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Monday, February 19, 2007

"MY LESSONS WITH THE MASTERS..." Ari Kandel's personal training blog. #17

If You Can do All This...
This post will be a training tips/notes bonanza--no narrative, just important stuff I've learned (or re-learned, or been reminded of) over the past couple months from Tim and Al. See if you can guess which tips came from whom--a prize for anyone who can get them all right! Enjoy!

--Never stop nor be stopped!

--No one can control you. He can control you only so far as you allow him to through your resistance.

--Be GHOSTLY with your torso so that your arms always have plenty of space to maneuver.

--Pocket your ribcage so that your elbows have space to slip by. He is able to pin your arms against you only if you give him the solid surface of your torso to pin against.

--Change your side-on L-stance to the outside while fading the upper body to the outside to create HUGE angles (for e.g. chops to the back of the neck) with little movement.

--Apply internal dropping to every contact. This involves subtle muscular control, requiring you to start with maximum Yin in order to apply maximum Yang at only the point of contact for only a split second. This freaking HURTS when done right, and you can't figure out why. Perhaps this is the beginning of that liquid/solid body John gets when he does "pure Keech.". . .

--"Balance on ankles"/"Put energy from upper body into feet" so that full range of motion with full body is available--this makes SUCH a difference!

--PURE KEECH--ridges, targets, what the other guy does, it just doesn't matter--everything comes from everywhere with internal dropping.

--Disrupt his legs with your steps to cut off angles and take balance.

--You can't try to deal with each individual punch, and you can't disconnect offense and defense or different parts of your body. When one thing moves or you feel one thing change, EVERYTHING changes! Deal with whole thing at once! Keep everything connected! (This is VERY powerful--must play with it more!)

--There's NOTHING WRONG with applying pressure or moving the other guy's limbs! Being loose means having complete freedom in all the joints, being unhindered by your own muscular contraction. It does NOT mean being wimpy!

--"Ghostliness" is the exact same thing as moving with contact, only at a far higher level of sensitivity.

--Box step: drop weight onto rear leg, keep hands up and forward, always keep head up (always).

--Beyond a certain point, advancing in Guided Chaos is all mental. You have to learn to "think differently."

Until next time . . . stay tuned!!!

2 comments:

  1. "--Change your side-on L-stance to the outside while fading the upper body to the outside to create HUGE angles (for e.g. chops to the back of the neck) with little movement."

    Ari, you lost me with this, could you elaborate a bit?

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  2. Imagine in contact flow that you're facing your training partner in an L-stance with your left leg in front. You place your left foot in deep to the left in preparation for a long stop (i.e. moving offline to your left). Your left foot is pointed 90 degrees to the right of straight ahead (i.e. roughly towards the training partner). As you transition your weight onto your left foot, the left foot now becomes the "base" of the L (see Lt. Col. Al's recent newsletter on the L-stance and movement). As this happens, you sink deeply on the left leg, allowing your upper body to fade (kind of lean, but there's no compromise of balance) to the left. This should leave you facing your training partner from his right side, with the fade providing the extra angulation to allow your right hand to come over and chop into the back of his neck.

    It's WAAAAY simpler than it sounds!!! And remember, it's not a "technique," but simply a kind of movement to play with given the right impetus.

    ReplyDelete