"MY LESSONS WITH THE MASTERS..." Ari Kandel's personal training blog. #27

Things to ponder on vacation...

I'm about to leave for vacation, and won't have time to put together a review of the Five-Second Fight seminar. So, those of you who were there, PLEASE post your impressions on the forum so that all the long-distance folks don't feel neglected. ;)

In the mean time, I just wanted to put a few recent training observations in writing, lest I forget them over vacation:

Contact flow is but a study of human movement. There is no pressure, speed, attack, defense, good stuff, bad stuff, etc., just movement to be studied. The lighter you stay, the move information the subconscious absorbs. So stay light no matter what, and study your partner's movement. There's nothing to be worried about, because it's just movement! No reason whatsoever to tense or push against anything, nor to accelerate to escape or "score".

With experience, you'll learn to instantly know exactly where your partner's body is going based on what you feel. All that's left for you to do then is to move your body to where you're safe and he's dead based on where he's going to be. The lighter you stay, the sooner and more precisely you'll be able to tell where his body's going. Therefore, you actually have more "control" the lighter you stay, because you feel things faster and have more opportunity to act on them. "Control" through heaviness, pushing and tension is an illusion (just like muscular "power," which feels powerful to YOU, but not to HIM), because you can't feel as quickly, you're too committed to instantly move with what you feel, and remember, it's impossible to actually physically control a person's body unless he's helping you with his tension.

Tension kicks in when your conscious mind says, "You can't do that" or "I don't see a way out of this situation" while your body is trying to just get on with it! The conscious mind doesn't understand everything the body can do, and so holds it back. Silence the mind and just get on with it! (John, Tim, Al and Matt have now all told me in different ways something to the effect of, "Your brain is messing you up! Shut it up!" I recall that old saying: "When three people say you're dead, lie down!")

Everything, including hitting, should be effortless!

To create more space, pocket while sinking deeper. Pure geometry dictates you'll get more space because of the increased vertical distance.

Pocketing to create needed space can and should be done in advance. Just as you can feel where he's going to be and move accordingly, you can feel what space you'll need to get there and to execute once you're there, so begin to make it now.

When using the "drac" or similar elbow maneuvers, allowing the hand to relax into a loose spearhand position can allow your whole body to slip through tighter spaces (e.g. through his grip on your drac forearm).

The essence of internal dropping is its suddenness.