Monday, March 19, 2012

Flow or Structure... or both

Mobility vs. Structure; Power vs. Flow I have been noticing recently a seeming debate in the martial arts world. Like everything presented in an argument, it is put forward as a binary choice, either choice A or choice B, left or right, etc... In this case it is related to the title topic. Like most things in life, it is not so black or white. For the sake of my little discussion here, the argument put forth looks to me like structure and power go together and mobility and flow goes together, and they never meet, mingle and have offspring. Now, for a good explanation of mobility and flow, I would refer you to the article on the KSMA blog(in the links bar) authored by Bobbe Edmonds(also in the links bar). Bar none, Bobbe has the ability to flow like no one else, so his article comes from a place of deep knowledge and I happen to agree with what he wrote. From what I can understand there seems to be a meme floating around that states that if you have flow, you don't have power. IMO, this usually comes in the beginning stages of training in a flow based art like silat or kali. What I think is that you have to immerse yourself in the study of flow deeply, almost to the exclusion of any other aspect of martial arts, due to the foreign nature of moving this way to the western body and mind. When you have such a concentration in a way of moving, it is highly possible to lose sight of how what you are training fits with all the other components of the art you are studying. When you are mobile and flow, you are moving your body. When you move your body efficiently, you have structure. When all these are combined you generate great power. I mean, face it, when you are moving your body, that is the strongest you get. When you flow, you are moving effortlessly and efficiently, and are able to deliver all that body weight in to your target with very little interference in the chain of movement thus depositing a very strong shot into your opponent. It all works together to make your hit the best it can be. In the beginning of training you have to isolate the motions and methods to train them to the best you can. After proper training, it seems effortless. Now there is a school of thought that teaches power up front, and I happen to teach in a manner that somewhat mimics this. This school says that it is all power and structure all the time and flow doesn't work except in training. For some people this may be true, and in the beginning of training, power does seem to trump the other aspects. When you train all the aspects, and then start to integrate them, it becomes a compound that is stronger than its constituent parts. We do not need to promote one over the other, or proclaim one is wrong, along with the people teaching the way opposed to ours. A quick example of what I am talking about. When you watch any of the Dog Brothers fights you see amazing amounts of power and crushing hits. I also see an incredible amount of mobility and flow in getting to the point of being able to deliver those hits. Both are working together to do the job needed, and that is what we all should do. I started in power and structure based fighting, due to my outlook and physicality. I was later introduced to flow and didn't appreciate it as I should have. Then I was shown how they integrate and I wouldn't go back. Flow is simply moving your body to where it will do the best job it can while making your opponents job all the more difficult. It is not an exclusive either or choice, you need all of them to fight in the most efficient manner possible, which increases your ability to survive the encounter. So, look into it all, train it, and become better.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

13 days and a wake up

In 13 days, I will be marrying the woman who changed my life!

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Enough of the crap

Hello everyone, I know it has been awhile but things have been really busy in mostly a good way.
One thing that I noticed that has been bothering me prompted me to post here before I had other
things written like I planned.
There has been alot of rancor and bullshit floating around the martial world of late, and it seems
to really have been excessive in the southeast asian arts arena. Quite frankly it is stupid and childish.
No one worth having as a student is going to believe you are the deadliest mofo on the planet, and it is
not the way to prove it by talking shit about other instructors. Really, grow up, that is elementary school
behavior, and should be below an adult, much less someone claiming to be a warrior.
If you were in an organization with someone but now are not, you really make me question you and your
judgement and skills if you say your former associate has no skill. Really? Then why were you together for
years and vouch for him. What changed, other than you are acting like an immature ass.
If I am your friend and I am also friends with someone you don't care for, deal with it on your own.
People are more important to me than clubs or ego games, so I take relationships pretty seriously.
Get used to it,as that is also how serious I will treat our relationship.
In closing, save your breath, quit throwing what amounts to spoiled tantrums and train. Isn't that
what brought us to the arts anyhow? So someone does a different silat than you, that speaks to him, as yours
speaks to you. Let it go, we all have enough work to do on ourselves.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Rory Miller seminar

When where and all the info can be found here Rory's site.
If you are interested in getting some great training and meeting a great trainer, this is the place to be.
09JUL11 at Bob Orlando's school.
See you there!

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Two, count 'em, two seminars coming up

We have Jay Carstensen coming on June 11 to teach a short seminar, $20.00 for this one. Although we just found out today that Auraria might shut down the building in June. So we will keep posting info as we get it.

On Saturday July 9 from 1000 hrs - 1800 hrs Rory Miller will be doing a seminar at Bob Orlando's school in Lakewood, CO. I will link to Rory's event page when he posts it up and all details will be there. to find directions to Mr. Orlando's school go to Orlando Kuntao for all that information.
Both of these are great opportunities to learn from 2 of the best in the business.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Hello all, difficulties and learning

Well, this place got dusty in my absence. It turns out that trying to do blogging from the mobile is possible, it is definitely a pain in the ass, and I find it impossible to load pictures that way.
So, because of this, and other reasons, I have been experimenting and made a few changes. I am now able to use the laptop to go online again, so I should be picking up on the posting here. Got a few reviews to do, a couple knives, a new sap, some articles that I have been working on.
There are some big changes going on with life, and associated things. Jay opened up a school for the KSMA, and I am looking forward to him coming out in June.
Probably going to change the links bar when I gather all the info I found in my sojourn into mobile living.
It's funny, when one thing starts to change, it seems to go in a wave, and when those changes become difficult, you really find out who your true friends are. I do know I am grateful for the ones who are still here.
Well guys, talk to you soon...

Sunday, January 23, 2011

New Year new way of living

Hello everybody. I hope the holidays were all they could have been for you.
Since the new year, things have changed and we are doing several things different in our lives. I will
post on them as it makes sense to. A couple things that have changed is how and where we live.
Some of you know we took a job managing an apartment complex. The thing that is way different is
the size of our place. We live in a small studio apartment and have started living an extremely minimalist
Lifestyle. It is amazing to see how little crap you really need in life. The other thing is being totally
mobile in communications. The phone is pretty much my go to for everything,talking, web, even posting to
Blogger. Looks like it is all working so far and is just the start of a way of lifelong I feel better about.