Do you know the three martial arts basics?

Do you know the three martial arts basics?

Practicing any martial art or finding time to concentrate on some aspect of them can be quite a minefield. We now live in an age where everything is so fast and have so many labour saving devices and yet we still cannot find the time to fit everything in. Everyone and everything wants a piece of our precious time.
My daily workouts always starts with stretching and mobility drills and as I become older I know that we start to loose flexibility and mobility although having said that you really can stop it from happening if you move everyday.

If you pushed for time or even if you just want to know what to practice you will not go wrong in doing the three basic elements contained in your martial arts.
The number one thing is Posture this not only means you have to have good posture but it also means you have to take your opponents posture to make any technique work on him. I was training on the beach one day and I came across a young man and his coach doing kicking pad drills.

Every time the young man kicked he would lean back and the higher his leg went the more he would lean and give up his posture. If he connected with anything he would surely fall down as he was not in a stable position to recover. Then we look at mental posture and is your mind in the right place? Are you thinking that you will loose the fight before it even starts? Can you take the opponents mind? Then there is environmental posture. What are your surroundings like? Has it been raining or are there concrete posts near by that you could fall on. All these things have to be taken into account.

After posture there is Footwork and for me it is one of the things that is so underestimated in martial arts. Footwork takes you into positions to allow you to attack or defend and of course a moving target is much harder to deal with. Don’t forget no one is just going to stand there and let you hit them!!! It is no surprise that UFC training involves 40% of time spent on footwork and getting into positions to hit or evade and or doing multiple other foot work drills.There is a good reason why even in these times when we have so many advanced methods and equipment that boxers still choose to use the humble skipping rope. So get skipping!!!

Elbows in, now this may sound easy to you but the amount of people who do not follow this simple principle is frightening. They will reach or try and climb on top of the opponent. Let me explain any time you take your elbows away from your core you are weak. When driving a car we are a natural position with elbows in. If we catch some thing heavy that someone has thrown at us we look to absorb it into our core and our elbows will naturally bend and stay at our sides. If you are reaching to get to your opponent then it is obvious that you did not use your footwork to get into the correct position. You are now thinking but how can I punch with my elbows at my side? If you are in the correct position you will then have all of the full extension of your arm to go through the opponent with more power and not solely trying to jab him from far away. I practice walking martial arts where I go through the opponent at all times and if I turn my body I should be in range to hit him with a knee, elbow or anything else for that matter. This requires you to do all three elements above at the same time.
Remember the basics and the advanced stuff is easy!

Posture
Footwork
Elbows in

Thank you for reading the article and be safe.
All the best
GM Angelo