The Good Stuff

[DRLashambe]

Choke UK started a great thread about the strange stuff that MA instructors have used in training. I thought, as an alternative, we could list some of the really good stuff we've seen instructors do that might be a tool for everyone who teaches.

My pancration teacher has continuos sparring with light contact and proctective equipment for his youngest class (7 to 12 yrs). Every now and then, an accident happens and a kid cries. My teacher's rule is this: let your opponent apologize, if he's sincere you must tell him/her that you accept the apology, and if you need more time (mostly to stop crying), you can have as much as you want as long as you don't disturb the class. Of course, the first thing he does is check for serious injuries before he puts this into practice. What he doesn't want to do is stop the whole class to draw undue attention to the person who's crying (and thus make it worse on the kid's ego, or give attention seekers too much attention).

[CHOKE UK]

Dr,
I just saw your post,
sitting here all alone with no replies,
and thought I'd break-your-duck !
And give you some support to a good question.
well.......
"did you think i would leave you standing,
when there room on my horse for two?"

[Lizard]

Well it's not a particularly good thing but this is a good thread so:

When we do ab excersises in Muay Thai one of the things we do is lie on our backs and hold our legs about 6" off the floor. The instructor says "15 seconds" waits for about 20 then goes up to a random person and pretends that they said something, then he shouts "No wait, he says it's not enough, he wants more! another 15 seconds" he sometimes does this several times.

[Toudiyama[NL]]

Originally posted by Lizard
Well it's not a particularly good thing but this is a good thread so:

When we do ab excersises in Muay Thai one of the things we do is lie on our backs and hold our legs about 6" off the floor. The instructor says "15 seconds" waits for about 20 then goes up to a random person and pretends that they said something, then he shouts "No wait, he says it's not enough, he wants more! another 15 seconds" he sometimes does this several times.

Don't all teachers do that? I did, only my students had to alternate the legs up and down either together or left up rightdown and vice versa

In Savate we had to do 15 kicks with the same leg without lowering it 15 left 15 right 15 left
then variation High mid low 15 times followed by the opposite low mid high
All roundhousekicks, these excercises had more influence on my flexability than any stretching I did before
And the sidekick like kick excercise were you recoil the leg time and time again in a flowing motion ( so you do not stop)

[DRLashambe]

Thanks Guys, I forgot that I had written this post. Lizard: one of our fellow students used to be in TKD and he tells us that he had to learn to count in Korean because he was sure his teacher was counting to 1000.

On the good training technique side...my Muay Thai teacher has a great exercise in which one of us puts on heavy boxing gloves and the other person puts on head protection. The guy with the gloves acts as a boxer (only punches and elbows, no leg stuff), and the other person is only allowed to do blocks and takedowns.

I'm kinda saddened that this thread about good stuff is nowhere near as popular as the "my style is the best style" threads.

[doubleouch]

One of the best and simple things I have seen is the Straightblast Gym I method. Introduce, Isolate, Integrate. First we introduce a technique. This stage lasts only a few minutes. Next we isolate it. We train it with no resistance and progress up to full resistance. Then we incorporate the technique into free sparring. All three are done every class so a student doesn't have to wait to try the new technique they learned. It is so simple but I have seen some amazing results from it so far.

[Thai Bri]

Introduce - Isolate - Integrate.

I like that.