Morné Swanapoel - What's Practical isn't always beautiful.

[practica]

It's not every day that you can attend a seminar and not only come away with some good techniques (I find that very little sticks for some reason) but also truly inspired.

Very few martial artists have inspired my. Paul Smith, my first TKD instructor, Rick Clark (ADK), Ken Tucker (ADK) and now Morné Swanapoel have been such people.

The seminar (well attended with over 25 students present) started with a few rounds of shadow boxing. Footwork only, hands only, feet only, hands and feet only, hands, feet and clinch. At the end, everyone (including myself) was finding it hard to breath, let alone talk.

Nicely warmed up, we then progressed onto the first thing Morné 's students learn when they enter his dojo. Tag. Hit. Add. Quite simple, we just had to try to touch the other person's head whilst not letting them touch ours. Then it was head and shins (the rationale behind this being that if you can strike the shin without getting hit a groin shot is that much easier). Again, this had everyone breathing hard.

One key element of what Morné teaches is that he and his students are NOT martial artists. They are Combat Athletes and as a result the training is very intensive. If someone comes up with an idea and it works against a non-compliant opponent, then it's kept. If it doesn't it goes.

Another key element behind his teaching is that rather than training to defeat an ignorant enemy, you should always assume the worst. This means that instead of training to face a football yob (in the UK for example) you should be training to fight a fit, large, well-trained opponent who's armed and has at least one mate with him. As such, trying to avoid going to the ground is pretty important.

A very interesting factor of what we were shown was the guard that Jeet Kune Do Unlimited utlilises. Having watched, studied and participated in many streetfights, it has been found that keeping the hands high and out towards the opponent (as if fending them away) works very well. We went back to the tag game and used the new guard (as well as the reinforced guard he showed and which resembled 'morote uke' or reinforced block) to prevent the opponent from hitting us.

Again Morné demonstrated how you could progress from a compliant partner to a non-complaint partner going all out to get through your block by having his assistant, Mark, don 16oz boxing gloves and proceed to hit progressively harder and faster as Morné performed the block.

Four Distances
During the seminar, Morné also took the time to explain the four distances that Jeet Kune Do Unlimited utilises. They are as follows;

1. Kicking
2. Boxing
3. Clinching
4. Escape

From then on, we worked on ways to cover the distance between 1 and 3 without getting punished too badly (one partner taking on the role of boxer, the other the role of wrestler) as well as how to escape.

Fun
The most refreshing aspect of the seminar for me was the strong emphasis Morné placed on having fun.

If you don't have fun, you don't learn as well. Also, if you're not having fun then there's no real reason to attend seminars, lessons, tournaments etc.

As a result of this, most of Morné's drills are essentially games. Getting to the heart of the drills he was teaching, they were in effect playground games of hit and wrestling. This isn't meant to belittle them, rather I feel that it is important to point out how Morné has recognised the importance of having fun whilst learning a very serious subject and has appealed to the child within in order to help the adult part learn. It is in effect, a stroke of genius.

I left the seminar not only buzzing with ideas as to how to teach my students 'alive' techniques, but extremely tired and worn out. Whilst there I had learned how to have fun again, how to apply headlocks in ways I'd never have thought about, how to apply straight spear finger thrust whilst grappling and how forearm guarding block can be applied in keeping an opponent away whilst clinching.

Just before we parted our ways Morné said something that I would like to share;

"What's beautiful isn't always practical, and what's practical isn't always beautiful."

I very much look forward to Morné 's return and can't wait to see the Practical Jeet Kune Do syllabus.

[Morné]

Hey Matt,

Thanks for the great review.
Keep up the good training. Looking forward seeing you guys in the near future!

Regards
Morné

[m.artist]

looks like he knew alot of what he was talking about
keep up the good work and as he said
have fun!