What he is still updating this?

I don't update this very often anymore there are two main reasons. The first is that becuase of a military course and an injury sustained on that course I have trained in a couple of months. The second is that prior to going on course I was more in a refining stage rather than a learning stage. I primarily post new things up here as a journal and maybe for people who stumble on my blog to learn a couple of things. Well today I learned something new. Even though I am still out of training for (hopefully only) a few more days, I converse with a few very intelligent people by the names of Cecil Burch and Jerry Wetzel on a regular basis. Cecil and Jerry are trainers for Crazy Monkey Defense (CMD or CM) a striking style devised by Rodney King or south africa. On the surface it looks very much like a mix of boxing and MT and the question was put forward recently, what is the difference between CM and western Boxing. Rather than try an explain it myself, I am going to post a few of the better quotes to help people understand the difference.

Cecil Burch:
Most systems pay lip service to defense and emphasize the offensive part. So when a newbie gets to spar for the first time, it is going to be hard enough to maintain his protective wall. Add the fact that he is most likely going to be thrown into the deep end under extreme pressure, the situation is worsened. In CM you are exposed to pressure right away, but it is just enough to push you without overwhelming the person and collapsing the structure you are attempting to internalize.

The analogy I use to give people an idea of what pressure to use on their partner is that we are pushing the envelope as much as possible without tearing the paper. So as the person gets grooved in, the pressure can progressively (and continuously) increase.

Jerry Weztel:

The fundamental goal in CM is to provide a solid defensive structure that is behaviorally congruent to what we do under pressure while at the same time keeping things simple and efficient. Traditional slip, parry, catch, and bob and weave take a very long time to develop if they do develop and in the mean time people are going to take a lot of punches. Most will end up quitting long before they develop this skill. Furthermore, even if these skills are developed, the addition of kicks, clinch striking, and takedowns make these not the safest options to say the least. There is still slipping and ducking, but it is modified to fit with the rest of the game plan. The cover is different to what is taught in boxing due to the square stance and is taught differently.

This is not to say that CM is just about defense. Having a bulletproof defense allows for strong offense. Rather than having to sit back and wait for a break in the opponents offense, the defensive structure allows one to come forward aggressively without worry about counters. There are a few strikes that would be considered unorthodox to someone from a western boxing background as well.

If you are looking for a striking game that is not attribute based and is based on tight defense, CM is a great option. You can check it out here:
http://www.crazymonkeydefense.com/site/

Three thing to improve your boxing

Here are three things you can do that will improve your boxing by your next sparring session:

1. Focus on your platform. Your striking platform is your foundation. Just like a house, if the foundation is weak everything will fall apart. I use Crazy Monkey as my striking platform. I conciously focus on keeping my hands high and moving, elbows tight to my ribs, hunchback stance, and hips square. Everything else flows from there.

2. Concentrate on what you want to do. Rather than reacting to what your opponent gives you, be proactive. This is important even if you are a counter fighter. If you want to counter his right hand, look for it, try to force it but don't jsut try to react when it comes.

3. Don't get in a fight. This is especially true in sparring. The point of sparring isn't to win. If it was you would have a ref and judges. It is to perfect your craft under pressure. To often people get their adrenaline flowing and start trying to beat the other guy. When this happens, your platform falls to hell and you start reacting. Sure maybe you can out tough the guy or out punch him but are you learning anything?

Try this the next time you spar. I think you will find that you feel much better about your performance and you will tighten up your game.

Daily Submission

This week I learned two pretty cool combos while boxing. The first is a Floyd Mayweather favorite that I had to modify for south paw. The combo starts jab, cross, take a big step to the right to get the angle, left hook to the body, right cross, jab out. Because I am a lefty if I simply swapped left for right, I would be stepping right in to his power. For me the combo goes like this: cross, right hook as I step to the right (it is almost like a right cross), left hook to the body, right hook, left cross, spin out. The other went like this. Jab, parry the return jab and immediately throw the right cross, left hook to the body, right cross, jab out. I ended up with two combinations when switching it to south paw. The first was slip a cross, left cross, right hook to the kidney, right hook to the head (the angle was wrong for another cross), cross, jab out. The other was to jab, parry his return jab down and throw and overhand left, and then finish as per the other combo. Both looked very promising and I will try to work them into my sparring sessions.

For jits, we learned to half guard passes which I have post videos of. They are not exactly the same but pretty similar. The tripod video stands out the most. Against a decent half guard player it won't be as easy as in the video. If you take his hips away from you, he loses the power so you can get the knee out then finish the pass.

Rolling went well. I rolled against a karate black belt who was adding some BJJ to his game while is in town for school. He was really fit and had good balance. He was very tough to finish but I got a really solid 20 minute roll in and got to work on a lot of my sweeps.

Daily Technique

Normally in my technique posts I post a video but in this case I will post a link to the Sherdog.com striking forum. I have a thread there that is consolidating all the info I can find on fighting southpaw, or left handed. I fight southy ever though I am a right hander for a couple of reasons. One being that I wrestle and grapple right foot forward and the other being various injuries make it harder for me to fight orthodox, or right handed.

Fighting Southpaw

Take a look and I would love to here of any other resources.

Daily Submission

I just came back from getting my ass beat and I feel great. I only kickboxed today because both the BJJ and kickboxing classes were at the same time and I am still babying my shoulder a bit. After warm up we worked a series that I had a lot of trouble with for two reason which I will go over in a minute. The series went cross, hook, cross, parry a jab while throwing a jab, cross, hook, cross, slip a cross, hook cross. I had two problems, the first is that it is a little awkward for a southpaw so it took some getting used to. The second is that I suck at slipping punches. I am more of a rocky then a sweatpea. So although I had a hard time with it, it was a very valuable drill for me.

We spar later and I went against this dude Dustin. Dustin is a true heavyweight and I am at best a super middle weight. He had like 8-10 inches on me and a good 50 pounds. It was like matching mickey ward fight Wlad Klitscho. I got hit a lot. It was a good exercise for me to work my CMD guard and practice slipping his punches. Once I got his timing down, I was more successful and landed a few good punches including a solid right hook to the jaw. But I definately got my ass beat.

I think it is important to get beat down once in a while in training. It keeps you humble, it prepares you for things get bad and it is better then getting beat down for real.

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything"
Tyler Durden