Anderson Silva's Masterful Knee Strike

Ok, so before this is just completely old news I think I need to touch this once more. Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen. Anderson Silva won, twice, end of story. I have had this debate now online, at work and with lots of friends. I really surprised me that many people wanted to see him loose. 

I wanted to see him win. Fist objection: that was an illegal knee strike. My foremost thought is that he used an knee strike, TDK has those, teach them. But then I get to my point, if the knee strike was intend for the face, and somehow wound up just being a lucky shot, then the video does not back that up.

If you will notice his left foot come off the mat after he moved in for the shot, he did not spring forward. Had he sprung forward then the end result would have been knee to face, the mere fact that he lifted his left foot with no added momentum tell me that he intended for gravity to take over. He saw his target move lower so he adjusted; he lifted his left foot and let his knee strike fall on the target, in this case the sternum. I think it was masterful.

Second objection: It was rigged and Sonnen threw the fight to set up fight three. Let me start by saying I don’t find Sonnen to be that type of fighter, next I would ask who in their right mind would want to throw a fight by getting the sternum crushed. The amount of damage that could potentially cause is not worth it, you could seriously mess someone up with that. He was fine, seemingly, after the fight but who would willingly submit themselves to that move from Anderson Silva?

The decanters are telling me, “well it’s not like Sonnen to throw the spinning back fist and when he hit the ground he waited for Anderson to do something.” They are finding this move out of character and still think the fight was staged. I say this, he added a new move to his repertoire, and people that are progressive do that all the time. Had he connected with that move it would have knocked the snot out of Silva. Also when he was on the ground I believe the hesitation was due to him either thinking Silva would begin the leg kicks and try to jump to a punch, or he was going to look for the safe chance to spring to his feet. Or he might have thought it was a safe spot to be, since he was kicking the crap out of Silva on the ground. 

http://www.studiomma.com/2012/07/08/andersons-knee-didnt-finish-sonnen-his-right-hand-did/

As this writer points out the knee strike was not the only good shot Silva landed. 

http://msn.foxsports.com/ufc/story/chael-sonnen-coach-angling-for-anderson-silva-rematch-071012

And as fox sports alluded to, I hope they do not fight again. I don’t want to see it.

One more note: Have you ever been taught in TKD to attack the solar plexus? I bet you have, in sparring it’s common and in the forms it’s prevalent. Go teach the knee strike now, a lot.

Peace.

Judges are half the battle

This turn out, in my opinion, is so that Bradley can hold on to the title and then fight Mayweather, who will beat him and silence the decenters as to who would have won in a mayweather vs pacquiao fight. 

I might be going overboard but when every columnist on the web is saying Pacquiao won that fight, guess what, Pacquiao should have won that fight. Aside from the suspicion that it was rigged, the judges are half the fight. Being from an ITF camp I learned this early on. Anyone that has had to apply a hybrid form to their fighting style knows that, although you feel dumb yelling, keeeyyyaaaaah!!!! On ever kick you land to the stomach, it makes all the difference in the world to the judges. 

I hope they rematch and Pacquiao get to redeem this situation. Or I hope Bradley clearly beats Manny, but until then boxing is going to lose more and more viewers. And for anyone that thinks it’s not a dying sport just look at the UFC. The heavyweight champion in the UFC right now is all boxing. He is beating people with boxing and more and more boxing fans are going to migrate their attention to facts like that and viewership will shift more than it already has.

Peace.

http://news.yahoo.com/pacquiao-vs-bradley-results-produce-controversial-tim-bradley-054100091--box.html

http://www.mmamania.com/2012/6/10/3075899/pacquiao-vs-bradley-results-recap-from-last-night-manny-pacquiao-robbed-timothy-bradley

http://www.sbnation.com/2012/6/10/3075914/pacquiao-vs-bradley-results-and-post-fight-analysis

Lyoto's Next Fight

Cannot wait to see this fight. I want to see him get his game back. I'm sure he has gotten better from his recent losses, we always do.


http://mmajunkie.com article below;

http://mmajunkie.com/news/28483/ryan-bader-vs-lyoto-machida-added-to-ufc-on-fox-4-in-los-angeles.mma

TKD Forms Discusion

Me at a tournament long ago, flying side kick, took 2nd.

 

Boy oh boy, this is my topic. Today I came across some people who have had a really polite, yet disagreeable, topic on the net and I find that refreshing. They were opinionated but not in a rude way. I love talking about the forms. I know some WTF forms but I have never been coached on the applications of the moves, however I had great coaching on the ITF forms.

My instructors broke down every move, as they felt it applied, and did a pretty through job. I have a largely analytical mind, so I broke the ITF forms down even further than I have ever been taught. If you look at the belt meanings and back ground the forms become important because they  teach you history of Korea, from a Korean perspective. I feel it’s really important to get out of your way of thinking, from time to time, and listen to other perspectives. Very refreshing.

http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=328347&page=10

I implore you to read through the above link and hear them out. Again, they only speak from their perspectives, being what they know, and although I may disagree I respected what they said. You have to take criticism like theirs constructively and ask yourself a question; are the forms to teach you TKD as a martial art, or as a martial sport? From my perspective it looks like that has been the discussion all along in TKD, is it real or is it “sport real”. I enjoy the sport, but if you know me then you know I side with the martial art philosophies.

Sport strategies I believe can be taught in drills and by sparing, but the forms are what are going to preserve the martial art; therefore I am for keep the integrity of the ITF forms and maintaining their martial teachings. The sport has grown over the last three decades into something bigger than what most could have seen coming, but sports change. This one already has, so if you continuously change the forms then you lose the true teachers of the founders.

Although I am athletic, I don’t fancy myself an athlete, but instead a martial artist. I hope that rings true with you as you read my writings, and even if you are heavy into the sport I would hope you could come to see the difference in perspectives. (If you don’t already)

So I know a lot about ITF forms, some about WTF forms, but ATA forms I don’t really know. They seemed to have started their own thing; I have never really looked into it. But here are their forms.

http://www.segalsata.com/additional.php?id=33

They seem to have evolved from ITF, obviously because of some of the patterns, but when I have seen ATA guys perform them at tournaments they seem like they are done for show. I would like to learn more about the approach in teaching ATA perspective. I will leave off with that.

Peace.

Terrence Jennings's Olympic Dream

I like Terrence Jennings's style, I also like that it's because of Ninja Turtles that he got into martial arts. I don't know for a fact, but I'd imagine they were a motivating factor for me too. Check out the link below to read the GPB's article on him.


http://www.gpb.org/news/2012/04/24/olympians-arc-from-ninja-turtles-to-london?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GPBNewsFeed+%28GPB+News%29



Best Ninja Turtle fight scene ever, in my opinion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdtM66SxZeI&feature=related

Funny thing about this fight scene is that I feel it's easy to relate too. Their comes a point, some times, when you surpass someone you, either regarded as better than you or, that trained you. It's a hard feeling to handle if you are the humble type. If you are the spit-fire proud type you may never understand this, but when you beat the ones you hold in high esteem it can actually break your esteem in some ways. It's almost humbling in the end and not at all fulfilling. If you ever come across this emotion remember; humility is the correct feeling to have that that junction.