Geezer's Long March Toward the Elite Sneaking Up On the Finish Line

[Leah Lutz]

Fun!! Congrats!

[Mark E. Hurling]

Why thank you ever so much. Are you still thinking of entering a meet early next year?

[Leah Lutz]

Why thank you ever so much. Are you still thinking of entering a meet early next year?

I'm going to do one up here in NorCal in October. Hopefully my name will be on one of those lists too. =) And we'll see how much I like competing!

[Mark E. Hurling]

Weight: 251

I was still creaky, but went in for my session of getting pummeled this morning. We split into a group of three, me running a round robin with a blue belt 2nd degree and a green belt. My instructions were to run through blue belt, blue belt 1st degree, and blue belt 2nd degree techniques. These consist of around 45 techniques in total. Once done with that, do it again with improvised variations of entry, transition, or completion. These might be leading off with a horse bite grip to the arms or sides, a low ridge hand to the balls, an elbow, insanity blow to the ear drums, foot sweeps, stomps, or knees to distract or loosen up the attack.

I learned some more things about how our techniques succeed or fail by a matter of 2-3 inches. A fist driven just slightly closer to the spine at the gluteus medias collapses the main hinge joint more effectively. Moving the hand from pushing on the trap to the jaw moves the head and neck, making the body corkscrew to the ground. Doing a scooping capture of the arm during an attempt at a low tackle just below the elbow on the brachioradialus makes an arm bar put the hurt on immediately rather than starting a tug of war if the arm is scooped right on the elbow. All a matter of small subtleties and the little things that are nearly invisible at speed, under stress, or poorly taught.

[Runner]

All a matter of small subtleties and the little things that are nearly invisible at speed, under stress, or poorly taught.

I think this is why I like Krav Maga so much. The techniques are deliberately crude and designed to be used under extreme stress. I know how training breaks down under extreme stress and I want a technique that can be used under such a situation without 10 years of training. While I suspect that a training system like yours will yield better results in the long run, Krav really allows you to put the hurt on with the least amount of training. Of course the best piece of any training is situational awareness that comes with knowing the bad guys are out there.

[Mark E. Hurling]

You make a good point. Our lower rank techniques for escapes and counters work well even done as rough carpentry. The throws and counters work reasonably well done as rough carpentry too. But as our people get higher in rank right around purple belt we start polishing them. The 2nd degree blue belt is due to be promoted to purple soon and so I'm sanding down his technique now. Our ranks are:

White
Blue
Blue I
Blue II
Purple
Purple I
Green
Green I
Brown II
Brown I
Brown
Black I

The Japanese, for reasons of their own, count backwards from white to black belt. Then they start counting normally. Every-single-one of the Japanese arts does this. The Okinawans and the Koreans do too.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Weight: 250.5

Deload week.

Squat: 115-5, 145-5, 175-5. All with a pause at the bottom.

Good Morning: 70 for 3 sets of 8.

Hammer Curl: 60 for 3 sets of 8.

Stretched. Gotta see Dr. Laura again tomorrow to get the back fixed better.

[Jonathon Sullivan]

I think this is why I like Krav Maga so much. The techniques are deliberately crude and designed to be used under extreme stress. I know how training breaks down under extreme stress and I want a technique that can be used under such a situation without 10 years of training. While I suspect that a training system like yours will yield better results in the long run, Krav really allows you to put the hurt on with the least amount of training. Of course the best piece of any training is situational awareness that comes with knowing the bad guys are out there.

All of this. The difference between something like Tang Soo or Aikido and Krav is that you can use Krav when you're surprised, scared and stupid. No fine motor movements. Just assholes and elbows.

What I hate about Krav is their culture of doing a bunch of thrasy metcon-type work, often at the beginning of class, instead of just focusing on fighting.

Mark, I'm trying to catch up on Friendlogs. Looks like you've been doing good training. Sorry I haven't been able to follow. That bench PR is the shit.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Thanks Sully. What I'm really jazzed about is getting that national record that I know I can beat in the upcoming meet in September.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Weight: 253.5

Deload week.

Bench Press: 95-5, 115-5, 140-5.

Power Snatch: 45-3, 55-3, 65-3.

Floor Press: 135 for 3 sets of 8.

Stretched and foam rolled my ITB. That was the source of my back miseries per Dr. Laura. A really taxing week at work with about 6 total hours of sleep between Tuesday and Thursday kept me at work and points external with frantic activity interspersed with long periods of eyes-on waiting for developments. Then back to the desk for some status reports. I was 12+ hours those days and too wound up to sleep. So I flexed my time and am at home today.