Protect That Grill

As a martial arts blogger I like to share tips on how you can train better. If you train in martial arts. Get good quality equipment. You should protect yourself properly, and you should never forget that beautiful grill of yours with a mouth guard. A mouth guards acts as a shock absorber to provide a measure of protection against dental trauma, and concussion from blows to the jaw and head. A mouth guard might be overlooked when gear like a Gi, or boxing gloves and shin pads are required. But when doing any level of martial arts involving contact sparring or pad work, you should have something in your mouth to protect it. A basic, ‘boil and bight’ mouth guard, which only costs about $6 last time I checked, should be a mandatory piece of gear in the dojo. You have a mouthful of porcelain, so protect it. Even if you are only doing pad drills, a mouth guard can increase protection against an errant blow or a rebound of a blow to a pad that bounces off your face. Its a situation all the more likely to occur when you are new to martial arts, and you are in a state where you are fatigued and or possibly training with a partner that doesn’t yet know their own strength. You should get a mouth guard if you don’t have one, and if there is any question about using it, you use it.

…the injury that will hurt you the most is the one you aren’t protecting yourself against.

Wikipedia mentions as well on its mouth guard page that a wide array of sports are subject to dental and head of injuries. Use of a mouth guard is the way to protect yourself in sports like: “baseball, boxing, martial arts, rugby, wrestling, football, American football, Australian football, lacrosse, basketball, figure skating, hockey, underwater hockey, water polo, skiing and snowboarding.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouthguard

Wait a second… water polo…. and figure skating? Yeah, because the injury that will hurt you the most is the one you aren’t protecting yourself against. That is the whole point here.

UFC, in the interests of the best prepared and protected fighters in their series retains the services of the Fight Dentist Dr. Adam Persky http://www.fightdentist.com. Dr. Persky creates custom mouth guards for UFC fighters and provides emergency dental care as needed. A segment about Dr. Persky occasionally leads the fights on UFC pay per view broadcasts. Its been mentioned how common it is for fighters to get to the top level of their profession using a basic boil and bight mouth guard. The message is clear: the best mouth guard possible is the best option for a fighter.

dental implant

As for myself, I have a lovely piece of dental work from some time ago that I have to take special care of. Its a titanium post with a full crown that replaces an upper front incisor, lost over 15 years ago, hence my personal interest in the best mouth guard possible. Anything would be less trouble than replacing it. With a piece of metal drilled right into the bone, much of the natural support for the tooth is gone. There are no ‘ligaments’, to support the tooth and cushion against impacts as for a real tooth.

Dr. Amer Khakwany of Tinseltown Dental

So for a little while I have been looking for something better than the off the shelf variety of mouth guard, for about six bux, of I which I now own three. But while I had an open mind, I wasn’t able to find very much that provided any more protection in justification of the higher price tag. So I paid a visit to my dentist, Dr. Amer Khakwany at Tinseltown Dental, http://tinseltowndental.com/ to ask him to make me a custom mouth guard while I document the process for my blog.

The process involves making a mould of the mouth by taking impressions of both the upper and lower teeth with a quick hardening alginate medium. The lab takes over from there and delivers a mouth guard that fits your bight perfectly about a week later.

boil and bight mouth guard

My new custom mouth guard is much thinner and harder, and fits on to my upper teeth quite precisely. The mouth guard is quite a bit harder than the boil and bight variety, and this helps prevent the lower jaw from clenching while wearing it. I find that its much easier to breathe while wearing it during training sessions as compared to a larger boil and bight mouth guard.

custom mouth guard

Perhaps more people would consider a custom mouth guard if it weren’t for the concerns of the cost of getting one made. Actually, the cost of obtaining a custom mouth guard has dropped considerably from what I had initially heard from friends. Custom mouth guards have in the recent past cost around $300, but in fact dental and lab fees in my case were only around $150. Sure it costs more than the basic mouth guard, but its a lot less than what people think it costs, and it is still a lot less than a trip to the dentist and oral surgeon.

boil and bight and custom mouth guard

Until you decide to get a custom mouth guard, you can maximize the protection your mouth guard provides by reading the instructions carefully when you do your fitting. Be sure that the resulting mouth guard has strong suction against your teeth. The guard should also go as high as possible around your teeth, up into the area of the mouth called the ‘vestibule’ for best possible protection. You should feel comfortable wearing it, you should be able to adapt your breathing while wearing it. Consider also changing it every six months or year. Rinse it with water after every use and store it in a small plastic tub with a drop of mouthwash to keep it fresh and clean.


A bit of googling did not return much that was relevant beyond a lot of websites selling mouth guards, but there was this post on fightingArts.com which provides a well detailed post about mouth guards and it is well worth reading. http://www.fightingarts.com/reading/article.php?id=403

I decided to enter the Tiger Balm International martial arts tournament this year, but to get ready was no easy feat. I had to make big changes in my fitness level and diet in order to be ready for March 28^th.

Tiger Balm 2010

The Tiger Balm International Tournament is one of the largest martial arts events of the year in greater Vancouver, held annually in the spring at Capilano University in North Vancouver. The event is a two day martial arts tournament with a wide range of ages and disciplines, for both men and women. There are Karate and Kung Fu forms, Grappling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, weapons, Pankration and more. Its a tournament for all the regular people who train at martial arts gyms around town or the region, who are there to see how they do.

A Fitness Goal achieved by diet, exercise, and coaching.

This year I have entered in the WKC division. I decided this quietly last year and after I got over a lengthy cold, I started my training in earnest. I made it my fitness goal to enter the tournament. To succeed, I had to lose a considerable amount of weight to make it into the heavyweight category, with 200.6 lbs at the upper limit. And I had to really increase my state of fitness above and beyond what I get out of a martial arts class two times a week. I’m 42 years old, and I’ll be fighting guys half my age in some cases, so I really have to be on top of my game.

Sparring at Versus21

Cutting that weight

Something I have come to realize after training for about two years and not losing much weight, if any at all, is that without changes in diet, a fitness regime wont bring any results. Weighing in at about 220 lbs, I had about 2 ½ months to lose 20 lbs. In December I was over 230 lbs, but the fabulous H1N1 & Flu diet took care of close to 10 lbs all on its own. So why not keep going in that direction? I started on a diet plan that I would be comfortable with. I’m an old foodie from way back and I make beautiful salads, and I worked to cut out the sugars, starches, beer, pastries, and things that I like to eat. Instead I worked toward a plan consisting of reasonable portions of complex carbohydrates, such as those found in leaf vegetables, as well as protein powder supplements, green tea, and lean meat choices. I didnt really count calories, but as a guide I know that I should have a diet under 2500 Calories per day. What I did do for this program was log everything I ate since the beginning of February in a Google spreadsheet. I shared the spreadsheet with my Sensei, Ali Taghinejad and lead trainer of the Fighterbody conditioning program, Ben Kerswill. Logging everything I ate on a spreadsheet and sharing it with trainers over the web was a great thing to do, being that we are all busy people. I also logged my weight before and after training, my training plan, and other things I was doing in my program. To date they have approved of my diet plan, and the first month I managed to cut 10 lbs, getting my weight down to 210. Now in the second month, the 22^nd of March, I am at 205 and I’ll shave my head to get my weight down if I have to! The plan now involves a drastic increase in water and no bad things can enter the mouth, simple as that. Fortunately, while my event is Sunday I can weigh in on Saturday. I really hope I can make it into that weight class, because the unlimited class has some big guys. I would be faster than them, but its always better to be at the top of your weight class, not the bottom.

Training to fight

Kickboxing class, Sparring

At Versus21, the program I train in is kickboxing based, with lots of techniques borrowed from Muay Thai and standup MMA, and lots of conditioning. The gym offers an open mat for sparring on Fridays and I have made an effort to attend regularly. Sparring has been so important because all those drills and combinations become a total mess when you first get into the chaos of sparring. Eventually you focus and things come together, but it is a constant challenge.

Sparring at Versus21

You have to be in the gym more than anybody else, you got to work harder than anyone, and you’ve got to be willing to sacrifice more than anybody else…

I have had to face some super tough guys sparring, guys with real fight experience, and it has been the toughest thing. I have had to take plenty of full force wallops and I have had to learn to block the strikes or die. Its to my interest though to do that, because I want to be conditioned against guys who are tougher than who I will face on the mat at Tiger Balm. But over the course of sparring, I have had beaten up legs, an eye injury that will probably never heal, not to mention black eyes on more than one occaision, sprained ankles and wrists, bloody noses, and of course various lumps, scrapes and bruises. Now after training I finish my shower with an ice cold blast to help with muscle recovery and to speed the metabolism. It seems to help.

Fighterbody Training

I supplemented my training plan by joining Ben Kerswill’s Fighterbody class. Fighterbody is not a martial arts class, it is a conditioning class that top level athletes use to get in shape for their sport. It is a circuit program of vigorous exercises designed to build speed and power. Typically we train hard for a timed interval, and then brief timed break, we repeat or go to the next exercise. The program uses everything from truck tires and sledgehammers, to kettleballs, dumbells, bosu and swiss balls, elastic cords, and some things that must be exclusively the invention of the program designer. It always impresses me how some seemingly simple little exercises that look so easy to do can be so effective and exhausting. There are some damn fit people in that class.

The program is available on days alternating with my martial arts, as well as weekends, and Friday at 7 PM after sparring. This has meant I have been at the gym almost every day training one way or another, and Friday is a double shot with sparring and Fighterbody. And sometimes I have had to limp through Friday’s class with sprains or a charlie horse. But now after two months of it I feel it has paid off, because instead of being burnt and gassed after an hour of martial arts, I feel strong, like I could go for another hour.

Coaching is important

Its always necessary to do as much as possible to get ready for a tournament. I know there are some damn fit guys out there I’ll be going up against. There is no substitute for the hard work and sacrifices that must be made in order to be ready for a fight. Coaches are there to help, to remind you of what you probably already know you should be doing, and now and then they can give you a tip to maximize your effort. But sometimes you need to be pushed, and they are there for that as well.

When interviewing Sifu Tom Laroche, a former world kickboxing champion, in Kamloops in the fall of last year, he said something toward the end that states in plainly.

…if you want to do well…you have to pay the bigger price than anybody else. You have to be in the gym more than anybody else, you’ve got to work harder than anyone, and you’ve got to be willing to sacrifice more than anybody else… You’ve got to be willing to work harder than anybody else, you’ve got to be willing to come into the gym more than anybody else, and you got to be willing to sacrifice. And it is a sacrifice. Your friends are out doing something else and you cant go do it. They want you to go out to the bar, sorry, I got to go train. If you want to do good.

Here’s to a great tournament, see you down there. And there will be lots of pictures. Osu!

Earlier this year I found a little two hour, once a week class offered by Martial Arts instructor Jordan Lawrie. I don’t recall the name for his class, and maybe there wasn’t a name for it, come to think. But to describe it, I would call it ‘Creative Self Defence’. We did lots of things I was familiar with, and Jordan added lots of creativity to the mixture. I wasn’t able to continue the class, but looking back, it was a great class and I learned lots.

I shot a little bit of video, although just with available light. Settings have been tweaked to bring out the action just a little better. I caught up later with Jordan over coffee and pannini and asked him to tell me a bit more about his background, his personal philosophy on martial arts, and his training drill featured in the video, which he calls the ‘Seven – Eleven’.

The class:

Jordan’s 2 hour class was a grab bag of techniques, but we focused a great deal on the clinch.

“The clinch. The clinch is sort of the lost range – there are a few ranges in fighting, out of range, kicking range, punching range, knees and elbow range, and then you have your ground – grappling range. The clinch is the range before you hit the floor, when I can grab on to you. The clinch is very important in order for you to be able to defend yourself, and to have tricks, like getting behind your opponent because you are safe there… feeling that dynamic of the opponents body weight is important, having a good firm base and knowing how to manipulate your opponent’s base… You don’t have that in kickboxing, where as you are a free individual out here working in space, dealing with gravity and your opponents kinetic energy. Getting in close is a way to deprive your opponent of weapons.”

http://www.vimeo.com/7636686

The Seven Eleven Drill

“I got the name from one of my old instructors, he was a really well trained guy, going to some or another corner store, late at night, got swarmed by some teenagers. He told them he wasn’t looking for trouble but suddenly, a kick to the groin turned on his adrenaline and he ran right through the first guy he saw and kept running… a really well trained guy, trains all his life, gets swarmed, doesn’t see it coming. Violence happens now. You don’t see it coming at all… I like to do a lot of multiple attacker scenarios, realistic, in that a couple more individuals really changes your game plan. Attacks occur often by weak people, with backup. Attacks among men have back up and weapons.”

http://www.vimeo.com/6758350

“Kickboxing is good to learn the mechanics of punching and kicking, to develop your power, but if you want to train for the real world I really think you have to be training more intensely with these kinds of drills – multiple attackers, multiple weapons, I’ve got several variations on this one, the defender has boxing gloves on, and he’s being attacked by a boxer, essentially, and a wrestler who’s got a (rubber) knife in his belt. The wrestler can pull his knife out once he gets the clinch, and then he can start stabbing.”

“So it teaches him to use the clinch to prevent that guy’s arms from going into his belt to find a weapon. I’ve done it also where the boxer in the middle didn’t know that these guys had weapons. And then once he gets stabbed, its 20 or 30 seconds added to his drill… The drill also teaches line theory, which says put something between you and your attackers. In this case he is using one of the attackers, he’s forming a line. If there was something in the room, even better. So many variations on this one. This drill was mostly appropriated from different martial arts, putting different theories together, and developing my own take on it.”

About Jordan Lawrie

Jordan describes himself as a Jeet Kune Do practitioner. He has come by this title by the path of training in martial arts that he has taken over the years, starting with Aiki Jujutsu and moving on later Chinese Kempo, with its hard and soft styles for about 5 years. Later Bruce Lee’s writings had a strong influence on the idea that he could train in whatever he wanted. He got in with an MMA practitioner friend and got to learn a lot more about the clinch, the standup clinch, Jiu-Jitsu, kickboxing and boxing, tried lots of classes around town; Wolfe’s Defendoo for a year.

“Once you have enough experience in Martial Arts you can learn… a lot in a short period of time… so, I dont have a lot in the way of belt credentials, but I really carry with me the Jeet Kune Do, Miyamoto Musashi philosophy of learning what you can- a little bit of everything and just challenging yourself to make yourself a little bit better… if someone were to ask me what I train in, although I have never formally trained in it (except for a few classes at Ed Wong’s school), I would say it is Jeet Kune Do.”

Jordan now teaches at http://www.elementsacademy.com/ , a modern styled Hapkido school, with a strong fitness component in the curriculum. He is able to teach kickboxing, self defense, MMA – a little bit of everything, true to his traditions of being creative.

“Being creative. I think one of the things that Martial Arts is really lacking is creativity, its an art form, its like a dance, its like an interpretive dance, but a combative form. Because, I don’t think you can be held in a dogmatic believe that once a system is set its a fixed system. A system is always shifting, right down to a cellular level… its always in flux, its never completely in balance. To continue to be an art form it needs to be adding and subtracting from multiple sources.”

Web links in this post:

http://www.uss-canada.ca/index2.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeet_kune_do

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi

http://www.elementsacademy.com/

Capital Jiu Jitsu In Dulles Virginia

If I ever miss a martial arts class, I know that the next one is going to be that much harder. So I dont like to miss a class, unless it cant be helped, like when I am going out of town.  I will even try to find a way to train while I’m on the road. In October I had a conference to attend in Alexandria, VA., and would be staying in Centerville, Loudon County, basically. That’s way out there from D.C. and Alexandria, I know, but that is not really part of the story.

I did a bit of looking around on the web to find a gym to train at. My criteria would be to find a place that would allow me to train the way I like and be located in the general vicinity. I finally settled on Capital Jiu Jitsu and I sent an email introducing myself. I was given a very welcome reply to come and train while in the region.

They turned out to be a good fit for me because I am accustomed to a very contemporary approach to training. My idea of a good gym is one that offers a range of programs, with kickboxing and BJJ as the core curriculum, some form or another of cross fit training harsh enough to make you puke, and some gentler things like Pilates and Yoga. It turned out that the kind of gym I picked out was not unlike the one I go to regularly in many ways. That meant that when I got to Capital Jiu Jitsu, I saw lots of things I know and love (or dread) and that made me right at home. Its a combination of an up to date curriculum combined with the brutality of things like kettlebell weights and monster truck tires. It happened also that I had come to the ‘Mothership’ location of this three location franchise, with over 10,000 square feet for martial arts and 2000 square feet for cross fit training. They even have a half-octagon cage for MMA training for the pro fighters.

Blogging about martial arts is one of my own reasons to try another school, but there are other reasons as well. By dropping in on another school, you get a different perspective on your regular training program. You get to see what you know in a new light, you find out what other people know or are training in, and its a chance to see how much different martial arts schools actually share in common. Another reason you might want to try another gym is because you may be moving, or you aren’t happy training where you are currently. I hope the last case wouldn’t be the case. Or maybe you want to expand your training by going to more than one gym.

I came to the advanced Muay Thai/Kickboxing class, led by sensei Japheth Brubaker, who is also the BJJ instructor at the school. But as it turned out, there were only two other guys at the class that night, Eugene Catedral and Leo Perrucci, who are also training assistants for the beginner/intermediate classes which they told me are much larger. I regret that I ran out of time and was not able to train on one of those days with them.

The one hour class began with typical grinder of a warmup with light jogging, some burpees, push-ups and sit-ups and crawling around on all fours. Then we got into roundhouse kick defences, as you see in the photos, with variations on trapping a kick and dropping the opponent to the ground. We then moved on to Thai clinch escapes and variations. Towards the end of the hour, we did some very light sparring, with lots of fast moves but hits were kept as light as possible, power to a minimum. In a second round between Leo and Eugene, they were able to incorporate the clinches and leg holds into the free sparring, which was really nice to see. They learned something and then applied it. That is the whole point of this exercise of learning martial arts, isnt it?

There is a fairly common practice among martial arts schools is to offer a first class for free. That might just spark your interest in trying out another school for fun. But such allowance, whether there is one or not, does not exclude from rules, expectations, or the traditions of martial arts. Its to see if there is a good fit for both you and the school, with no risk for either party. With that in mind, here are some pointers for you if you want to try a new gym. I’m assuming you have done your research and are ready to try them out:

• phone or email ahead of time, ask permission politely to try out their facilities. Tell them about the school you go to now, how you train, your age, your weight, your personal experience training. Be honest about what you can do and expect that a good school might allow you to come in at a level lower than what you can do.

• Bring what gear you can. There are probably some loaner gloves you can use.

• Show humility and respect to the sensei, or sifu, the students and staff alike. Pay attention to the lessons.

• Don’t be a dick. Being arrogant in anyway could be a total turn off. Not everybody knows what you know. In an informal sort of way you are representing the gym you come from, so remember that it is about more than just you when you go in there.

• Respect is the most important thing in martial arts. So bow when you step on the mat, even if the way you have been taught to bow isn’t the same bow the gym uses. You bow to the sensei when you see him the first time, and then introduce yourself politely to him or her and the other students. Go on those assumptions and they will tell you otherwise if needed.

• Don’t go with something to prove. Just try to fit in and go through the exercises. You are just there to work up a sweat and keep some kind of regular schedule in the gym.

• A gym is more than some big equipment or space or great this or that. Keep an open mind and you might find that things that detract from your experience are more than made up by other qualities.

• Consider writing a thank you email or note, or even better, write a review for them for Google reviews or one of the other web sites for reviews, like Epinions,  about businesses and services. Even recommend it to a friend. People who operate martial arts gyms in general are there because they love what they do and they give fully of themselves. So pay them back at least by sharing your positive experience with others.

• If for some reason your experience was negative, try to communicate politely through more discrete ways to the Sensei or other representative what you did not like about the school. At least try it that way first, because hopefully it was just an off day for someone there. This does not need to present itself as a point of conflict. Letting the school know about what your concerns were may help them improve their services and the programs they offer. Remember, no matter what, its supposed to be a learning experience for everybody concerned.

• If they don’t offer a freebie class, respect that. Perhaps they offer a free week or other new member program that you might go for. A good school costs money to run and you shouldn’t be adverse to spending something that helps them in some small way to keep the lights on.

So there you have it. One way or another, just keep on training.

Osu!

Thanks to: Eugene Catedral, Leo Perruci, Japheth Brubaker. Photos by Audrey Foo.