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

Was sparring tonight and I think Crazy Monkey Defense is finally clicking for me. For the first round I was really focusing on keeping the CM structure tight and cycling my elbows. I think I got hit like three times. Once I started to realize how safe I was, I let my offensive open up. I got crowd him and I landed some real solid combinations.

One thing my partner mentioned was that I was, in effect, elbowing his hands. He could feel them through the 14 ounce gloves we were using.

For the jits practice, I got to work a little X guard which I don't do that often. We worked of a butterfly sweep where the guy posts his leg to prevent the sweep. You transition to X guard and sweep him back, then moving to side control. I will try to post a video of it a little later. It is a slick little sweep and I found it pretty simple.

It has been so long!!!

God it has been so long since I posted anything because frankly, I wasn't training. I re-injured my shoulder and the rehab has been brutal. I had blown my rotator cuff about two years ago and it was not diagnosed so when I re-injured it they had to fix all that damage as well.

So I got back to training at Zuma last night. I got say, I love that gym. Between my injury and my military training I had been there once in 10 months. But I walked in and it was like coming home. A great enviroment to go along with Adam's top notch instruction. The fighters at the gym have been doing awesome, Sarah Kaufmann has had two fights for strikeforce and won both. There is talk of a 135 women's title in the works for her. She also got her Purple belt from Marcus Soares. Alot of the other guys have been doing well in MMA, Diego Wilson is currently 4-0, Gavin niel is still doing well as are a bunch of others.

So I doubled up on my first day back. I did some Muay thai prior to BJJ. The main focus was on a lead hook, cross combo. From an othrodox stance, you stepped to you right, dug a lead shovel hook hard in to the belly and followed with the right cross. The step put you at an angle that let you hit hard from a position where he couldn't hit you. For me because I fight southy it didn't work as well, I ended up stepping into a right handers power. I think i will work it stepping to the right (my lead leg) and digging the shovel hook into the kidney's and then follow up with the straight left.

I also had a chance to spar which I haven't done in a long time. It went well. I have been working on fighting from a Crazy monkey Defense structure. I found I had good succes with it when I stayed focused on keeping the hands high and moving, staying in the hunch back posture and keeping my elbows on my ribs. More time under pressure will help but it was a positive first experience.

The BJJ clas was pretty relaxed, we worked on a couple of half guard sweeps that I have talked about before in this blog, then just shot the shit for awhile before rolling.

Rolling went well, I was obviously out of practice and you could see it in my movement. I was slow moving my hips and I had trouble with some sweeps. My opponent was bigger than me and had good posture. I found him leaning way back a few times so I used one of my old standbys and used my feet on his hips to push him back then scramble to a double leg and take side control. I haven't used that in a while so it was good to see it was still there. Got mount fairly easily as usual but still have trouble finishing. I find with the bigger guys, when I try to hard to finish I get rolled.

More work for me.