What's your problem?

My weakness is footwork. I kind of get caught up in it and overthink it at times. Even though I can move around ok I tend to focus too much on my bad knee and it throws me off.

 

Are you really thinking too much, or are you using your inner monologue to narrate your thoughts too much?

Imagine hypothetically you had never been blessed with language. Would you also be unable to think?

Thinking is natural, but the way we think is a learned skill. Unfortunately most of us learn it badly. The habit of narrating our thoughts is what causes us to be seen to be over thinking. We're not. At least not about the matter at hand. Think of how slow speech is as a means of describing a situation and response. Even though you don't actually speak it, often on some level that's exactly what you're doing, but in your head.

Try this. Pick up a book, and read it. Note whether or not you are subconsciously narrating it in your mind. If you are, try this. Try just looking at the words, and absorbing the information they convey, without internally narrating. You might find it difficult at first simply because it's different to how you normally do it. If you manage it, note how you actually read faster. You're still processing the exact same information. The book hasn't changed just because you're reading it different. It's just that you're not slowing yourself down by attaching imagined speech to it. If you can do that, you can silence your internal narrative in any situation, including sparring.

On to the question though. I think my main problem is stamina. I'm told that in sparring I'm pretty good. Loads of room for improvement of course, but pretty good. Especially taking into account how long I've been training. But I struggle to maintain it even for a single 3 minute round. It's not that I'm unfit (for my age). I had to do an exercise stress test at the hospital after a few random wobbles, and the cardiologist said they generally only see higher scores than mine in military personnel and some extreme athletes. I can get through everything in a lesson, sometimes going strong for upto 4 hours if it's grading day, but I really struggle to fight for even 3 minutes. I'm sure it's more psychological than physical.

 

Oh so many things

In sparring: Proper footwork, explosiveness.

Kicks: Ushiro-Geri.
When I started MA it was with Hapkido and they taught me rather soon a "backwards turning kick" (I don't know the exact english term and right now don't even remember the Japanese name, which is rare for me ), so I always want to keep turning.

It's great: Every newbie manages to do ushiro-geri more or less rather quick; it's never complete correct, but hey: Beginners. It's not allowed to
I try it for months now and am still too stupid to manage it and not keep turning.
As soon as I hear what we're about to do, I want to to quit the lessen by now, because by now it really annoys the life out of me.


Generally: My movement isn't fluid enough for my liking.
My teachers tell me, it's because I think too much when, so I try to keep working on it.
Seems to work, as I was on a seminar this weekend and one of the instructors told me, my movement is way too good for my grading; saved the next few days for
... until we do Ushiro-Geri again, and I'm back to hating MA


I have a weird middle way, as I see it: Some things seem to come easily to me, according to my teachers.
I think, I have to work to make things work really hard.
Guess, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

I get around better on the ground, in my opinion. Not good, but better.
I think(!) because I try to understand the concepts behind the techniques and not just copy them, as some others do, but I'm not sure.

 

Forgive me if this is a daft question. Are you launching the kick prematurely, while you are still mid pivot? I used to do that, and I see so many others do it. The result is that your kicking leg is extended while you're still in the spin, and all that angular momentum is in your prematurely extended leg. Then you're asking a couple of square inches of skin on the bottom of your supporting foot to stop all of that momentum. It can't, so you continue turning.

 

I totally get that. Like yourself, I'm more into doing individual sports and hobbies, not just because I don't like people but I like the freedom to do the activity whenever I want, I'm not locked into a fixed schedule. The nice things about hobbies like snowboarding or climbing is that you can pretty much go when you want, the nearest climbing place to me is open 24/7 if you have the full membership.

I really hate the whole 'start at 7 pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays, be there 15 mins before to get changed' and all that. I'm on a schedule all day and watching the clock...don't want to do it in my free time.

 

I'm starting back at the gym tomorrow after 6weeks off due to a hand injury. Although I have been doing a bit of judo in the interim period.

Right now I'm expecting conditioning and endurance to be a big issue.

I also expect there will be some timing and sensitivity deficit to address.

Before getting broken I was working on the following areas of weakness

A) open guard control/sweeps for both Gi and MMA
B) defending against spider guard in the gi
C) creating angles in standup


Who knows what will have fallen apart while I've been on hiatus.

 

Nope, my problem is really simple actually.
What we are supposed to do: Pivot 180° to the partner, look over our shoulder, kick a straight kick back (like a front kick, just to the back).
At the moment when kick impacts, our back is to the partner and afterwards we keep turning.
It's a defense technique when for example you get kicked at with Mawashi-Geri.

What I do: I pivot, but can't stop at the 180° - I keep going for the 360° and therefore don't kick straight back, but keep "circling" (not sure, if that is the proper wording).
So when my kick hits it's target (or: in case it hits ) I'm still pivoting.

Then I get annoyed, what makes my teacher get annoyed, which has me even more annoyed, which he notices... I just *hate* that kick so much by now xD

 

I keep dropping my hands during muay thai kicks and keep getting slammed in the face

 

What you need is a class that includes at least one person who is (insert whatever term you feel I might not be able to insert on a family friendly site here) more than you

This is a big advantage of training groups of specified people over open classes. It doesn't matter how (insert whatever term you feel I might not be able to insert on a family friendly site here) the other people are, you still feel a responsibility not to let the (insert whatever term you feel I might not be able to insert on a family friendly site here) down when it comes around to training time

 

Sounds like an easy solution.

 

One of the nastiest things that we have evolved to stop is being hit in the face. All our sense organs are there. Forget about being kicked or punched anywhere else and protect your brain box.

If your instructor isn't giving you priorities of targets to protect then I'm thinking it might be time to find a different instructor...

I don't care if a beginner student can't put it out too well, as long as they aren't taking it where it counts.

To my mind, survival should come first.

EDIT: the place you first need instruction to protect is the back of your head and the base of the spine. Going foetal usually exposes those areas which is more dangerous than being hit anywhere on the body, if you value your personality and use of limbs.

 

The instructors constantly stress covering the face. When throwing punches covering my face is pretty easy. However I have an awful habit the instructor is trying to break me of: When I throw kicks I drop my hands while doing so. This leaves me wide open for attack

 

Here's a tip: pretend you are holding onto bars in front of your face. This will help you balance during kicks as well as keeping your hands up, should you need them to protect you.

 

I have a lot of problems.

In Karate there are a lot of corrections, and sometimes it can be hard for me to deal with. Also I sometimes have issues with timing, pacing, and overall Karate style movement during katas. The style I do has some unique stuff that is a bit hard for me to process.

In Muay Thai, physically it is really a sport for someone 20-30 years younger than me. So I can try hard, and can do it in a way that suits my age, but honestly sometimes the conditioning is a bit much. Younger people are usually better than me in sparring (all other things being equal). Mentally, things are easy for me to grasp, but physically hard to do.

It I lost fat, and gained a bit of muscle I'd be better. I am working on that.

Altogether, I have a problem that I am interested in many, many martial arts. In the past I have learned some Kung Fu, Tai Chi, BJJ, JJJ, Kali, JKD, and Krav Maga in addition to the above mentioned Karate and Muay Thai. 3 consecutive years in the same school is pretty much my record at this point. If I had spent all my time training in just one art instead of dabbling in different ones, I'd actually be pretty decent in it, rather than crappy in 4 or 5 the way I am now.

 

Ok I will see if that works. When I throw the body kick though I never remember to keep my arm up when kicking and usually get slammed in the face.

This kick..

[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=exbkTtKR8ZM[/ame]

 

I'm trying to visualise how you are spinning too far.

If the kick is from a standstill, which is how we first learn it in our school, it is virtually impossible to spin too far because actually neither foot moves before the kick, other than to pivot on the spot. So it's literally pivot 180 on the balls of the feet, strike while looking over the shoulder, reign the kick back, pivot at the last bit back to facing forward. A cheat that a more experienced student taught me is to turn the foot that will be the support foot 90 degrees before the rest of the components of the kick. Then when you go for it, the support foot has less distance to go and it becomes easier to control.

The kick, when moving, is exactly the same as from stationery except there's more chance of spinning too far of the tendency to subconsciously combine the pivot and the kick to make some kind of weird spinny funny walk. This is especially so if your front foot is too far out to the side, so that you can't pivot on the spot without your whole body building up huge angular momentum.

I'd basically practice from stationery first. Then move into doing while advancing forward but slowly, in your own time, possibly in private. At this stage I'd cheat on the stance and make it too narrow, to reduce the momentum in the spin.

Last thought for now. Is the flexibility there in your neck and shoulders? If it's the looking over the shoulder bit that's difficult, without realising it you'll turn your whole body to see. This will just add to the momentum in the spin.