is that I don’t want to burn out. Here’s why:

As the Tabata Protocol on the heavy bag is my benchmark for my personal conditioning, I need to work on anaerobic conditioning. This is fine, because I enjoy that a lot more than aerobic training. However, doing Tabata too often wipes you out. It’s so intense that you need a long time to recover 100% from it. If you don’t take that time (and especially if you have a high training workload), you head straight into overtraining and injuries. And that’s where I was almost at after four weeks of increasing my training sessions in both volume and intensity.

I felt tired a lot and started having excessive tension in my legs, aches, and other pains. Stretching didn’t help, neither did sleeping more. In other words, I was overdoing it. So I decided to take a different approach. Enter reverse pyramid interval training. The concept is relatively simple:

  • The work-rest ratio is 1:1. This means that each round, you work just as long as you rest.
  • Duration per round starts at 15sec and then you add 5sec every round until you hit one minute. So round one is 15sec work/15 sec rest. Round two is 20sec work/20sec rest. And so on until you do a 1 minute round.
  • Intensity is around 80% of your perceived maximum. Tabata protocol means going at 100%, no holding back. Here, you try to go at around 80%, maybe even 85% of that. If you crank it up more than that, you’ll look like crap after five minutes of working out and then you’re not even halfway through. Now’s not the time to do that this is sub-maximum interval training, not maximum.
  • Be consistent. “Work” means you consistently work as if you’re sparring or actually fighting in the ring or cage. Rest means just that: resting. Personally, I prefer to go relatively easy in the first couple rounds to avoid injuries and I crank it up near the end, but that’s just me. However, I don’t take breaks during the work part, nor do I waste too much time running around the heavy bag. I imagine I’m fighting a tough opponent who keeps me busy.

 

There are other ways of doing this type of interval training but this is the way I like to do it. Here’s what it looks like: [Read more…]

Jon Bluming, one of Europe’s first MMA fighters

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Here’s a blast from the past but still relevant today: Jon Bluming talking frankly and freely about Judo, Kyokushinkai and debunking some of the myths that are still making the rounds today.

You might not enjoy this video if you practice either of those arts…

 

For those who don’t know him, Jon Bluming was one of the first in Europe to mix martial arts and fight effectively with them, both in competition and on the pavement. He took the striking from karate along with the throwing from Judo. But that doesn’t really do him justice. He was first and foremost a tough-as-nails street fighter. What’s more, he routinely took on challengers and fought all comers.  For some more background, check out this video:

Some people might get annoyed by Bluming’s words and that’s fine. But the fact remains: he was there then and chances are, they weren’t. Everything they know about what Mas Oyama really did or didn’t do, they learned from a book, video or other sources. Bluming didn’t, he was there… So it’s hard disputing what he has to say.

Also, I first started reading his column in a Dutch magazine twenty years ago. Back then, he already had that no-nonsense approach and called a spade a spade. Given the amount of revisionist history there is in the martial arts, it’s nice to see somebody call “Bullshit!” when he sees it. And the funny part is this: nobody ever comes out and proves him wrong. I wonder why…

 

 

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