Mae-geri, how useful is it really?

I love the mae-geri, it's my favorite technique in any striking style, and when done properly it's so archetypal of Shotokan it's almost scary.  That being said, there are in my opinion several draw backs to using the mae-geri.  If you're like me, and participate in karate competitions you will rarely if ever see the mae-geri thrown.  The most commonly utilized techniques are gyaku-zuki, kizami-zuki, mawashi-geri, uraken-uchi and ura mawashi-geri...and very likely in that order at that.  Mae-geri, however, if used is largely thrown ineffectively and used as a set up for another technique (ie. fake into mawashi-geri, fake into ashi-barai, etc.)  There's nothing wrong with doing it this way, in fact, I've been known to use mae-geri in this fashion from time to time as well.  Then again, it's such a staple of Shotokan training we should be able to use it more effectively.  When done right, mae-geri should look more like this::

The gentleman performing the mae-geri in question is a sempai of mine in the American JKA, and an outstanding fighter and all around karate-ka.  As you can see his mae-geri pretty much cuts his opponent in half, very little backward motion of the opponent.  Hit and fall.  That's mae-geri done right!

Making one’s mae-geri useful takes a lot of time and effort since performing the kick the way one does in kihon is not optimal for combat or kumite.  There is a similar problem associated with using mawashi-geri effectively, the technique is too big for its own good.  To cover for this many fighters have begun cutting the kick through their center to shorten the distance and tighten up the arc of the kick. For my sempai, he’s perfected the kick by way of impeccable timing.  The timing is one aspect that needs to be trained, but sometimes it’s simpler to create new ways to set-up the kick.  Here are several tips that can be used independently, but work best when put together:

• First tip: rather than lifting the knee, tuck the heel first.  When you’re in kamae, the back foot is significantly more difficult to see.  By tucking the heel first, one can more easily disguise the following forward action of the hip until it’s too late.
• Second tip: begin the action not by pushing off the ground with the kicking leg, but by collapsing onto the supporting leg.  Combined with the heel tuck, the kick begins from a much closer starting position rather than from farther away.  Collapsing onto the lead will cut the distance by 5-6 inches at least.
• Third tip: create a visual fence.  Geoff Thompson talks about his “fence” technique, where his arms are used as a barrier and essentially as a literal dead-line by which he can determine when he’s in danger.  By incorporating your arms into the collapse of your supporting leg, you draw your opponent’s eyes away from your body and towards your hands.  This can be done in several ways, the easiest is to just lift your hands, palms forward toward your opponent as you load forward.  This does several things, first it draws the attention, but there’s also the psychological suggestion that your opponent should back off which will generally lead to a backwards head lean and a breaking of kuzushi.  You can also use your hands to throw techniques, kizami-zuki gyaku-zuki for instance.  Put your fists in your opponents face and they won’t notice your leg until you’re burying your kick.  The last option, and slowest for most people, would be to use your lead leg as a visual fence by throwing or faking a kick before dropping into the mae-geri.

These are just suggestions and ideas that have worked for me to increase the effectiveness of my kick.  There is always the question of improving one’s kick mechanics and hip dynamics to create more efficient movement, as well as training of timing and distance to improve the mae-geri.

If you have any ideas or suggestions of your own, please share in the comments!  Thanks for reading!

Core Exercise for the Martial Artist

Every fitness expert these days will tout the necessity of performing an endless number of core exercise and repetitions to achieve the lean, chiseled look that everybody is looking for.  The problem with the current paradigm of core training is that majority of the movements put the lumbar spine through of excessive degree of flexion.  Dr. Stuart McGill, of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, is the foremost specialist on lower-back pain and disorders.  He has worked with countless athletes to rehabilitate lower back issues and to increase and improve athletic ability.  He has done a significant amount of research regarding spinal flexion and how detrimental it is to overdo these exercises.  The exercises that fall under this category are any that can be classified as a crunch or sit-up.  The problem being that overuse injuries resulting from regular lumbar spinal flexion can cause herniated disks as well as nerve impingement issues.  Not to say that Dr. McGill doesn't have his clients/patients doing any kind of spinal flexion, but it is limited to a select few exercises that he has developed.  That being said, we then have to question the common use of spinal flexion within typical calisthenic type exercises for the general population.  I highly recommend reading Dr. McGill's book Low Back Disorders (click here to buy).

My experience with martial arts has largely been limited to two arts: Shotokan Karate and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.  I have dabbled and experienced a number of other arts as to have formed an opinion on what might constitute necessary or useful core exercises.  We have to first emphasize that the core is not simply the abdominal muscles – that is a very common misconception.  The “core” of the body actually extends from just below the pectorals in the front of the body and the latissmus dorsi in the back down to the hip flexors and gluteals; some physiologists have been known to include the upper portion of the hamstrings and lower portion of the pectorals into the equation.  Since this is a karate-based blog, I’ll focus most of my attention on the core exercises which would be ideal for the karate-ka.

We have to remember what the primary action is for the core in typical karate training; and that is bracing and rotating.  There is very little flexion involved in karate outside of the occasional judo throw that might be included.  I will ignore the flexion exercise for the time being.  When we talk about bracing, we’re referring to our body’s ability to absorb and disperse impact and forces that occur upon around extremities.  Consider one’s natural reaction to being punched in the stomach by one’s loving Sensei.  Your body will crunch down and your stomach will push forward to create a stable surface for the impact.  There is no curving forward of your body, simply your shoulders and shoulder blades pull down and luck into your lower back, and your hips pull up into your abdominals.

There are several ways to practice this form of bracing, the first and best would be to perform and squat pattern exercise, followed by any deadlifting/hip-hinge movement.  Barring one’s access to barbells, the next best choice is to incorporate the plank.  The plank is most likely the most boring abdominal exercise known to man, but when done correctly one learns how to brace one’s core while maintaining the ability to breathe normally.  When taking the plank position, remember that is important for the body to stay in a rigid line, with your hips level with your shoulders.  Once this position is achieved, feel your shoulder blades and gradually pull them down so they are packed into your lower back.  Also tighten your glutes and hold everything tight.  Now lock into this position and hold for as long as you can.  Rinse and repeat.  This exercise will primarily target the transverse abdominis and the spinal erectors.

The next exercise that is advisable is the side plank, this takes the regular plank and applies to unilaterally, which will primarily target the obliques and the hip flexors rather than the transverse abdominis or the spinal erectors.  From a standard plank position, rotate your body to one side so only one elbow is down, and stacked directly below your shoulder.  No contract your body in similar fashion to the standard plank; you will notice that the side closer to the ground will have to work harder.  Don’t forget to both sides.

The third exercise would be anything that forces your spinal erectors to work independently.  My personal preference is for hyperextensions, but not everybody has access to the correct apparatus.  Performing Supermans are a viable substitute for this movement.  Lie on one’s stomach, and contract the lower back to pull one’s shoulders and legs off the ground.  Hold for as long as you can, and again rinse and repeat.

These three exercises alone will satisfy the bracing concept.  Rotating is another animal entirely.  There are hundreds of exercises that one can use to train the rotatory capabilities of the core.  The two I recommend are upper and lower Russian twist.  To perform the upper, sit on the floor with one’s knees bent 90 degrees, feet flat.  Lean back 45 degrees and lock your core similarly to the plank and proceed to rotate side to side.  You can add resistance by holding a medicine ball or a weight plate on your chest, and increase the difficulty by extending your arms and touching the floor on each side.  It’s important that the core remains tight and locked throughout the movement.

The lower Russian twist is much different, but equally effective.  Lie flat on your back, and lift your legs straight up to point at the ceiling.  From this position lower both legs to one side and then the other.  The legs do not need to touch the floor, just go as low as you can while keeping your shoulders and upper back flat on the floor.  These can be done with legs straight or bent.

There you have it, an effective and all-encompassing set of core exercises to satisfy the needs of the average karate-ka.

No-Gi Karate

I've been thinking for a few years now about the decline in popularity that karate has gone through over the years.  Like any martial art, the popularity will wax and wane; however, there are those that attempt to stop the waning of the popularity by changing their martial art into something that it was never intended to be.  You all know what I'm talking about, that's the rise of Extreme Martial Arts (XMA) or these karate schools that supposedly teach MMA, but in fact attempt to teach a highly bastardized form of grappling while teaching garbage karate to boot.  There are to this day a number of highly successful karate instructors that I am friends with, all within the AJKA-I.  They all adhere to a very strict traditional way of teaching, but they bring their martial art into the modern world, and apply it liberally in a variety of situations.  Many of them have a significant level of training in grappling arts and mix that into their teaching, which leads to having students capable of acting within a variety of combat ranges.

That being said, I turn to the example of successful grappling arts that have flourished over the years, namely Judo and more recently Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.  Judo has been seeing something of a decline but the tactics and techniques are still highly sought after and utilized throughout the self-defense and martial/combat arts world; specifically the use of hip throws and foot work (ie. Ronda Rousey).  To focus more on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, however, the sport has seen a surge in popularity since the first Ultimate Fighting Championship events where Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) led the way to victory by way of Royce Gracie.  Now BJJ has found international popularity, to the extent that BJJ champions are international celebrities.

So what has made this sport successful?  First, it was certainly the effectiveness that it showed in the ring, and brought awareness of multiple ranges of combat to a wider audience.  Secondly, there is a sporting aspect to the art, and not strictly a quasi-Eastern methodology.  And third, the practitioners and instructors brought the art into the real world by introducing the concept of no-gi jiu-jitsu and submission wrestling.  Wrestling has long been a combat sport of its own, however, it was the advent of BJJ that brought about submission wrestling.

It is this sense of reality that made BJJ so popular amongst the general population, so why can’t we do this with the karate world?  Karate has always been taught in the gi, but when will you ever enter a self-defense situation where you or your attacker will be wearing a gi, or even a gi-like item of clothing?  The closest you might find is a heavy wool coat, but we can’t train for the slimmest eventualities.

That’s where the idea of no-gi karate came into my head, there are many challenges to implementing this into a traditional dojo setting without it becoming just another kickboxing class, but the point is that it is necessary.  By training the karate technique in short and a t-shirt, or even pants and a shirt and shoes we can really learn what works and what doesn’t and to what extent.  Perhaps in sneakers the typical body shifting and twisting might not be as effective on a concrete slab as it is when barefoot on a mat.  We have to remember that traditional karate training takes place a sterile, controlled and relatively safe environment.  We don’t have to worry about those other considerations of environment, but we can bring new variables into the picture.

How would one structure a “no-gi” karate session?  It’s important to know that one would have to largely dispense with fundamental kihon and kata as training tools in these sessions.  This is the kind of session that would emphasize kumite kihon, from jiyu-kamae or even from shizen-tai.  Start a typical class with a good calisthenic based warm-up to get all the joints and muscles moving, and move into jiyu-kamae technique, and then into a more natural stance for combat.  One can even more ably incorporate bunkai training here, because now we’re discussing karate for pure self-defense and this where bunkai is most useful.

Those are two-ish cents on this subject, please feel free to share and comment!

Get back to the basics

Every martial art seems to have a seminar circuit that goes around the country/world on a regular basis.  The AJKA-I is no different.  With two highly proficient and successful Sensei at the top of the organization; Edmond Otis Sensei and Leslie Safar Sensei, you can always expect to gain great insight into Shotokan by training under them.  The problem, however, is that the more immature among us attend these seminars thinking they will learn some new, flashy and fancy technique to add to their repertoire.  While this can occasionally be the case, the fact of the matter is that these Sensei are advancing in age, and cannot perform the flashier technique as easily.  More than this simple fact of life, however, is the fact that as the body ages, the mind learns to become sharper when pushed to do so.  What does the advanced karate-ka do at this point?  They fall back on the simplest and most fundamental aspects of karate training: distance, timing and the most basic kihon.  At the most recent training camp I attended with Sensei Otis, a lot large amount of time was spent on practicing basic body dynamics: expansion/contraction and rotation.  These body dynamics were then applied to the most basic of karate technique: kizami-zuki, gyaku-zuki and mae-geri.  These are the bread and butter of any successful karate-ka.

That being said, this all came to mind having read an article on GrappleArts.com about a newly made BJJ black belt having a private lesson with a high-level BJJ instructor.  His request was to learn more about the most basic techniques, and how to execute them in an advanced fashion.  This is the main benefit of the seminar circuit, and something that shouldn't be forgotten in daily training.  Go in the dojo and train the fancy stuff, but remember it is the basics that ground all technique from kata to kumite.  The article is linked below:

http://www.grapplearts.com/Blog/2014/02/a-blackbelts-private-lesson-with-a-jiu-jitsu-master-by-mark-mullen/

Benefits of Competition

I have written previously about the benefits of competition, or shiai, kumite, of which there are several.  To reiterate my point, here is a link to the original blog post: http://lazybudo.blogspot.com/2013/03/benefits-of-shiai-kumite.html

I still see these points as being highly beneficial and very difficult to test in any significant manner using traditional, standard, karate training practices.  With any martial art, it is the sparring phase of one's training where one's techniques are pressure tested, and you can truly test your mettle.  It is competition which takes this phase to a new level; this applies to both kumite and kata competition.  I still stand by the merits of shiai kumite: distance, footwork and timing, however, these are specific parts of being a karate-ka that are trained by practicing this style of kumite.

What are the overall affects of competition?  Nathan Scarano Sensei, 6th Dan AJKA-I, has been known to say that there are, in fact, 4 K's of karate.  This is in opposition to the standard 3 K's that most karate-ka speak of (kihon, kata and kumite).  What is the fourth K?  It is kompetition!  Yes, that's the incorrect spelling, but the alliteration is in the speaking of the words.  Competition is the finish line for all of one's preparation.  It's no longer about whether you can perform you kihon and kata, or fight an opponent you know well in the dojo, it's if you can do all these things in front of spectators, facing a complete stranger and being judged for it.

There is a strange level of mental pressure that exists when one steps into the ring, for kata or for kumite.  I notice it every time I compete.  This past weekend, AJKA-NY hosted its annual tournament in conjunction with another local competition.  The combination resulted in one of the largest open tournaments in the area, if not in the country.  Over 500 competitors from all over North and South America, as well as several competitors from Europe.  It was a massive event.  Over of the course of the day I saw what calm under fire really looks like, and I've also seen what happens when one loses control and lets instinct take over.

The purpose of sparring, in general, has always been to give the fighter the chance to pressure test one's techniques, this applies to kumite in karate, randori in judo, rolling in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and whatever other time can be used in any other style.  That being said, competition among these other arts has retained that notion, while being more sportified.  Karate kumite, on the other hand, has become sportified and more stylized, with flash and fancy technique being more highly rewarded than good effective technique.  It might be impressive to throw a judan ura mawashi whilst falling backwards, but it's far from an effective technique.  This moment, which is seen very often especially in WKF-style kumite is impressive for more than the fact that it is highly athletic and bordering on acrobatic.  What impresses me most is the calm under pressure the fighters show while being pushed backward, and they still think to throw such an awkward and difficult technique.

What's my point in all this?  Karate kumite, specifically shiai/competition kumite, has become less and less about clean efficient technique.  So if we aren't training to throw strong technique and as I like to say "put the other guy down," what are we training for?  The real benefit is being able to think calmly when being pressured, whether you feel threatened in this arena, there is the concern over getting scored on.  Getting scored on in the ring means that I will be injured in the street.  It's as simple as that.  The one that attacks first in the ring, will also be fast enough to attack first in the street.  The one that counters faster or moves faster will do the same in the street.  It is being able to think calmly while under duress that is important in either arena.  Think about that the next time you're training.  Can you perform these techniques with the same level of calm outside the dojo as you can inside?  With an opponent as well as without one?  Don't just practice the techniques, practice the mental aspect as well, if not more so.