chaospw
03-16-2009, 12:35 PM
I flew into LA from Atlanta on Friday the 13th for the seminar the following day. Not being the superstitious type, the flight & date gave me no qualms. Coach Eleazar (aka ‘Dennis’) was quite generous with his e-mail time & help in getting me all the info for the seminar & making himself available for the ride from the hotel (also his suggestion) to the seminar; mad props to Coach for that.
I met with Coach Jones (for the first time) for an hour of private instruction before the seminar in order to review my movement in basic IF & BF exercises & he was both honest & extremely helpful with his observations & demonstrations, chunking down the basic movements even further so I could be sure of what I was looking for & know what I needed to work on & WHY – most important of all.
The Seminar - I won’t into great detail on movement & weapons development as I’m sure those things will be amply covered in the upcoming DVDs. This review will consist of my impressions of the event & the most salient points that stuck with me. The seminar was evenly divided between people who had been attending on a regular basis (5) & people who were there for the 1st time (5, including me). Coach Jones headed straight into a demonstration of the basic stance & ‘C’ structure that we will use to move around with & attack/defend from. It’s a very useful, natural way to hold & move your body comfortably (once you train your body to do that) while leaving very little of your head or torso open for attack. Once we were checked on this, it was onto basic movement: front & back, left & right, combos of both, repeat many times. It’s amazing how easily even a natural stance like the ‘C’ structure can be corrupted once you introduce basic movement. You’re concentrating so much on your feet & legs, your upper body & hands go right out the window. In their own direct & special way, both Coach Jones & Coach Brown made it very clear when we were messing this up & somehow, we regained our structure & continued to move (more) properly.
From there we moved onto the Jab, then the Cross, then how to work combos of both. As has been mentioned before on the forum, Coach Jones can & will go into excruciating detail on the minutiae of each of these weapons & their use & development. There were lots of drills for both punches, how incredible power is generated for each of them (especially the Cross & later, the Inside Hook) then more drills to work them in combos WHILE MAINTAINING STRUCTURE. Boxing is no different than any other martial delivery system: here’s the basic way to hold & move your body (stance), here are the most basic, important ways to defend & attack (how you strike with your natural weapons) from that structure, & then, here are some more juicy details to maximize the effectiveness of these two things acting in consonance with one another.
About half way thru the seminar we were divided up into beginners & the more advanced guys who had been attending on a regular basis. They looked good. It was clear that most of them had been working diligently on what they had been shown, which made it very easy for us newbies to see how effective the ‘C’ position could be used with more advanced way of moving around (bobbing/weaving/ducking/slipping) as well as working more sophisticated combos of punches. The noobs continued to work diligently on what we had been shown, trading off being the punching mitt holder & the puncher. Both points of view were extremely valuable. If you were holding the mitt, you could watch your partner move & punch & see/FEEL in your hand when it was being done correctly or incorrectly. Again, both Coach Jones & Brown were readily available for questions, anecdotes, and relentless attention to detail.
Finally, the last half hour of the seminar was devoted to FlowBoxing Torture. It was democratic in that it re-united beginner & advanced for a healthy dose of “What fresh Hell is this?” & then we found out as Coach Jones gleefully described what we were about to do & what his expectations of our performance were to be. The first drill is one I call ‘Jab 4s’ & it’s essentially isolating the jab & working it for 3 minutes in a count of 1, 1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4, repeat. The last drill is called a ’10-Drop’ & is adapted from Muay Thai. It’s basically an upward/downward pyramid drill of working the Jab/Cross combo. Keep in mind that at this point, we had been going pretty straight for about 3.5 hours & were, well, tired. Coach knew this & this is why he had us do these drills at this time. It served as both a high-pressure review of the material we had been trying to absorb all day & as a small lesson in what fatigue can do to your structure (& brain) & how you must push thru that pain & find your second wind. Very much in line with CST protocols when it comes to working metcon days on a 4X7 or, I’m sure, a tacfit session. If we absolutely found it necessary to take a small breather during the drills (this was NOT encouraged) then were to do so IN STRUCTURE. No leaning over, falling over, dropping hands, puking, no refunds, etc.
Coach did give us a little bit of a break. These last two drills were only 3 minutes long whereas MMA rounds go for 5 minutes. We still cursed him to the roots of our being, if only silently.
Impressions:
- Yes, Coach Jones (& Coach Brown) can punch very hard, very quickly, with very little effort & do so while moving around quickly & fluidly in (wait for it…)
- Structure, structure, structure. This is where you live & die, the platform from which everything is moved, launched & received. Drill it correctly, mindfully, 10,000 times, & it will not abandon you.
- Mechanics, not big muscles, are responsible for 90% of Power Generation. I will say that loose, mobile hips are KEY to achieving this, along with same in waist & back. The arms & legs are just along for the ride. We were all drilled on these things & felt the truth of them in our bodies, whether we were punching or holding the mitts. The difference is distinct & palpable, felt deeply in the body.
- Balance, which relates to maintaining structure. If you’re off balance, your opponent can quickly see/sense/feel it & exploit it.
- Conditioning – I’ve said this before to friends not involved in any kind of movement or MA training but you have to be in superb shape to be a mediocre fighter. Most of us were drag-ass tired before the FlowBoxing Torture session & of course, no one was hitting us. For myself, I tried to imagine holding up my structure while a skilled opponent beat on me for 5 rounds of 5 minutes. I had no illusions before the seminar that I had a long way to go & that was very definitely re-affirmed.
- All of us received enough information in the first hour to last us several weeks or months of reflection & solo work. The price of these seminars is ridiculously affordable given the openness & generosity of the Coaches, their attention to detail, & the quality & depth of information & instruction given. If you live anywhere near CA & you’re interested in the martial applications of CST movement, then GO.
Gotta get back to work but I’ll post more if something else leaps out at me. My strong thanks to Coach Dennis <grin> for his patience & organizational capacity (he moves pretty damn well too), Coach Jones for his expertise, generosity, & extremely affordable availability, & to Coach Brown for lending Coach Jones a very capable & knowledgeable hand.
I’ll see you all again in 3 months,
Patrick
I met with Coach Jones (for the first time) for an hour of private instruction before the seminar in order to review my movement in basic IF & BF exercises & he was both honest & extremely helpful with his observations & demonstrations, chunking down the basic movements even further so I could be sure of what I was looking for & know what I needed to work on & WHY – most important of all.
The Seminar - I won’t into great detail on movement & weapons development as I’m sure those things will be amply covered in the upcoming DVDs. This review will consist of my impressions of the event & the most salient points that stuck with me. The seminar was evenly divided between people who had been attending on a regular basis (5) & people who were there for the 1st time (5, including me). Coach Jones headed straight into a demonstration of the basic stance & ‘C’ structure that we will use to move around with & attack/defend from. It’s a very useful, natural way to hold & move your body comfortably (once you train your body to do that) while leaving very little of your head or torso open for attack. Once we were checked on this, it was onto basic movement: front & back, left & right, combos of both, repeat many times. It’s amazing how easily even a natural stance like the ‘C’ structure can be corrupted once you introduce basic movement. You’re concentrating so much on your feet & legs, your upper body & hands go right out the window. In their own direct & special way, both Coach Jones & Coach Brown made it very clear when we were messing this up & somehow, we regained our structure & continued to move (more) properly.
From there we moved onto the Jab, then the Cross, then how to work combos of both. As has been mentioned before on the forum, Coach Jones can & will go into excruciating detail on the minutiae of each of these weapons & their use & development. There were lots of drills for both punches, how incredible power is generated for each of them (especially the Cross & later, the Inside Hook) then more drills to work them in combos WHILE MAINTAINING STRUCTURE. Boxing is no different than any other martial delivery system: here’s the basic way to hold & move your body (stance), here are the most basic, important ways to defend & attack (how you strike with your natural weapons) from that structure, & then, here are some more juicy details to maximize the effectiveness of these two things acting in consonance with one another.
About half way thru the seminar we were divided up into beginners & the more advanced guys who had been attending on a regular basis. They looked good. It was clear that most of them had been working diligently on what they had been shown, which made it very easy for us newbies to see how effective the ‘C’ position could be used with more advanced way of moving around (bobbing/weaving/ducking/slipping) as well as working more sophisticated combos of punches. The noobs continued to work diligently on what we had been shown, trading off being the punching mitt holder & the puncher. Both points of view were extremely valuable. If you were holding the mitt, you could watch your partner move & punch & see/FEEL in your hand when it was being done correctly or incorrectly. Again, both Coach Jones & Brown were readily available for questions, anecdotes, and relentless attention to detail.
Finally, the last half hour of the seminar was devoted to FlowBoxing Torture. It was democratic in that it re-united beginner & advanced for a healthy dose of “What fresh Hell is this?” & then we found out as Coach Jones gleefully described what we were about to do & what his expectations of our performance were to be. The first drill is one I call ‘Jab 4s’ & it’s essentially isolating the jab & working it for 3 minutes in a count of 1, 1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4, repeat. The last drill is called a ’10-Drop’ & is adapted from Muay Thai. It’s basically an upward/downward pyramid drill of working the Jab/Cross combo. Keep in mind that at this point, we had been going pretty straight for about 3.5 hours & were, well, tired. Coach knew this & this is why he had us do these drills at this time. It served as both a high-pressure review of the material we had been trying to absorb all day & as a small lesson in what fatigue can do to your structure (& brain) & how you must push thru that pain & find your second wind. Very much in line with CST protocols when it comes to working metcon days on a 4X7 or, I’m sure, a tacfit session. If we absolutely found it necessary to take a small breather during the drills (this was NOT encouraged) then were to do so IN STRUCTURE. No leaning over, falling over, dropping hands, puking, no refunds, etc.
Coach did give us a little bit of a break. These last two drills were only 3 minutes long whereas MMA rounds go for 5 minutes. We still cursed him to the roots of our being, if only silently.
Impressions:
- Yes, Coach Jones (& Coach Brown) can punch very hard, very quickly, with very little effort & do so while moving around quickly & fluidly in (wait for it…)
- Structure, structure, structure. This is where you live & die, the platform from which everything is moved, launched & received. Drill it correctly, mindfully, 10,000 times, & it will not abandon you.
- Mechanics, not big muscles, are responsible for 90% of Power Generation. I will say that loose, mobile hips are KEY to achieving this, along with same in waist & back. The arms & legs are just along for the ride. We were all drilled on these things & felt the truth of them in our bodies, whether we were punching or holding the mitts. The difference is distinct & palpable, felt deeply in the body.
- Balance, which relates to maintaining structure. If you’re off balance, your opponent can quickly see/sense/feel it & exploit it.
- Conditioning – I’ve said this before to friends not involved in any kind of movement or MA training but you have to be in superb shape to be a mediocre fighter. Most of us were drag-ass tired before the FlowBoxing Torture session & of course, no one was hitting us. For myself, I tried to imagine holding up my structure while a skilled opponent beat on me for 5 rounds of 5 minutes. I had no illusions before the seminar that I had a long way to go & that was very definitely re-affirmed.
- All of us received enough information in the first hour to last us several weeks or months of reflection & solo work. The price of these seminars is ridiculously affordable given the openness & generosity of the Coaches, their attention to detail, & the quality & depth of information & instruction given. If you live anywhere near CA & you’re interested in the martial applications of CST movement, then GO.
Gotta get back to work but I’ll post more if something else leaps out at me. My strong thanks to Coach Dennis <grin> for his patience & organizational capacity (he moves pretty damn well too), Coach Jones for his expertise, generosity, & extremely affordable availability, & to Coach Brown for lending Coach Jones a very capable & knowledgeable hand.
I’ll see you all again in 3 months,
Patrick