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| Stretching to the limit. Here I train at the University of Wyoming while stretching with my foot above my head. |
Stretching is good for developing a kick that will reach high to the face, but personally, I'd rather kick someone in the knee, groin, or stomach. Kicking high leaves you open for falling on ice (if you are in Wyoming) or sweeps from other martial artists. The stability of a high kick is less than that of a low kick, and there are some excellent targets below the belt.
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| A 400 pound squat at the University of Wyoming. Photo was taken for an article on martial arts training. |
One time, while exercising, I noticed a guy in the corner of the weight room whose thoughts were freely flowing from his mind - "if that skinny guy can lift that, I should be able to". After I abandoned the curl bar, I watched as he walked up to the bar to give it a try. I bet he pulled every muscle in his right arm. He quickly dropped the bar wincing in pain, massaging his bicep as he left the weight room. However, doing things that shouldn't be done sometimes catches up. I use to perform free squats with a lot of weight as this gave me a good foundation for karate stances.
When I was still the University of Wyoming before I moved to Arizona, I would squat 400 pounds every other day while at a body weight of 170 pounds. Periodically I would show off and squat 600 pounds unassisted. This worked fine until the day by back rebelled. I pulled muscles in my lower back and ever since that time, the same muscles complained over and over again until I finally gave up squats with free weights so I could walk normally. I still like to get on the sitting squat machine and periodically push 720 pounds. I can do this because my back is supported by a chair - but it is nowhere as difficult and useful as squatting 400 pounds.
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| Accepting a full force roundhouse kick to ribs from Sensei Gillespie at University of Wyoming basketball game. |
Nowadays, when I lift, I warm up for 40 minutes in the aerobics room. My regimen begins with push-ups, followed by sit-ups, then kata, followed by a groups of self-defense applications using my hands and finishing with kicks. How many I do depends on how I feel.
Push-ups, I will do between 175 and 250. Sit ups, I do a minimum of 300 and periodically do as many as 1200 (I quit at this number only because situps get boring after so many. Not too long ago, while teaching at my dojo in Mesa Arizona across the street from Gilbert and Chandler, Arizona, I had a visitor from Florida who had trained in martial arts elsewhere. He and a young lady were watching as we warmed up. At the beginning of the class, we often do a set of 20 push ups and 30 to 50 sit ups. I was told after the class by our visitors that they thought it was entertaining that an older person with gray hair (me), was doing these exercises at ease, while my students (nearly all younger than me) were struggling.
I like to do kata during warm-ups at the gym. I warm up with 4 or 5 kata. When I run through the kata, each and every strike, block and kick are done with full, explosive force.
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| Two of my favorite all time martial artists at the University of Wyoming. Sensei Katie and Sensei Kris. They married after college, and both developed a reputation for powerful technique. Katie also developed excellent jujutsu waza such that most guys were concerned about having to train with her. |
Anyway, last week I watched this one martial artist as he kicked, punched and blocked with no focus, acceleration or power in any technique. He did do a lot of them while trying to conserve energy, but it was more like a demonstration of aerobic kick boxing classes I've seen at Gold's Gym. Motion, but no power. Don't conserve energy! Conserving is for greenies
In karate (and martial arts in general), if you want to be above average, you cannot conserve energy. Instead you must put yourself into the hands of Uncle Albert and focus on his formula E=MC2. You must erupt like an atom bomb during every technique. While generating such focus and power, one must also be aware of time (another of Uncle Albert's concepts). Time is relative, and it is wise to move from technique to technique considering ma (distancing and timing), and when you arrive at the technique - remember Einstein! You do not want to be a Nerf bomb, but instead an atom bomb.
Several years ago, when I attended my first Juko Kai International Clinic in Florida, I was asked by my Sensei (Dai-Soke Sacharnoski) to demonstrate every empty hand kata I knew. This was done in front of 150 to 250 black belts. At the end, I probably lost 5 pounds from sweating, but I established a name for myself. Many black belts came up afterwards to tell me it was one of the best performances they had seen. One black belt (a 7th dan) indicated he had never seen another in his system with so much power. Another black belt (a 5th dan) told me that so much power emulated from my technique, that the building actually shook every time I punched or blocked (of course it didn't, but that was the impression).
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| Teaching my students to break rocks at the University of Wyoming. Rocks are much cheaper than boards or rebreakable boards and much more difficult to break. |
I also like to emphasize body hardening to my students so they can learn to break rocks with the hands, knuckles, feet and head as well as accept and dish out powerful blocks, strikes and kicks. I use to allow my top students to punch me in the stomach until they got tired. I have some good blocking exercises I teach so I can get my students to make powerful blocks as well as learn to accept pain and power of such blocks. After a few sessions of these kinds of exercises, our students love to show off their bruises to one another.
One of my students had a physical. The doctor's eyes got real big when he saw the bruises on her arms. Apparently, it took some talking to convince the doctor that her husband was not really abusing her and he should not call the sheriff. She was just taking traditional karate. Not sure why, but I've had a group of really tough women black belts over the years. One was a petite young lady at the University of Wyoming. She loved jujutsu and loved to rough up the guys. One of my male students actually quit training in the jujutsu classes because he was affraid of her.
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| One of my powerful hitters, Sensei Paula Borea loves to hit. Paula is actually of Japanese samurai lineage. |
After I started learning this art in 1996, our university club presented a couple of karate demonstrations at half-time at the university basketball games. There was one demonstration that stood out. At the end, my hardest kicker, Sensei Donette Gillespie, 3rd dan, was to kick me in the groin while I was totally unprotected. I was not wearing a cup, and believe me, after being kicked there numerous times during full contact training in Kyokushin Kai, Wado, Kempo, Shorin-Ryu and Shotokan karate, it doesn't help anyhow.
The UW crowd was going wild as Sensei Gillespie did her warm up kick to show what was going to happen. There were more cheers than during the basketball game. The audience wanted to see me fall. As Sensei Gillespie got ready to do her kick, I told her to kick me as hard as she could and try to lift me off the ground. She then focused. She got a look like "I'm going to kick your nads into the rafters". The stare was so intense that I smiled - then she kicked!
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| Ted's famous photo of Sensei Gillespie kicking me at a basketball game (University of Wyoming Photo Service) |
The next day, Ted from the University photo service called me at my office in the geological survey (I was also a geologist) and said I needed to stop by his office to see his photo - he said it was the craziest photo he had ever taken - I was being kicked in the groin and smiling, as if I enjoyed it.
I was very excited to learn Juko Ryu kijutsu (Combat Ki) and many other martial arts taught by my instructor. Dai-Soke Sacharnoski is one of the greatest martial artists to ever walk the planet and its a previledge to be able to train under him. In my opinion, he is the best all around martial artist in the world. He also has a large following of martial artists that feel the same and include many of the better martial artists in the world.
His martial arts association, Juko Kai International, is for traditional martial artists and it is not easy to get in. Most applicants are rejected.
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| Using my head at a karate demo in Las Cruces, NM in 1976. |
Many of my students enjoy learning body hardening techniques - both male and female (see following photos). It was not too long ago, that I celebrated 45 years of martial arts training. My, the time flies by.
