27/7/17 RED BELT GRADING NOTES - before, during and after

This has been written to act as a reminder for the next grading, to be learned from and to make progress from because as Steve always rightly reminds us, we are a work in progress.

BEFORE
Whilst grading and testing is nothing new to me, I still let the feelings of performance anxiety and failing in the perception of my peers and Steve creep in. In retrospect, I let the process take over my thinking. I have a deep respect for the lads at the club and Steve and their honest approach to martial arts – there is no place for bullshit or ego. You could say it is confirmation bias (which it is) because myself and the other lads buy into what Steve is trying to achieve and teach. I have been fortunate to train with some remarkable martial artists, notably Martin Workman and Lee Aylet – whom I respect and have been deeply inspired by - but I believe that I have made more progress and been technically refined under Steve’s tutelage for than any other. The point is, I am emotionally invested in this club because I want to be on the same, if not better level than the lads I train with. I don’t want to let myself down, my training partners or Steve.
Regarding the specifics of the grading, I was most anxious about remembering the 5 different punch defences to the jab and the cross. Every time I entered my bathroom, I would go through each of the 5 to embed them to memory as well as using visualisation and verbal rehearsal. I wrote them down, tried using mnemonics too.
On the day, I kept remembering how I just wanted to get it started and was not living the day in the moment. Steph said I was clearly mentally occupied, perhaps because I was off work and thus not engaged in playing lion tamer to a room full of kids. I remember sitting down and checking my heart rate when I sat down at the club at 7.45pm; 90bpm. Fucking ridiculous. I tried to slow my breathing down because I knew this would drain me as I could already feel slow adrenal release
PROCESS TARGET:
Spend equal mental focus on each aspect of the grading, give all aspects equal weighting.
Address any anxiety and question why it is there? Then consider the worse-case scenario and be at peace with that.
Consider what is the obstacle and what can I learn from it?

DURING
There were different levels of anxiety throughout that I experienced. For example, in the footwork section I felt really confident because this was something I have made a process habit. If I can move my feet well then that will put in me in better positions. Footwork is key.
Then it was nemesis time – the punch defences. And I now realise that applying this pressure to myself to this one aspect made me tighter and over thinking because my range was more, even several of my ABC’s were woeful at best. The ability to flow was not to be seen. Regarding the rest of the material, I felt really well prepared because I had turned up to class regularly and put in the time at home.
Is it natural to feel better at some things other than others? Perhaps.
Working on the Thai pads was physically hard because they are so unforgiving. I wanted to make sure that I was not going all out but trying to be technically reasonable. After some rounds of 2 count work, it was time for pyramid round kicks sets to 5. I heard and glimpsed James and Charlie doing this the week before in their grading so I fought my perceptions to focus on one thing at a time – the sensation of quickly diminishing energy whilst trying to keep the hands up and be on the toes.
PROCESS TARGET:
Relax, flow and breathe – believe in the practise that has been put in, most of the mistakes have been made in the learning process in class. If you make a mistake, move on and make the next attempt better.
Get fitter and improve the cardio – practise pyramid sets on the tyres. Incorporate boxing’kickboxing cardio sessions each week for specific fitness improvement.

AFTER
Relief: it was over and all the hard work was worth it.
Happiness: achieving the goal of red belt because of the hard work that was put it, it was truly earned.
Improvements: listening to Steve’s feedback about what needs to be refined.
PROCESS TARGET:
Make the improvements part of my practise – write them down, know them, work on them.

Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead. By James Clear

We all have things that we want to achieve in our lives — getting into the better shape, building a successful business, raising a wonderful family, writing a best-selling book, winning a championship, and so on.
And for most of us, the path to those things starts by setting a specific and actionable goal. At least, this is how I approached my life until recently. I would set goals for classes I took, for weights that I wanted to lift in the gym, and for clients I wanted in my business.
What I'm starting to realize, however, is that when it comes to actually getting things done and making progress in the areas that are important to you, there is a much better way to do things.
It all comes down to the difference between goals and systems.
Let me explain.

The Difference Between Goals and Systems
What's the difference between goals and systems?
If you're a coach, your goal is to win a championship. Your system is what your team does at practice each day.
If you're a writer, your goal is to write a book. Your system is the writing schedule that you follow each week.
If you're a runner, your goal is to run a marathon. Your system is your training schedule for the month.
If you're an entrepreneur, your goal is to build a million dollar business. Your system is your sales and marketing process.
Now for the really interesting question:
If you completely ignored your goals and focused only on your system, would you still get results?
For example, if you were a basketball coach and you ignored your goal to win a championship and focused only on what your team does at practice each day, would you still get results?
I think you would.
In the last 12 months, I’ve written over 115,000 words. The typical book is about 50,000 to 60,000 words, so I have written enough to fill two books this year.
All of this is such a surprise because I never set a goal for my writing. I didn't measure my progress in relation to some benchmark. I never set a word count goal for any particular article. I never said, “I want to write two books this year.”
What I did focus on was writing one article every Monday and Thursday. And after sticking to that schedule for 11 months, the result was 115,000 words. I focused on my system and the process of doing the work. In the end, I enjoyed the same (or perhaps better) results.
Before we talk about how to get started, I wanted to let you know I researched and compiled science-backed ways to stick to good habits and stop procrastinating.

Let's talk about three more reasons why you should focus on systems instead of goals.
1. Goals reduce your current happiness.
When you're working toward a goal, you are essentially saying, “I’m not good enough yet, but I will be when I reach my goal.”
The problem with this mindset is that you’re teaching yourself to always put happiness and success off until the next milestone is achieved. “Once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy. Once I achieve my goal, then I’ll be successful.”

SOLUTION: Commit to a process, not a goal.

Choosing a goal puts a huge burden on your shoulders. Can you imagine if I had made it my goal to write two books this year? Just writing that sentence stresses me out.
But we do this to ourselves all the time. We place unnecessary stress on ourselves to lose weight or to succeed in business or to write a best-selling novel. Instead, you can keep things simple and reduce stress by focusing on the daily process and sticking to your schedule, rather than worrying about the big, life-changing goals.
When you focus on the practice instead of the performance, you can enjoy the present moment and improve at the same time.

2. Goals are strangely at odds with long-term progress.
You might think your goal will keep you motivated over the long-term, but that's not always true.
Consider someone training for a half-marathon. Many people will work hard for months, but as soon as they finish the race, they stop training. Their goal was to finish the half-marathon and now that they have completed it, that goal is no longer there to motivate them. When all of your hard work is focused on a particular goal, what is left to push you forward after you achieve it?
This can create a type of “yo-yo effect” where people go back and forth from working on a goal to not working on one. This type of cycle makes it difficult to build upon your progress for the long-term.

SOLUTION: Release the need for immediate results.

I was training at the gym last week and I was doing my second-to-last set of clean and jerks. When I hit that rep, I felt a small twinge in my leg. It wasn't painful or an injury, just a sign of fatigue near the end of my workout. For a minute or two, I thought about doing my final set. Then, I reminded myself that I plan to do this for the rest of my life and decided to call it a day.
In a situation like the one above, a goal-based mentality will tell you to finish the workout and reach your goal. After all, if you set a goal and you don't reach it, then you feel like a failure.
But with a systems-based mentality, I had no trouble moving on. Systems-based thinking is never about hitting a particular number, it's about sticking to the process and not missing workouts.
Of course, I know that if I never miss a workout, then I will lift bigger weights in the long-run. And that's why systems are more valuable than goals. Goals are about the short-term result. Systems are about the long-term process. In the end, process always wins.

3. Goals suggest that you can control things that you have no control over.
You can’t predict the future. (I know, shocking.)
But every time we set a goal, we try to do it. We try to plan out where we will be and when we will make it there. We try to predict how quickly we can make progress, even though we have no idea what circumstances or situations will arise along the way.

SOLUTION: Build feedback loops.

Each Friday, I spend 15 minutes filling out a small spreadsheet with the most critical metrics for my business. For example, in one column I calculate the conversion rate (the percentage of website visitors who join my free email newsletter each week). I rarely think about this number, but checking that column each week provides a feedback loop that tells me if I'm doing things right. When that number drops, I know that I need to send high quality traffic to my site.
Feedback loops are important for building good systems because they allow you to keep track of many different pieces without feeling the pressure to predict what is going to happen with everything. Forget about predicting the future and build a system that can signal when you need to make adjustments.

Fall In Love With Systems
None of this is to say that goals are useless. However, I've found that goals are good for planning your progress and systems are good for actually making progress.
Goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short-term, but eventually a well-designed system will always win. Having a system is what matters. Committing to the process is what makes the difference.

25/7/17: knife masterclass and syllabus work

KNIFE masterclass

Defanging the 5 angles of attack.
The angles are the same for the single stick.
Angles #1, 3 and 5 involved defanging with a slash cut and passing the arm with the hand to get to the outside and zero pressure followed by a stab.
Against angle #2 - knife tip up and the outside of the forearm, fingertips up, against his weaponised arm then pass the arm towards and into him.
Against angle # 4, exactly the same as above except your knife is tip down now. Both angle #2 and 4 also had a stab to finish the technique phase.

Defanging in any order.
Steady consistent feeds bringing more aliveness into the drill as this required more awareness of his ‘whole’ to see the attack coming.

Adding slash attacks on the #1 and #2 lines between feeds
After each defence, we added continual movement by slashing on the #1 and #2 angles after the stab motion to the outside and rear of the body. This was to facilitate not stopping after the stab as that might not be enough and also to keep you moving with your attacks – never be stationary.

As an aside, one of the lads at the club tonight, reckoned he could take 2 stabs before being stopped; so long as the stab was not to the heart. I thought this was a really interesting consideration, simply because it was not something I had ever mused but also the reality of my job compared to his means that this is genuinely something worth understanding from his perspective. This also personified the potential need for multiple strikes with the knife, not just one. Shout out to the powerful Ben.

Feeder giving depth and penetration to the attacks
Now the feeder was trying to get his blade on to your body. The feeds were not necessarily faster, just had greater intent and penetration. This evolution of the drill really emphasised the need to move your body and to defang and pass with long arms.

Dagger pass loop drill into defanging the 5 angles
Slash on the angle #1 line as partner steps back (to get the lead leg out of the way) and does the dagger pass – clasp and guide the weaponised arm past and away from your centre. After a nominal amount of looping the motion, we went into defanging the 5 angles, in any order.

Low line stab loop drill into defanging the 5 angles
Stab on the low line #5 as the partner parries (fingers down, move your centre offline) the weapon hand and continues as above into the defanging practise

Adding secondary attacks (punches, kicks) after the initial feed
This then ensured we were aware of his whole body and teaches not to be fixated on the blade as he does have other weapons. The aim was to use your knife to defang these weapons too in addition to all the other learning points.

Stalemate 50/50 drill

Imagine the above image but each person is closer and holding the other’s knife. We looked at different ways of controlling him whilst extracting our knife. The intention was also to keep the arms low and not to be too passive or aggressive with our energy – if that was the case, he could feel it and use the energy to his advantage.

Syllabus work
Split into our grade specific groups and got on with our work.

18/7/17: Thai boxing kicks plus syllabus work

THAI BOXING – defending kicks focus

Defending the round kicks with crushes
Drilling in the mirrors to get reps in and refine the motion before applying it.
Key learning points were:
• Eyes up
• Hands high
• Hips high
• Short stance
• Maintain the same level – avoid bobbing
• Both hands on the centre when crushing
• Thigh is parallel to the floor and the knee is pointing sideways not forwards.
• Ankle is flexed.
• Whichever side of the body is raised, the arm on that side of the body covers the head.
• The standing leg side arm is long, looking to disrupt the opponent’s balance and base

Crush 1: Right leg to the right

Crush 2: Left leg to the left

Crush 3: Left leg low and across the centre (against the lead low kick)

Drilling with partners
Working the three attacks to enable the partner to work the three defences. Initially this was in the order which they were presented but after a few rounds, they were in any order. This was to develop aliveness in the drill and a precursor to the kick sparring later on in the session.

Teep drilling rounds
• Eyes up
• Hands high
• Hips high
• Short stance
• Maintain the same level – avoid bobbing
• Lift the knee high
• Push the hips through
• Use the ball of the foot as primary striking tool
• Aim for the waist band
When drilling with our partners, it was in the kick for kick style and either leg could be used and in any order.

Defending the teeps with scoops
Teep defence was same arm as kicking leg, this kept you on the Outside, Zero pressure, or certainly lessUse opposite hand to leg. If he kicks with left leg, scoop with the left arm. When scooping, lift the leg so the palm is facing up and away from you; the kick is on the outside of the forearm. Give it a little shove which will turn his centre and this can then be followed by a round kick to the back of his leg.

Kick for kick (lead or rear round kick, lead or rear teep)

Defend without reply
I found this really hard, I was thinking too much about what to do rather than trying to flow.

Kick sparring rounds
This was not one for one. You could kick several times in a row, use forward or evasive pressure and counter too. At all times, trying to maintain consistent basics outlined earlier on. This was most enjoyable

Syllabus work
We split off into our grade specific factions and worked on areas for development.

As always, another fun yet challenging lesson.

13/7/17: boxing fundamentals and single stick fundamentals

BOXING

Shadow boxing rounds
• Evasion (no hands)
• Jab only
• Forward pressure
• Two steps back and pivoting
• Pivoting
• L-stepping
• Moving around the outside of the opponents lead leg
• Pivoting inside the opponent’s movement
• 3 punch combo
• 5 punch combo
• Counters to straight punches
• Counters to hook punches
• Free flow – putting it all together

Doing the drill out of motion to make the drill have aliveness.
Person A – jabs
Person B – catches and returns with a jab
Person A – catches and replies with either a jab or a cross
Person B – counters with any of the following the options

Counters to the jab
• Catch and jab
• Pak and cross
• Inside parry and cross
• Outside parry and jab
• Cut punch
• Slip and uppercut
• Scoop and uppercut
• Split entry
• Outside deflection
• Lead hand salute to arm break

Counters to the cross
• Catch and jab
• Pak and jab
• Inside parry and jab
• Outside parry and cross
• Cut punch
• Bob and weave with hooks
• Gunting
• Lead high elbow into hammerfist
• Split entry
• Parry overhand right

In addition, we were working distance awareness; make sure that we started at least arm’s length when the initial punches in the jab-catch or jab-cross catch drill were delivered then moving in with footwork to apply the counters with short, relaxed and fluid hands. Steve talked about how a pro boxer will drill and practise punching – the arms stay bent, the punches are ‘let go, no brakes’ with lots of body motion. Furthermore, to make it more alive, we were doing the above drill alternatively but adding all the counters to jabs and crosses.

SINGLE STICK

3 beat high box sumbrada – exaggerating the motions:
• Dropping on the roof block
• Zoning
• Treating the stick like a sword and using sweeping and slicing motions
• 3 strips

Striking families:
Feeder gives angle #1 and #2, defang followed by:
• Downward figure 8s
• Upward figure 8s
• Abanico (4 variations)
• Redondo
• Cinqo-teros

6/7/17: fundamentals, fundamentals and more fundamentals

Jab loop drill
Person A jab, Person B catch and reply with a jab, Person A responds with the following counters
1: split entry (high or low)
2: outside deflection and shovel hook
3: slip and uppercut
4: pak and cross
5: scoop and lead elbow

Free play: working any response in any order

Cross loop drill
Continual alternate crosses by each person. Ensure that the proper mechanics for the croos were embedded into the practise to ensure quality repetition time.
1: shoulder roll
2: short parry
3: lead hook over the top
4: lead high elbow
5: gunting to the bicep
6: lap and uppercut

Free play: again, working any response in any order.

Carenza (boxing) conditioned sparring rounds (x7). Working the flow of hands and boxing movement with a person in front of but out of range of the strikes landing. During each round, Steve would call out reminders to keep us focussed. For example:
• Strong eyes
• Head movement
• Hands up
• Rear heel up
• Combinations
• Relax
• Flow
• Circle
• Pivot
• Edge on
• Work the defences
• Breathe


Syllabus work – lock flow and single stick

4/7/17: body mechanics (refined through Thai boxing)

Shadow boxing warm up:
Hands only, then adding knees, then elbows and finally kicks.

Round kick drilling in the mirrors (off the rear leg)

Hard ankle stepping into hip twisting

Doing the above set up x2 then doing a kick on the third count

Hip twisting without stepping

Doing the above set up x2 then doing a kick on the third count

The above sets were done with left then right leg forward – drilling both sides of the body

Conditioned sparring rounds:
Hips up, hard ankles, no set up or pre-empting given, using the shin, strong eyes, let the kick go, hands up, zone off line when kicking, make the punches count – aim for to land on the target, kick to the outer or inner thigh, TURN THE HIPS

1. Rear round kick
2. Rear round kick or lead round kick
3. Any lead hand/any target followed by rear round kick
4. Any rear hand/any target followed by lead round kick
5. Any lead then rear hand followed by lead round kick
6. Any rear then lead hand followed by rear kick
7. Insert committed feints
8. Lead round kick, rear punch, lead punch, rear kick
9. Rear kick, lead hand, rear hand, lead kick.

Conditioning rounds on the Thai pads

1. Hard ankle stepping followed by the kick x 2 rounds
2. Kicking from no stepping x2 rounds
3. Double kicking x2 rounds

Syllabus work.
Each group went off and worked on areas requiring further attention before the grading in a few weeks.