FLYING ARMBARS

FLYING ARMBARS
That Guarana choccy bar is definitely giving me a chemically assisted boost to my training. Last night I was working on flying armbars as a counter to a counter to a front kick. Pretty awesome stuff. Might be rather over indulgent in self-defence terms, but it looks damned cool! We should split the syllabus into two parts. Part 'A' are techniques that work for self protection - like a hip throw, naked choke, groin kick or palm heel to the chin - all of them rather simple and unspectacular. Part 'B' techniques that probably would not work but look really cool such as flying armbar, leg wheel and most sacrifice throws. Of course some people are so good at part 'B' techniques that in all honesty, they probably could pull them off in real life. Now if I can somehow integrate my flying armbar sequence into one of the second dan modules, then I will definitely be flying (long as I eat some guarana of course!)

byMeerkatsu

in

August 27, 2004

FLYING ARMBARS

FLYING ARMBARS That Guarana choccy bar is definitely giving me a chemically assisted boost to my training. Last night I was working on flyi...

Read More

COMFORT ZONE

SEMINAR TIME
Been trying to organise a club seminar - usually we invite some of the Mill Hill club down but this year I thought we should take a diversion from ju-jitsu and invite my systema instructors. Speaking to Sam and Mary, they seem really keen on the idea, in fact they've taught the aikido club already so are fully prepped for a session with some jitsuka. Should be a good sesh though I wonder if Sam'll let us do a mass attack as requested, he says he wants to keep it simple. Either way, as he is fresh back from a training trip to Russia and soon Canada, he'll be buzzing with cool new ideas. The lack of matting may scare some of my members initially, but it's good to get out of the comfort zone every now and again. As for systema - it'll be interesting to see who 'gets' it and who doesn't.

byMeerkatsu

in

August 24, 2004

COMFORT ZONE

SEMINAR TIME Been trying to organise a club seminar - usually we invite some of the Mill Hill club down but this year I thought we should t...

Read More

DRUGS IN SPORT

DRUGS IN SPORT
With the recent farcical debacle involving the two Greek Olympic sprinters, I pondered on the question of whether drugs ever affects ju-jitsu (or indeed any martial arts activity). Our Association Governing Body certainly has a drugs officer representative and I suppose in theory, competitors should be submitted to random testing, but I doubt anyone ever has done so.Last night before training, I ate a Gurana Boost chocolate snack - this enabled me to train harder, faster and more intensively than normal, in fact, I was flying and everyone duly noted how intensely I trained. Mind you, being only a small furry creature, I am particularly sensitive to small amounts of stimulants such as caffeine and other alkaloids in drinks such as Red Bull, to extent that I act all hyper for about three hours then cannot get to sleep. Who needs illegal drugs!

byMeerkatsu

in

August 20, 2004

DRUGS IN SPORT

DRUGS IN SPORT With the recent farcical debacle involving the two Greek Olympic sprinters, I pondered on the question of whether drugs ever...

Read More

Windmilling your arm around

The BBC3 documentary Mind, Body and Kick Ass Moves is proving a real hit with the Meerkat and his friends. The highlight in episode 3 was Chris Crudelli volunteering himself to be attacked by genial but deadly karate Master Oshiro, who proceeds to continually poke his finger in the poor chaps neck, sending him flying backwards. There's no doubting Crudelli's expertise in the martial arts and he is an enthusiastic presenter but I'm not particularly wowed by his on-the-street chi-kung demos - in fact I don't buy the whole chi-energy thing at all, preferring to lean on the old 'it's all in the mind' hypothesis. Mind you, windmilling your arm around really really fast and then delivering a knockout punch is rather fun and really works! Looks like a new warm-up exercise for the next training session beckons.

byMeerkatsu

in

August 18, 2004

Windmilling your arm around

The BBC3 documentary Mind, Body and Kick Ass Moves is proving a real hit with the Meerkat and his friends. The highlight in episode 3 was Ch...

Read More

New job

I'm happy to note that the wife has secured herself a permanent job, after months spent freelancing. The celebrations are tinged with a slight regret that this now means she has the excuse to go on a permanent spending bender in replacement of attending ju-jitsu sessions.

byMeerkatsu

in

August 16, 2004

New job

I'm happy to note that the wife has secured herself a permanent job, after months spent freelancing. The celebrations are tinged with a ...

Read More

MIND, BODY AND KICK ASS MOVES

Martial arts documentaries on British TV are one of the rarest events. You can probably count on one hand the number of docs ever shown terrestrial TV. Cable and dish users can watch any number of imported docs on the Discovery channel and anyone over 30 will remember 'The Way of the Warrior' the excellent BBC2 doc that travelled the world to show the usual collection of Chinese and Japanese MA but also travelled to India - supposed root of all the Eastern MA - revelation to me at the time. Sadly, it was never repeated and never released on video or DVD. The book of the program can easily be found but doesn't quite convey the magic of seeing old-time masters going about their MA activities.
BBC3 - that's digital TV to us no hopers stuck in analogue hell, is airing a ten part series called Mind, Body and Kick Ass moves. It follows one chap, an obsessive martial artist fluent in Chinese, who travels the far east in search of elusive masters and gets them to show us their tricks.
Consider the number of people in the UK who do martial arts (many hundreds of thousands I'm sure) compared to the number who play, say, snooker regularly (a few hundred?), never was there such a huge anti-bias towards television airing our favorite activity. The problem with filming real MA is that in 99 percent of cases, MA consists mostly of unspectacular and tedious repetition of techniques - a problem voiced by the producers of 'Mind,Body and Kick Ass Moves'. The other problem is that the general public is gorged on the high-wire kung-fu antics of recent blockbuster films such as the Matrix trilogy and it's ilk. As we all know, MA in the real world is nothing like that.
Apart from WOTW and maybe one of two other shorter less publicised programs, MB&KAM is a welcome breath of fresh air. Go on BBC, be brave and put the series on terrestrial, not the fringe digital.

byMeerkatsu

in

August 12, 2004

MIND, BODY AND KICK ASS MOVES

Martial arts documentaries on British TV are one of the rarest events. You can probably count on one hand the number of docs ever shown ter...

Read More

Film Review - Ong Bak

ONG-BAK - Quite the most fabulous martial film in recent years (and that's saying something!) Starring an unknown Tony Ja in this Thai-boxing spectacular, this films rocks big time!

As usual, the plot is incidental to the stunts, and boy what stunts. Too used to the wire-fu of films such as Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Ong-Bak is a refreshing return to 'old skool' stunts of the Jackie Chan kind, where comedy and risky inventiveness combine to great effect. The difference here is that all the stunt moves are Muay Thai inspired, rather than kung fu, so you will notice a radically different set of moves between the combatants.

Amongst the many favourite scenes, is one where the star is fleeing from a really big gang of roughnecks and has to dodge over, obstacles such as panes of glass, boiling woks, and get this - a pike jump through a ring of barbed wire as small as a sterring wheel...amazing stuff! Even the slow action scene where we watch Ja perform a Muay Thai style kata is quite amazing to see.

Forget Van Damne's apalling effort (Kickboxer) this is the real deal, I'm not sure it has seen an official release in the UK yet, so go order it from import on Amazon now!

byMeerkatsu

in

August 08, 2004

Film Review - Ong Bak

ONG-BAK - Quite the most fabulous martial film in recent years (and that's saying something!) Starring an unknown Tony Ja in this Thai-b...

Read More

Qjump sucks

I want to add my voice to the fact that online train booking company Qjump sucks big time. I planned a special surprise trip to Scotland for my other half, instead I spend all my time arguing with the inept customer services to get me a replacement ticket since they failed to deliver the originals. they just don't care and worse, they give you the wrong advice about what to do. Countless calls and numerous broken promises, I still have no tickets so we take a chance and get on the train anyway. Luckily, the GNER train staff are more than sympathetic. When I explain that I bought tickets that never showed, they ask: who with? And when I say Qjump they roll their eyes with a 'oh no, not another one' type of face. Yep, Qjump suck and they do it badly.

byMeerkatsu

in

August 04, 2004

Qjump sucks

I want to add my voice to the fact that online train booking company Qjump sucks big time. I planned a special surprise trip to Scotland for...

Read More

Injury kudos

Why is it I never get the sympathy inducing injuries? It's always something very internal and odd, like my neck strain, and elbow strain, or the little toe is a bit wonky? Tell someone your neck is a bit dodgy and they just look at you funny. Of course, my refusal to bundle up in swathes of bandages or acres of neoprene supports obviously doesn't help. I say this because this month has seen a spate of niggling injuries to the dojo members. One member is out with damaged ligaments in her foot and has to hobble around on crutches (a definite 8/10 on the sympathy spectrum). Another is bedridden with flu (only a 6/10 here) and another has a twisted knee (possible great name for a rock band). Rumour has it, that someone once died of a heart attack doing ju-jitsu - now that is a whopping 10/10 in my book.I finally decide that the elbow thing is not going to go away so I see the doctor. She's clueless about my odd elbow and refers me to Hospital. Wow, now I'm in the sympathy zone big time since going to hospital is, like, a big deal. A couple of zaps of x-ray and the radiographer decides I am not an emergency case and sends me packing. I'm back to zero in the sympathy kudos stakes.

byMeerkatsu

in

July 30, 2004

Injury kudos

Why is it I never get the sympathy inducing injuries? It's always something very internal and odd, like my neck strain, and elbow strain...

Read More

Personal Student

The training with A. is going well as she is practicing every lunchtime now and puts me to shame with her diligence.
In the old days, a martial arts master would take on board one or maybe two eager young proteges to learn his ancient ways. I am in no way claiming the throne of an old master – far from it - but who would have thought of all the people in the office, the only one keen to learn ko-budo is a 40-something mother of two with scoliosis!
It all began when my brand new katana arrived at the office and I unwrapped for a sneeky inspection.  Passing by was A and she was open mouthed in marvel at the sword. A few months went by and, perhaps being inspired by watching Last Samurai or Kill Bill, she asked if I could show her a few moves with the katana.
Sure no problem! Come to class and we will do some weapons. But A didnt want to learn any of our ju-jitsu, just the katana. She mentioned her scoliosis and busy out of office family life so I figured, sure why not?I lent her a bokken and over the next six or seven weeks, showed her the katana of 8 cuts kata step by step. She learnt it all by heart and has now moved on to nunchaku. I think she is really loving the weapons work but I may present her with the biggest challenge yet - weapons demonstration in front of a select group of co-workers. Let's see if the moves are as slick when the pressure mounts!

byMeerkatsu

in

July 28, 2004

Personal Student

The training with A. is going well as she is practicing every lunchtime now and puts me to shame with her diligence. In the old days, a ma...

Read More

Smelly Jitsu!

Last week I had to deal with a little trauma in the dojo. The way we stack the jigsaw mats there usually is little space for the poor buggers to dry out after a heavy session. Well, last week I turned up early and each single mat was dripping. A week's worth of bodily fluids were still embedded in the mats and, as it was summer and very humid, they were minging - i mean really minging!!! It almost made me want to
I layed all the mats out and put one of those office fans on full blast. Unfortunately, since there is no air circulation in our basement dojo, all this seemed to do was to waft all the combined odour of ancient matting and sweat by-products (read: ammonia) around the dojo.
Enter all the gang and the look on everyone's faces! Ewwwwwwww!.
The funny thing is that you soon get used to the noxious odour until someone else walks into the room and goes 'ewww what's that stink?'

We stack the mats vertically now, so they have some chance to dry out.

byMeerkatsu

in

July 25, 2004

Smelly Jitsu!

Last week I had to deal with a little trauma in the dojo. The way we stack the jigsaw mats there usually is little space for the poor bugger...

Read More

First entry

Well, it's here, the first entry in my new time-wasting achievement...the weblog. It won't change the world, and it won't pay the bills, but I'm pretty chuffed to be joining the ranks of millions of others within the Blogging community.Currently, I am laid low due to an elbow injury. Unusually, it is not self-inflicted, rather, an over-enthusiastic ju-jitsu instructor threw me so hard I had no time to unfurl the full length of my arm to breakfall properly. Instead, the very point of my elbow hit the woefully thin mat and it has hurt for the past three weeks.Luckily, this has given me the opportunity to start this blog and concentrate on other neglected duties, such as playing Xbox and updating my growing collection of Ogg files.

byMeerkatsu

in

July 23, 2004

First entry

Well, it's here, the first entry in my new time-wasting achievement...the weblog. It won't change the world, and it won't pay th...

Read More