Blog
It was tough!
Friday night was Benny ‘the Jet’ Urquidez seminar and what a night it was. I was once again happy to meet up and train with the legend of all legends in Kickboxing and Karate. Some of his best known students include Hollywood Stars, John Cusack and Richard Norton. Not to mention he has trained many other
stars such as Nicholas Cage. He has also produced World Kickboxing Champions, Pete ‘Sugarfoot’ Cunningham, and Australian icon, Stan ‘the Man’ Longinidis. Another student worth mentioning is John Hackleberry, World UFC Champion, Chuck Lidell's trainer. Enough of that!
The conditioning and stretching was the hardest I had ever come across for a long time. It is truly amazing to work with a person of remarkable physical and mental ability. After our initial meet and greet, Sensei Benny, was quick to ask if Richard Norton was in Sydney, but that wasn't to be, which would’ve been nice to see them both together. I will just have to fly to Melboure for that.
It is interesting to see that Sensei Benny has been in the MMA scene well before anybody has ever heard of BJJ. I have seen HIM surprise us with some of his takedowns and throws in Kickboxing matches in the '80's. At the seminar we got a taste of some of his MMA, as well as Kickboxing. I also really enjoyed his unique stretching techniques which mainly involves unlocking the joints instead emphasizing muscle stretches.
Sensei Benny is a loveable character and it shows he is really passionate about what he does and teaches although it has taken me 2 days to recover but I loved it. I get to see him, one more time, this Thursday for some specific training.
I feel I a great connection with Sensei Benny because of my close alliance and frienship with Kyoshi Richard Norton. Sometimes, I wonder why there are not enough people out there to take advantage of great martial artists who put themselves out there!
GA
Only a Matter of Time
In a world where spare time is a rare commodity, we need to improve with managing our time, and to recognise and deal with time wasters, so we work in the most efficient way possible to be able to do what we want to do.
Over thirty years ago, martial classes were 2 hours or more but sessions of that magnitude, today, would be
difficult to sustain over a long period of time. If we can somehow find a better way to reduce the warm-up drills without jeopardising the integrity of the workout then we will have more time to concentrate on the actual techniques. Traditionally, warm-ups can take as much as 20-30 minutes which may include stretching, and aerobic and anaerobic calisthenics but that is too long with the little time we have today with classes being anything between 1 and 1.5 hours.. Long warm-ups are not going to make all that much difference to your martial arts anyway. In fact, they can get dragged out which may set in the boredom prior to startin up your techniques. The exercises need to be quick and intense, and tailor-made to compliment the art.
The Tabata Protocol is a very good solution. John Will has been spreading the word at seminars and I have found the Tabata system to be, not only a great warm-up, but really improves your overall conditioning. The beauty of this is it only takes 5 minutes. This allows maximum time for martial arts training. All you need is a gymboss timer, a bit of knowledge and imagination. In a nutshell, workouts are based on 5 X 40 second rounds with 20 second breaks, using 5 different exercises. This also works with 20/10 seconds and 30/15 seconds depending on what you are trying to achieve. This is the way I do my kettlebell training; it's much for fun, more intense and much quicker.
Anyway, the point of this is there are ways to make better use of your time. Maybe, it's worthwhile investigating. We actually have more time than we think we do, it's only a matter of time.
GA
To Do or not to Do
I was having a conversation with John Will last weekend, en route to seminars, which coincidentally was the same with Richard Norton only a few weeks ago. Whilst there is an important aspect, in what you learn, should work for self defence, not everything you learn has to be just for self defence. That includes Karate, MMA, BJJ, Kickblxing, Tae Kwon Do etc. This may be some relief for schools teaching their students the non-reality aspects of martial arts without the fear of getting stoned. As I've previously said, training in the martial arts is all about challenges by getting your body and mind to respond to movements.
I was having lunch with a good friend of mine who told me, some time ago, he was raring to go and start training BJJ but had realised that he is a 'stand-up kind of guy' and there was no point to any ground stuff. He surmmised BJJ was more sport than self defence, and that may somewhat be true depending how it is taught. My response to him was, 'as martial artists we like to learn and train as much as we can, and BJJ is another avenue to explore'. It didn't occur to me, at the time, to say to him, 'then why teach X-treme martial arts', which would've conclusively validated my arugment but that was something I thought of on the way home. This is not any disrepect to my friend but merely to outline the dilemna faced by Instructors today in their schools ie 'to do, or not to do' – that is the question.
In one of John Will's recent articles, he talks about the importantace of training needs to be complex enough to keep interest and the student's mind fully engaged but functional enough to be useful if required for street application. Martial arts offers the other little things such as social interaction, increased fitness and confidence (thanks, John) which all are essential ingredients for everyday good living and self defence.
GA