Hi all,
Here's a few drills I worked on the heavy bag recently. I'm always looking at ways to vary my training to keep things fresh. These drills are inspired by Iain;s restricted striking drills on the focus mitts. I always enjoyed the focus mitt drills in the dojo, these drills are a nice substitute. They miss the reactive element but you can still fire in big shots. Btw the keepy uppys are a killer :) Hope you enjoy.
Cheers
Brian
Solid drills as always Brian! Thanks for posting.
To give credit where it is due, such drills became part of my practise and teaching as a result of training under Geoff Thompson. It was a big part of Geoff teaching practically, technically and philosophically.
Practically – In reality, we rarely get the kind of perfection we often conveniently create for ourselves on the pads and bags. It’s important to practise hitting from non-ideal situations.
Technically – Your technique needs to be good to generate meaningful impact when your striking weapon only as a few inches to move. Geoff would therefore encourage us to position the pad where the impact felt poor and practise from there.
Philosophically – Geoff’s ability to blend “blood and snot” practically with philosophical ideas is unparalleled. For these drills, Geoff would encourage us to “find” the impact, and then would relate realer this to the restrictive situations life can put us in. We have to find strengths, talents and insights that situation requires. This always remained me of this famous quote from Horace: “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.”
Below are a couple of videos on restrictive striking from seminars past.
All the best,
Iain