Strength From Any Angle
The original quest in my young years as a martial artist was to be able to strike a knockout blow from any angle – whether standing, on the ground, in a dominating position or falling or being thrown to the ground. This was Long before anyone ever coined the termed Mixed Martial Arts.
Of course, in a real confrontation, you most certainly won’t find yourself often in an optimal position. You might be upside down, with your face smashed into the ground with one arm pinned behind your back. In that position, would you be able to hit with knockout force around up through your legs or around the backside of your head?
In order to prevail you might need to deliver such a punch some day. Have you trained that way?
How many traditional martial artist actually practice striking like this? Maybe more these days with the advent of MMA, but even so, even as ingenious much of this “new” training is, you see most of that training falling into the category of 2 dimensional training instead of three dimensional training.
After being highly influenced by Bruce Lee’s philospohies in my youth, it occurred to me that traditional martial arts training with countless repetitions striking from the most optimal angles was certainly not going to give me three dimensional striking power in a pinch – unless I started practicing it.
As a performer all my life as well, I’ve lived most of it by the addage that you’re only as good as your last performance. So, practice exactly what you’re going to perform and do it often!
I observed that if I continued training in striking from only certain angles as prescribed in all the martial arts I trained in, I would certainly become more capable at delivering powerful striking abilities – BUT probably ONLY if I found myself in one of those optimal positions – which, of course, is very unlikely going to happen in a real life unpredictable and ever-changing situation.
So, I began training striking from every awkward and weird angle I could come up with. Being an observer, you might have thought I was trying to tie myself up from the looks of the crazy positions I would be in sometimes.
It’s a workout like you can’t believe. When you first start training this way, you Feel pain from Every angle as well!
With the emphasis on striking as hard as possible from any angle, I found myself thinking different, training different and getting totally different results. I began seeing more possibilities of being stronger at any angle.
