Jon Bones Jones is still the Champ

I had a great night watching UFC 165.  The truly great match last night was Jon Jones title defense against Gustafson.  Great fight. Perhaps Fight of the Year. Five rounds of drama and action. Virtually all stand-up. Some creative and great stuff.

They're both huge, both young (26) and it was the first time we've seen Jones struggle.  The web is full of people calling the match fixed and misjudged and all that nonsense but to my eye, Jones won it.  Even if he wasn't the champ, he won it.  But this could be the start of  a great long term rivalry.

Gus probably won the 1st and 2nd rounds. The 3rd was debatable. Jones won rounds 4 and 5. Gus almost got finished in the 4th, another 30 seconds and he was done.  I think round 4 might have been the only 2 point lead round. And while I gave the 2nd to Gus, Jones did get in a pretty solid head kick to Gus in round 2. I would have scored, 1 point to Gus for each of 1-3, 2 points to Jones for 4, and 1 point to Jones for 5.  So I would have had it a draw.

The judges scores were 48-47, 48-47, and 49-46.  Whomever said 49-46.... bad judging.

But overall, there are rules of thumb for these matches.
 1. To beat the champ, you must BEAT the champ.
 2. Don't leave it in the hands of the judges.
3. Finish with momentum.

Jones hung tough, came back, won it. He earned his stripes last night. But the big point is: REMATCH!!!!

Lavallees - a blended school

I'd like to better understand the blend of systems that makes up my martial arts training. As I understand it, we have blended different systems for our kata, curriculum, and bugo. Here's what I know: I'd like to know more, please chime in...

A Kenpo Base - The first few kata, Short One, Long One, and Short Two, are derived from the US Kenpo tradition . Our versions of the katas are shorter than the originals. Bookset too is kenpo based. And I quote from KLS68 who commented on Youtube about the bookset kata...Very good form, it is much differant than the original bookset. its much shorter....this is a kenpo style kata.Steve Lavallee trained under Lee Thompson which is tracey style kenpo... i believe william chow introduced it to the US through Ed Parker and his first students the Tracy brothers. Al, Will and Jim Tracy who then started the Tracy system.

Extreme Martial Arts - We do two open kata, XMA Form One and XMA Form Two, which are XMA-based. The XMA Sword Form 1 also is from XMA.

We often work in our drills and curriculum on Muy Thai kicks; MMA grappling and takedowns; and JuJitsu and in our drills and curriculum.

The chuck is a Japanese weapon. Our Chuck Form One and Chuck Form Two were developed in house.

American Bo Form- The American Bo Form was provided by Jason David Frank, a sixth degree black belt who has his own blended style of karate, Toso Kune Do, with four schools in Texas. Jason is well-known for his years as a Power Ranger.

The Kama Set is from Taekwondo as is kama set two. Kama Set Two is a form that was created by Roland Osborne and is a creative form (not from TKD). Roland was originally a student under Jason David Frank (both are lineage of Red Dragon Karate) and now runs his own schools. (thanks to Mr Dan Walsh for this addition).

Some of our self defense techniques were derived from Kenpo which while very effective, requires real precision to use the right moves from the right position. Lavallees has shifted during the last three years to a reference point-based approach which is derived from Israeli Krav Mega. There are three posts about our self defense. One is a demo of BJJ Standup Self Defense by Kyoshi, one collects many of the Rear Choke Release , and the other Bear Hug Releases from Behind.

Our bugo is kickboxing. When sparing, we mostly don't grapple or use knees, elbows, or leg kicks.

Logar Shin is kung fu inspired.

The Ki Chung Kata is fromf tae kwon do origin. It's nearly identical to kama set but uses open hands

One note - I am just a student at Lavallees. This is only my personal opinion and thoughts, it is in no way an official statement by the school or Kyoshi. I hope you all understand that. The thoughts and misunderstandings are all mine. Feel free to correct me.In fact, Correct Me. If you are my friend..

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MMA take down defense this week

The last week of classes have taught us how to respond when people try to take you down with a two leg takedown tackle. I wish I had video but the choices are to:
- turn into a sideways horsestance so one leg is unreachable. Then down elbow on their lowered back. Game over.
- stay straight on but drop into a near horsestance while getting one arm around their throat in a guillotine choke and pulling up on your wrist with the other arm. If properly done, the attacker goes nighty-night quick.
- sprawl your legs out and put your weight into him, pushing his head down. As he charges, hop backward keeping your legs out of reach. As the charge ends, knee hard up to his head or chest.

We also learned how to deal with an attempted grab from the front into a bear hug. You turn mostly sideways hip checking the attacked while grabbing him 50-50 (one arm around his back, the other gripping his bicept).

At Friday night MMA happy hour, Kyoshi taught how, if they do get the two leg take down, how to roll down into it and lock your legs around the attacked while controlling his head. When he pulls back, you push and get your legs onto his hips to push him up while standing up properly.

I liked the lessons since they had a real-world feel to me in that the oukis charged in instead of just grabbing us as we stood still. Since I don't have video, I looked for and found a discussion of this online. Found it at DefendU (isn't the web amazing! It took me about a minute).

Other news: I hurt my back again but, I think I know why. Both times, it came early in a week after I visited the gym on Sunday and Monday for swimming and eliptical. One of those two activities is leaving my back vulnerable (sore or tired).

And my eldest daughter is turning 15. I think 15 is the new 16. I don't like it. Why can't she just keep being a happy little girl?

Lastly, I bought a bunch of fight books and have rented some videos recently (ie redbelt). Stay tuned....

MMA night

Kyoshi Steve Lavallee taught class Friday night, a class of pure MMA. After a quick warm-up, we did some leg kicks (gently) and learned three ways to avoid a leg kick: back-up to out distance it, block with your shin, or lean into it.


We worked the lean into it defense and followed it by a two handed leg grab attack.


Then the kicker, now being attacked by a two legged leg grab, responded with a hip check with a cupped hand on the chin and a grip on the elbow. We'd lean with the hip while pulling on the elbow and sweep him to his back and going into a knee mount. Then, we have the guy in position for a little "pound and ground".


We pushed the sequence a little further. The guy on the bottom (the original kicker) just protects himself. The guy on top, posts both arms over his head and shifts to a full mount. More pound and ground. We also practicee dismounting into a knee mount on either side. And returning.


We ended by adding a submission move. Basically, you put a choke on the guy on the bottom. The steps:
- Put your right hand around his neck and lean down with your head just to the left of his head capturing his right arm in the grip.
- Make a cup with the right hand, saucer with the left. Close the choke with the left hand around the neck.
- To tighten further, which is not always necessary, dismount to the left to a 90 angle maintaining the choke and staying face down. To tighten, push up and forward from your toes till he taps out. Or goes to sleep.

I've missed some of the MMA classes which is frustrating. Also, since it's spaced out, it feels a little too episodic, not enough like a curriculum. I'm hoping that when the MAUI center opens, there'll be more regular MMA classes.






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More MMA - Answers to questions

I just received some questions about the shift to MMA.
- Are the kenpo instructors competent to teach MMA?
- Do we like it?
- Will all the Lavallee schools shift?

In terms of competence, I think they are. They certainly know alot more than we students do and since they train many days / week with Kyoshi, I think they are strong. With that said, I have noticed more than on the old katas, that some details are not quite worked out among them.

I like it. I've never minded wrestling. I got my practice through my older brother who wrestled in high school and use to practice on me.

I have no idea how much this shift is just an experiment and how much it is a trend that will radiate out to the other schools. I know that they are using us a guinea pigs to get a sense of how much we can learn and how much we like it.

And learning submission moves is just so cool. It's very technical but when you slip in to the right position and everything clicks, its great.

This post sponsored, like much of this blog, by Time4Learning with has great third grade math lessons, fourth grade math activities, and fifth grade math printable worksheets.