Girls Gettin' Sweaty

Training
41

[quote]Miss Parker wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
OK, just watched the video and that blonde is cute!

Serious question Ms P, how much time do you spend talking with your classes about how to avoid dangerous situations in the first place? And when do you start to introduce these concepts?

You know, now that you’re asking that, I realize we don’t talk about simply staying out of those situations very often. We tend to talk quite a bit about recognizing and dealing with bad situations, but often we’ll only say things in passing like, “If you’d been paying attention, you wouldn’t be dealing with this situation in the first place, but now that you are…” I address it more in my women-only & kids classes, but I’ve been thinking lately I need to run all my classes this way.

My women-only class has become a little test-run place for me. When something works well, I use it in my co-ed classes. We don’t have a certain time to address awareness, instructors at my school are given a huge amount of leeway in how we run our classes. As long as we’re teaching proper principles & following the basic format (1 - exhausting warmup, 2 - technique/padwork with drills, 3 - self defense) we can do what we want.
[/quote]

Do you ever take them outside into different terrains (like on pavement, on grass, in a car, in a phone booth, etc…), lighting conditions, weather conditions and have them practice? Those can be very fun and eye opening experiences. Also gives a sense of realism that is hard to get in a nice well lit, padded dojo.

Sounds like a good drill.

I think that some footwork would be beneficial, but a self defense situation is different than preparing someone for fighting in a ring. If you can get enough space and use footwork tactically in a self defense situation, then by all means do it. But a lot of times things begin from a “conversational range” or closer and at that range you’re better off focusing on staying conscious (defense) and attacking violently as soon as possible.

Sure, things like pivoting footwork to create an angle, thus decreasing the effectiveness of your attacker’s offense (and defense) and improving the effectiveness of your offense could be beneficial. But traditional “X” pattern footwork drills or circling footwork drills aren’t going to be of all that much benefit at this point IMO. Later on down the road, sure focus on them. But address the worst case scenario defense stuff first, then move on to more “optimal conditions” stuff.

Keep in mind that I’m a huge fan of footwork, and completely agree with Cockney that if someone wanted to get very good at striking that they should focus heavily on footwork. I’m just not so sure that it would be of as much help to a woman wanting to focus on self defense to focus on it extensively when she’s just starting out.

42

[quote]Big_Boss wrote:
admbaum wrote:
Miss Parker wrote:
Admbaum, I had no idea you were in Waco. You have my sympathies. Seriously.

thank you very much, this place is awful but I’m trying to make the best of it. Might have to open my own gym to do it though. But that’s OK, I want out of computers and start working for myself. Geek life, sitting behind a computer all day, is terrible on your cardio and countless other things.

If you ever want to drop in at our gym in Killeen/Harker Heights,let me know…you’re more than welcome. And seriously,keep us posted about your school ideas…we need more reputable(and stable) schools in Waco/Temple/Killeen area.[/quote]

Definitely…I’m looking to incorporate with my old gym in Houston, Elite MMA

But that may be a few years down the road. I’ll hit you up on training at your gym. I’m always looking for people to train with, share, and learn from. Likewise, if you wanna come train with me and my buddies you are welcome to. I built garage gym with grappling mats, heavy bags, almost everything needed to keep up my skills until I get this going. We rolled and sparred for about 3 hours last night.

43

[quote]Styfus wrote:

And by the way, there are several small, petite women in my martial arts class who can seriously fuck people up, so if you’re one of those guys whose masculine identity is seriously threatened by a woman kicking ass, I suggest you never take martial arts.

[/quote]

oooooo

btw miss p, i never got to tell you, kick ass video! when i’m TDY @ ft. hood i’m gonna have to stop by there and get beat up by you

44

[quote]HolyMacaroni wrote:
Styfus wrote:

And by the way, there are several small, petite women in my martial arts class who can seriously fuck people up, so if you’re one of those guys whose masculine identity is seriously threatened by a woman kicking ass, I suggest you never take martial arts.

oooooo

btw miss p, i never got to tell you, kick ass video! when i’m TDY @ ft. hood i’m gonna have to stop by there and get beat up by you[/quote]

Oh hell nah…I got first dibs on your ass whenever you get to Fort Hood,son.

45

[quote]Big_Boss wrote:
HolyMacaroni wrote:
Styfus wrote:

And by the way, there are several small, petite women in my martial arts class who can seriously fuck people up, so if you’re one of those guys whose masculine identity is seriously threatened by a woman kicking ass, I suggest you never take martial arts.

oooooo

btw miss p, i never got to tell you, kick ass video! when i’m TDY @ ft. hood i’m gonna have to stop by there and get beat up by you

Oh hell nah…I got first dibs on your ass whenever you get to Fort Hood,son. [/quote]

You can soften him up for me! :wink:

HolyMac, I called Fort Hood to inquire about the training you talked about, haven’t heard back yet. I’m calling back next week. Duh, I should have asked Big Boss about it - BB, I’ll PM you tomorrow, I’m almost out the door to go to my fancy birthday dinner. I’m 44 on Monday, yay!

46

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

Do you ever take them outside into different terrains (like on pavement, on grass, in a car, in a phone booth, etc…), lighting conditions, weather conditions and have them practice? Those can be very fun and eye opening experiences. Also gives a sense of realism that is hard to get in a nice well lit, padded dojo.
[/quote]

Yep, so far we’ve worked in the hallways of the building, the parking garage, in the grass & on the driveway. I’ve had them attack each other with the lights off & the strobe light going, and in dresses & high heels & while carrying their purses + bags. Next month we’re going to do a special class (co-ed) at the bartending school across the street, where they have a complete mockup of a nightclub, with loud music, etc. Barfight! I don’t know any of the other details as I’m not running that project. My private lesson teacher & I are planning a seminar of just carjacking + fighting in & around cars. I’ve been wanting to do that for class, but my husband will kill me if I damage our car, so Heath is bringing in his old beat up truck.

[quote]
I think that some footwork would be beneficial, but a self defense situation is different than preparing someone for fighting in a ring. If you can get enough space and use footwork tactically in a self defense situation, then by all means do it. But a lot of times things begin from a “conversational range” or closer and at that range you’re better off focusing on staying conscious (defense) and attacking violently as soon as possible.

Sure, things like pivoting footwork to create an angle, thus decreasing the effectiveness of your attacker’s offense (and defense) and improving the effectiveness of your offense could be beneficial. But traditional “X” pattern footwork drills or circling footwork drills aren’t going to be of all that much benefit at this point IMO. Later on down the road, sure focus on them. But address the worst case scenario defense stuff first, then move on to more “optimal conditions” stuff.

Keep in mind that I’m a huge fan of footwork, and completely agree with Cockney that if someone wanted to get very good at striking that they should focus heavily on footwork. I’m just not so sure that it would be of as much help to a woman wanting to focus on self defense to focus on it extensively when she’s just starting out.[/quote]

This is really well said. Thanks for that, now I see it in a new light.

47

Very cool video, I thought the old-timey effect with the vertical lines was kind of distracting though.

48

miss parker how lomg have you trained krav maga and how long have you had your school?

49

[quote]bartonmlee wrote:
miss parker how lomg have you trained krav maga and how long have you had your school?[/quote]

The school is not mine, I just work there. I’ve trained in krav for 2 and a half years, been teaching for 4 months. I did Chayon-Ryu (a Korean TMA) for 2 years before that.

50

[quote]Miss Parker wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
OK, just watched the video and that blonde is cute!

Serious question Ms P, how much time do you spend talking with your classes about how to avoid dangerous situations in the first place? And when do you start to introduce these concepts?

You know, now that you’re asking that, I realize we don’t talk about simply staying out of those situations very often. We tend to talk quite a bit about recognizing and dealing with bad situations, but often we’ll only say things in passing like, “If you’d been paying attention, you wouldn’t be dealing with this situation in the first place, but now that you are…” I address it more in my women-only & kids classes, but I’ve been thinking lately I need to run all my classes this way.

My women-only class has become a little test-run place for me. When something works well, I use it in my co-ed classes. We don’t have a certain time to address awareness, instructors at my school are given a huge amount of leeway in how we run our classes. As long as we’re teaching proper principles & following the basic format (1 - exhausting warmup, 2 - technique/padwork with drills, 3 - self defense) we can do what we want.

I know there is always a counterbalance in martial arts training between attracting students and keeping them interested against, what is best to really improve someone.

In BJJ and Muay Thai I always have the issue of getting the balance right between keeping people seeing new cool stuff so that they are having fun and drilling the basics over and over so that they are good. This is something that frustrates me but I understand it. How do you deal with this?

Agreed, this is always a struggle. I seek out real-life situations either by talking to cops, reading newspaper accounts of attacks & books like Meditations on Violence & Gift of Fear, then design a drill around it. The skills that will be used in the drill are what I teach in class. For instance, I read that when someone’s adrenaline spikes & their fine motor skills go to hell they often can’t dial 911. If they can punch the numbers at all they’ll often forget to hit “send” (cell phone) or hit 9 first (office building) or they’ll hit 411 over & over (information #). So the drill is to have them turn off their cell phones & place them on one end of the room. I also have 2 dead cell phones over there with buttons in case they have iPhones that can’t be dialed when turned off. Students begin on the opposite side of the room from the phones. One person has a large kickshield held against their body & stands right up on the “defender”, nose to nose. On my cue the defenders give the “attackers” a hard shove & start fighting their way across the room to the phones using punches, palmheels, elbows, & knees. The whole time the padholder is giving strong resistance & screaming in their face to crank up their adrenaline. Once they finally reach the phone they grab it & dial 911-send while their pad holder is screaming various numbers at them to try to throw them off - kind of like when someone is counting out change & you start giggling & saying wrong numbers to throw them off. Same concept. So, knowing that’s the drill, we work punches, palmheels, elbows & knees in class that day. Then I talk about the effect adrenaline has on the body & mind, & the concept of moving to harder techniques when what you’re doing isn’t cutting it. Then we do the drill.

If I wanted to get someone striking really well, I would spend the first six months working on footwork and defence. They would not even throw a punch during this time. Problem is that within 2 weeks I would have no students.

Unfortunately, we don’t focus nearly enough on footwork in level 1 (my opinion). Like, at all.
It’s all about striking & choke defense.
[/quote]

Your point about adrenaline is spot on. I remember the first time I competed in BJJ they had us sign a waiver right before the fight. I had problems signing my name. Then when the bout started I totally forgot most of the techniques I knew.

51

[quote]Miss Parker wrote:
UB07 wrote:
As one woman said, women are taught to be “nice” all the time. Well, I happen to know a few psychos who would want to prove how big their balls were (figuratively, of course) and try this shit out on a dude. The guy would either back down or kill the chick. I hope they are taught self discipline and that their bodies are a weapon not to be used on a whim, but in real dangerous situations.

Those kicks looked pretty nasty.

True! Because we’re always taught to be nice no matter what, some women seem to think the only way out to not be a pushover is to be a raging bitch. If a woman (or a man!) tries to use this stuff to provoke people prove how big their balls are, they deserve to get their ass beat in response.

I do believe that beginner students tend to think they’re little badasses once they get a few skills under their belt. It seems to be a natural progression, though we actively preach against that attitude & weed out those who consistently display it. They seem to calm down once they start working with people who are more skilled or capable of going harder.[/quote]

This happens everywhere. I have a real problem with some of the students that train with me, they get to a certain level where they are better than most of the people in the gym and they think they are indestructable. In the UK I never had that problem because at any given time there were 20 people on the mat that could wipe me out without even thinking about it. And Roger was able to handle them without breaking sweat. This gave me a real perspective of where I stood. That is why I love it when Royce, Royler or Rodrigo visits. It gives the guys a real perspective of how far they need to go.

52

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
I think that some footwork would be beneficial, but a self defense situation is different than preparing someone for fighting in a ring. If you can get enough space and use footwork tactically in a self defense situation, then by all means do it. But a lot of times things begin from a “conversational range” or closer and at that range you’re better off focusing on staying conscious (defense) and attacking violently as soon as possible.

Sure, things like pivoting footwork to create an angle, thus decreasing the effectiveness of your attacker’s offense (and defense) and improving the effectiveness of your offense could be beneficial. But traditional “X” pattern footwork drills or circling footwork drills aren’t going to be of all that much benefit at this point IMO. Later on down the road, sure focus on them. But address the worst case scenario defense stuff first, then move on to more “optimal conditions” stuff.

Keep in mind that I’m a huge fan of footwork, and completely agree with Cockney that if someone wanted to get very good at striking that they should focus heavily on footwork. I’m just not so sure that it would be of as much help to a woman wanting to focus on self defense to focus on it extensively when she’s just starting out.[/quote]

Totally agreed. I was just giving the example of footwork because it is something that most combat sport people skip over in the rush to the exciting. I was not saying that the self defence class should focus on footwork for 6 months. That would be silly.

53

Miss Parker, while I can’t watch your video, it sounds like y’all are doing a lot of great work in the class. I really dig that cell phone drill y’all are using, and if I ever return to a “self-defense” school then I am definitely stealing the idea. I hope y’all plan to record the ‘Barfight’ and the car jacking seminar, putting them on dvd for later review is invaluable. I have stacks of Judo, Kenjutsu, jujistsu, etc… seminars that I still learn from even after watching 10 times or more.

Whereabouts in Austin do y’all train? I used to live up in Jollyville around 183 & 620.

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
Sentoguy wrote:
I think that some footwork would be beneficial, but a self defense situation is different than preparing someone for fighting in a ring. If you can get enough space and use footwork tactically in a self defense situation, then by all means do it. But a lot of times things begin from a “conversational range” or closer and at that range you’re better off focusing on staying conscious (defense) and attacking violently as soon as possible.

Sure, things like pivoting footwork to create an angle, thus decreasing the effectiveness of your attacker’s offense (and defense) and improving the effectiveness of your offense could be beneficial. But traditional “X” pattern footwork drills or circling footwork drills aren’t going to be of all that much benefit at this point IMO. Later on down the road, sure focus on them. But address the worst case scenario defense stuff first, then move on to more “optimal conditions” stuff.

Keep in mind that I’m a huge fan of footwork, and completely agree with Cockney that if someone wanted to get very good at striking that they should focus heavily on footwork. I’m just not so sure that it would be of as much help to a woman wanting to focus on self defense to focus on it extensively when she’s just starting out.

Totally agreed. I was just giving the example of footwork because it is something that most combat sport people skip over in the rush to the exciting. I was not saying that the self defence class should focus on footwork for 6 months. That would be silly.[/quote]

Eh, depends on the scope. Judo has lots of footwork and almost always takes place in that “conversational range” if not closer. The same can be said for the Japanese Jujitsu and Hapkido styles as well. Footwork and body movement are key to escaping (or turning the tables on) bear hugs, lapel/clothing, arm, wrist, and belt grabs. Footwork within the clinch can lead to openings for strikes, throws and escapes. I like to incorporate many of these footwork drills into the class warm-up. The students just think I’m making them sweat, but really I’m trying to teach them to move off the center line, bend at the knees and drop at the hips, or make openings for attacks/escapes.

54

[quote]Bujo wrote:
Miss Parker, while I can’t watch your video, it sounds like y’all are doing a lot of great work in the class. I really dig that cell phone drill y’all are using, and if I ever return to a “self-defense” school then I am definitely stealing the idea. I hope y’all plan to record the ‘Barfight’ and the car jacking seminar, putting them on dvd for later review is invaluable. I have stacks of Judo, Kenjutsu, jujistsu, etc… seminars that I still learn from even after watching 10 times or more.

Whereabouts in Austin do y’all train? I used to live up in Jollyville around 183 & 620.

[/quote]

Thanks, Bujo. We’re at South Congress and 71, in Penn Field, near Ruta Maya & Opal Divine’s.

55

[quote]Bujo wrote:
Miss Parker, while I can’t watch your video, it sounds like y’all are doing a lot of great work in the class. I really dig that cell phone drill y’all are using, and if I ever return to a “self-defense” school then I am definitely stealing the idea. I hope y’all plan to record the ‘Barfight’ and the car jacking seminar, putting them on dvd for later review is invaluable. I have stacks of Judo, Kenjutsu, jujistsu, etc… seminars that I still learn from even after watching 10 times or more.

Whereabouts in Austin do y’all train? I used to live up in Jollyville around 183 & 620.

Cockney Blue wrote:
Sentoguy wrote:
I think that some footwork would be beneficial, but a self defense situation is different than preparing someone for fighting in a ring. If you can get enough space and use footwork tactically in a self defense situation, then by all means do it. But a lot of times things begin from a “conversational range” or closer and at that range you’re better off focusing on staying conscious (defense) and attacking violently as soon as possible.

Sure, things like pivoting footwork to create an angle, thus decreasing the effectiveness of your attacker’s offense (and defense) and improving the effectiveness of your offense could be beneficial. But traditional “X” pattern footwork drills or circling footwork drills aren’t going to be of all that much benefit at this point IMO. Later on down the road, sure focus on them. But address the worst case scenario defense stuff first, then move on to more “optimal conditions” stuff.

Keep in mind that I’m a huge fan of footwork, and completely agree with Cockney that if someone wanted to get very good at striking that they should focus heavily on footwork. I’m just not so sure that it would be of as much help to a woman wanting to focus on self defense to focus on it extensively when she’s just starting out.

Totally agreed. I was just giving the example of footwork because it is something that most combat sport people skip over in the rush to the exciting. I was not saying that the self defence class should focus on footwork for 6 months. That would be silly.

Eh, depends on the scope. Judo has lots of footwork and almost always takes place in that “conversational range” if not closer. The same can be said for the Japanese Jujitsu and Hapkido styles as well. Footwork and body movement are key to escaping (or turning the tables on) bear hugs, lapel/clothing, arm, wrist, and belt grabs. Footwork within the clinch can lead to openings for strikes, throws and escapes. I like to incorporate many of these footwork drills into the class warm-up. The students just think I’m making them sweat, but really I’m trying to teach them to move off the center line, bend at the knees and drop at the hips, or make openings for attacks/escapes.
[/quote]

Yeah, that’s true. And I wasn’t saying that footwork isn’t important from a self defense perspective, just that if I were going to try to take someone and give them the best chance of surviving a self defense situation in the shortest period of time, I wouldn’t focus heavily on footwork (at least not the traditional “X” pattern stuff).

What’s most important is staying awake/conscious (which footwork can help with certainly), and attacking violently as soon as the opportunity presents itself (which again does often involve some footwork, but doesn’t require a lot of time to get down). Trying to do fancy things like hips throws or even some of the more complicated escapes from holds in a real fight isn’t a great idea for someone just starting out. Not saying that they can’t work though. Just that the more primal, simple and straight forward approaches tend to hold up best under real high stress conditions.