Weapoms training?

[Brokenmace]

Oops!

Jerry,

Guess I need to read more carefully.

Thanks for the reply. I thought it might be something like that. I've been getting much better at timing my kicks during sparring year after year (being a very large man, my kicks are slower than most folks), and now I routinely plant my foot where I want. I think this is because of the mixed-angle drilling we do.

Usually during each class our progression goes something like this: Tool-isolation, combo-isolation, combo-freeform, sparring.

We usually spar to exhaustion, because we believe if you can achieve something when tired it will be easier under pressure.

I was wondering, do you see any similarity between the movements of the students or instructors at your school and the movements of those in either the "concepts" or "original" crowds? I've always felt that when you train under the same principles, similarities will surface even if your techniques are different.

[Jerry Wetzel]

Mace,

When you say tool isolation, do you mean without resistance? The reason I ask is because, at my school, once the tool is learned, we don't work without resistance unless there is a specific problem that arrises.
I totally hear you with regards to sparring till exhaustion. This is where technique and form dominate. Hands up, elbows in,no muscleling allowed.
As far as similar movements between the various groups, it depends on the context. For instance, all groups claim to train boxing. I've had students come from famous "concepts" schools and their first day when I'm feeling them out things get weird. They say yeah, at ------------ we did a lot of boxing training. So we break out the mitts, and these guys are flying with great form and precision. Cool, let's move on then. Next, some light sparring. At this point, jabs are falling 8 inches short, hands are dropping, their swatting at my hands from miles away. The second they get hit, I'm seeing more of the back or top of their head than the front. All form goes out the movement.
There seems to be the similar movements when there is no resistance, but once it becomes closer to a fight, the difference in training becomes apparent. The exceptions are the guys who are just natural fighters who do ok in spite of their training.
Most JKD guys started training to find out what the most efficient method of training was. Unfortunately, some fall under the spell of legend or charisma and forget the initiative that compelled them to search in the first place.

Jerry

[Brokenmace]

Jerry,

When I say "isolation" it usually comes to mean that an instructor will show the various applications for a tool, expound on when it is best employed, its relation to other tools, proper form if it is not known by some, and so on. If we are in a class that has students who have been over this stuff it usually doesn't come up, and we go straight to combo training.

Usually we'll be shown a specific counter to a technique, then we are expected to counter any number of random attacks with that one technique nested somewhere in the combo. This makes things less predictable, while we still learn to counter specific threats.

If we are doing accuracy training with focus mitts then things by default become slightly more predictable, as targets are flashed. Attacks from the feeder are random, though.

I know what you mean about boxing training. Maintenance is essential as well.

I was out of practice for almost a year at one point (around 2000), and I was surprised how fast my sparring had deteriorated. I was landing punches and kicks all day, but I had started to shy from face contact, no longer being used to it; some of my trademarks were less prevalent as well. Thank god I got passed that quickly It was starting to cramp my style.

It just goes to show how important sparring is. It is top priority. I had been doing shadow boxing and bag work the whole time, and when I started sparring again it didn't seem to matter. I had a few powerful punches and kicks that missed because I turned my head from a punch or fell back from a kick at the wrong moment. My ranging didn't suffer, however.

Ranging is terribly important. I wonder why it suffers in the schools you mention?