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Wednesday, February 07, 2007

"MY LESSONS WITH THE MASTERS..." Ari Kandel's personal training blog. #15

Extreme Balance seminar...
Lt. Col. Al went over a bunch of different exercises that are not in the book, such as the Atomic Leg Crusher, the Indian Walk, the Hackey Sack, Puppeteering, Long Stepping, Advancing Kicks, and a heretofore unnamed drill that I'll take the liberty of dubbing the Relationship Of Body Movement And Rooting drill (ROBMAR). Also covered were advanced variations of the Ninja Walk, Vacuum Walk, Gorilla Walk, Rolling the Ball and Box Step using various forms of added weight (such as dumbbells, weighted bars and medicine balls), and various uses of the wobble board. Emphasis was placed on achieving what John calls "hydraulic legs," driving all motions of the body directly from the ground through a solid root.

But the seminar was definitely not just about solo drills. Al and John gave several high-impact demonstrations of the importance of balance and a mobile yet solid root in combat. We all got to experiment with doing contact flow on the flat sides of BOSUs, as well as a melee (free-for-all contact flow with everyone at once) on a field of round-side-up BOSUs with medicine balls being passed around. Then came a long session of "Long Keech," or contact flow emphasizing very long, low steps and big motions for the ultimate balance challenge. The seminar concluded with hands-on training in how to generate a powerful drop to either launch a person away or crush his insides, as well as how to use looseness and balance to prevent being launched.

As usual, the seminar was peppered with lots of personal insights and tips from John and the other instructors, as well as "side-lessons" by Lt. Col. Al about such subjects as moving against multiple attackers.

A great time was had by all, including a few new faces, one of whom came all the way from Texas just for the seminar and a private lesson with John!

As good as the Extreme Balance seminar was, I'm sure the one everybody is looking forward to most is the Combat Knife seminar coming up March 31. . . . THAT one promises to be awesome, with training in Guided Chaos knife use as well as dealing with a knife-armed attacker while unarmed, plus I'm sure plenty of other tidbits that always happen to pop up at Guided Chaos seminars. . . . Don't just "stay tuned," BE THERE!!!

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:16 PM

    I can't even begin to put into words how bad I want to know what the Atomic Leg Crusher, Indian Walk, Gorilla Walk, and ROBMAR are. Hopefully some of this will come out in the form of a new DVD. Sounds very interesting. There needs to be seminars in Chicago! Thanks for the good post, Ari.



    Dale Z

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  2. The "Atomic Leg Crusher" is described by Lt. Col. Al in Newsletter #54. It's a more intense version of the "slow squat" for tendon strength development in the legs. Good stuff. The Indian Walk is described briefly in the Attackproof Companion DVD Part II. Contact Ken Freeman in Chicago for some good training.

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