outside today with my old friend Sensei Alec. Sensei Alec runs The Mat Martial

Arts in Austin, Texas. So, if you're looking for quality martial arts

instruction in that area, I'll put a link below. Check him out. We're just outside

doing a little bit of training ourselves and we started to talk about how people

defend punches. The way we defend punches versus the way students defend punches.

And what was one of the observations that we were coming up with? >>Well, we were

noticing that a lot of the intermediate and the advanced students that we have

are still holding on to habits they learned in the early stages, and they're

not changing things with the level that they're moving up in. They're actually

working harder than they need to. The goal was to find a way to make them work

smarter instead of harder.

martial artist, today, we're gonna help you figure out how to get rid of some of

those beginner habits. Let's get to it right now.

Okay. So, if you're watching students on the mat,

how do you know who the beginners are and who the

intermediate or advanced people are? What's, the beginner doing? >>Well, in a general sense,

a beginner is doing more gross motor movement. They have less trained skills,

so things are based off of what feels most natural, and if they don't have much

experience of something coming after them, it's gonna be a very grand motion

of some kind. >> Okay, so... >>For example let's take a straight punch. It's super easy to work

with. >>Yeah. >>As this is coming through, they're gonna do something really large

to get out of their way. Two hands, one hand, something that's a very large motion

so that they can really make sure that they're safe. Just think about a fly

coming after you. You don't snap the fly, you swat the fly. >>Right. >>Same concepts.

>>Because there's probably some panic involved and just, you don't know what to

do. So, it's just natural to try to get things away from you. Get away from the

danger. >>Exactly. So, we use that in the early stages of training to say,

hey, let's just make that better for you. So it's more deliberate. So, as it's a

big motion, you're bringing it off to the side and you're learning how to rotate

your body with it. So then you have open targets or exit strategy depending on

what your goal is. >>Fair enough. All right. But that's also a problem as

you get to a more advanced level, against a better fighter or multiple attackers,

what are the problems with this big, gross motor blocking or deflection?

>>Put it simply, the bigger motion I make one way, the bigger motion I have to make

the other. Some form of retraction has to happen

for me to run or to attack, counter, whatever you want to call it. So, when

I start to have more honed training, I don't want to move as big so that I can

respond with less motion back, adding quickness, adding a little bit

more body tension, adding some options for striking, as opposed to so big over

here. I really only have that one giant motion to use back. I'm not gonna do one

punch, one kill concepts. >>Okay. So, as you get more advanced your movements should

probably start becoming a little more subtle, a little more sophisticated, a

little harder to detect, which means you have to have more confidence in this

pocket, because-- what was that phrase you were using before about wanting and

needing? >>So, the concept is as I learn to not get hit, I don't want to get

hit. And I don't want to get so bad that I'm gonna move things way over there.

>>Right. The reality is I only need to not get hit that much. I may not be

comfortable with that close, so I will have to figure out between the

initial want and the more honed need what is the buffer that I'm comfortable with

doing. That's where the intermediate training comes in, is to understand how

to streamline that want-to-need ratio. >>Okay. And that puts you in a better

position by only doing what you need to do. If you let me shave you with this,

boom, like throwing the knives you talked about. Like we're in a circus and the

knife is coming right there, if you allow that, then you are in a better position

to begin your counter-attack or running or whatever. >>Correct. Because I no longer have to

worry about centering my body to you. I'm already centered. I can stay located in a

specific area that, I can stay behind this punch and have options for

myself. >>Right. What do you say, when you see people move out to the side,

they may not just be shooting out their arms, they may also be sacrificing some

of their posture and their eye lines. >>Yeah. It's a frame change. Your skeletal

structure rotates or tips or dips and moves out of place in a way you're

losing efficiency in whatever motions you're going to do. >>Could you show us

the way it should not be done? >>So, you don't want to be able to have your

shoulders tip over, you don't want to be crossing your arm across your whole

centerline, you don't want your head to tip over your heel line, you want to keep

everything pretty upright and pretty standardized in terms of a carousel

horse shape. A carousel horse, with that post going through my body, I can

rotate, I can rise and dip, I can move my body in and out if I need

to... >>And even your eye line. >>The eye line doesn't change either. That way I don't

have to worry about readjusting the visuals of what my brain is calculating.

So, it keeps things simple. >>So, overdoing bobbing and weaving, and

slipping, and all that stuff, can put you in a worse position to counter-attack or

to escape because you're just doing too much. Again, you're working too hard. >>Right.

Okay, so the problem is pretty simple to understand--doing too much.

That's it. Just working too hard. So, how can we start chiseling away to become

more efficient and effective in our fight? >>Well, the first thing is to talk

about what are the limits of the needs. >>The limits of the needs.

>.The limits of the needs. So, I don't have to worry about over-complicating it.

So, the width of my head or the width of my shoulders. That's the two spaces that I

have to worry about. >>This is all you have to worry about defending. You don't have to

defend over here, up here, or around you. You only need to

defend your skeleton. >>Right. If I perceive that you're hitting to the

center of one of those places. My center line doesn't change. If it's up high, it's my head.

I only need to miss enough that the outside of my head is no longer being hit.

If it's the center of my body,

if I rotate my body, that's enough to not get hit anymore. >>Right.

But it's gonna be closer than most people are comfortable doing, so we're

gonna use our arms to redirect something but still use the shoulders to influence

that motion. And as you do that, it's gonna keep everything at a nice,

comfortable distance from that hand, so that you can keep things close to your

body. I don't have to extend my arm. I feel pretty comfortable relaxed.

And then I can move forward or strike forward, whatever is nice to feel from there.

>>And again, you don't like using the word block. I have a video, I'll

put the link up, about how I'm not a big believer in blocks if you don't need

them. They're kind of instinctive. So, they're gonna happen anyway. But really,

you should keep your focus on attacking and getting to positions where you're

dominant. So, you don't like to use the word block either, because this-- would you

consider this a block? >>It's not a block. Actually, a block, by definition, is I'm

stopping something. And I'm using some force against a force. >>Like a beta blocker.

You would say something like that. >>A beta blocker or a linebacker.

Anything where you block and stop something from happening. You're meeting

force with force. And this is not happening. I'm redirecting the

energy and I'm just letting my body's motion be natural while your energy goes

elsewhere, so that I continue back in this direction. >>So, I'm wasting energy.

I'm inefficient where you're putting yourself in a position to be efficient.

>>Correct. So, the inside defensive motion is not a block, it is a redirection of

energy. >>And so the less energy that you use to try to stop me or push me away is

more energy that you have to now come back at me to either fight or run or

whatever you want to do. >>Correct. And that's where the wants and needs concept comes back in.

Because if I use more energy to redirect yours, I have to use more energy to bring

it back, versus staying compact, but safe, and then not have to work hard to

come in. >>Exactly.

All right. So, let's talk about a simple drill that you can add to your practice

time to help you become a little more efficient and a little more effective in

your punch defense. What would that be? >>Well, let's talk about connecting

everything in one piece as much as possible, so I'm not moving all these

different parts at one time. So, I'm gonna use the hands as a guide to guard,

to make your hand go elsewhere... >>So, get a partner... >>Get a partner. You're gonna

have them throw slow punches back and forth, left and right,

and I'm gonna use the same side that it's coming in for now

and I'm gonna rotate my shoulders and use my arm just to be a

guard. I'm not moving my arms to make this happen. If you want to do a palm

version of the block, that's fine. You want to do a fisted version, you

want to use your forearms instead, none of that really matters so much.

Just let the shoulders do the motion for you. >>So, even though your arms are making

contact, you're not thinking about your arms. You're actually just thinking about

what you need to do, which is move the body. For right now, these are like

training wheels just to get you to feel comfortable right now with these

punches in front of you, right? >>That's correct. >>So, then you could move to

the next level, which would be to just take the arms away. >>Take the arms out

of the way. They don't even exist for now. >>Heads up! >>Put your hands down.

I mean, obviously, you're gonna want to keep your hands up as some form of

protection. >>Be safe. Of course. But generally, what the goal would be, if you

had no arms and I was just feeding you punches, and you're just trying to slip

and look at these punches, and of course, I could be more random and faster, that's

up to you and your own training partner, but you're just trying to figure out how

to--aghh!-- how to slide these punches and feel comfortable here, because once

there's less panic and you're breathing, and you're seeing, and you're feeling

what's going on, you can always add hands back, you can always add more movement

if something is going wrong, but you want to try to boil this exercise down to the

pure essence of just do what you need to do. Just make sure the fist doesn't hit

something vital and then everything else, the rest of your focus, should be on

your counter or your escape. Is that fair? >>That's very fair, yeah. >>All right.

So, there's your challenge. The next time you're entering into some partner drills

or doing some sparring, see how little you can do to get the results that you

want. Right? >>Yeah. I mean, pay attention to how much you actually move by response

and then see what you can do to minimize that movement so it's less and less each

time you do it. Right. It's funny because maybe in the beginning, you move in big

movements out of panic, and then your ego might want you to start moving big as

well. You might want people to see how you can do these moves, and they're big

and they're strong, you grunt and you sweat, and you're out of breath. It makes

you feel proud of yourself as you're working hard and everyone sees that you

know what you're doing. But that's beginner mindset. That's beginner ego.

As you get better, I think things should start becoming invisible. Nobody should

see actually how good you are. They just know that they can't hit you.

Don't you think that's a good goal?

That's our goal. We want to demoralize anyone who wants to hurt us. Fair?

train with Sensei Alec, I'll put the link below. Check him out in Austin, Texas.

Until next time, keep fighting for a happy life.