Kyokushin karate speed kick tutorial

This is Kenji Midori, a famous Karate teacher who was an Open Kyokushin champion. He is well known for his kicks as you can see in this round kick demo and tutorial. The kyokushin kick is slightly different than in Muay Thai in that Kyokushin tend to chamber their kicks. Chambering refers to the knee being raised before being released to kick. This tend to create a more hipping kick than the the Muay Thai roundhouse. I prefer the Muay Thai style kick myself but many fighters who come from Kyokushin background has proven the effectiveness of their style of kicking. The baseball bat breaking demo was awesome.

The Brazillian Kick tutorial

Kar Lok keeps saying he loves the downward roundhouse kick as seen in some K-1 fighters. So this clip is especially for him. The kick is usually called Maha mawashi geri in Japanese. Maha is Japanese for Mach and mawashi geri is roundhouse kick. I guess they call it the mach kick because the kick's speed is like the speed of breaking the speed of sound. The popular name for the kick is the "Brazillian Kick". This is because the Brazilians were the ones who popularised using it in competitions. The K-1 fighters who are known for using this kick are usually Brazillian and have a background in Kyokushin Karate.

Dog Style kungfu!

This is a clip of Fujian Dishu Quan (Fujian Ground Boxing), also known as Fujian Gou Quan (Dog style). The second name is not very glamourous so people usually call it Ground Boxing. It's full of ground fighting techniques that focuses on kicks, rolling and sweeps. It's a very demanding style and I liken it to learning breakdancing. It'll build up the body tremendously. I would have love dto learn this kungfu style when I was young. I think the physical attributes one would build up training this will carry over to almost any other nartial arts styles in the future. I also think the ground fighting techniques themselves are worth to learn. It's totally different than what is thought of groundfighting these days with the dominance of BJJ but I think it can be useful. In fact I've seen afew Japanese shooto fighting rolling around, doing leg sweeps and kicks from the ground that could have come out from Fujian Ground Boxing. At the very least you can start doing a form on the dance floor and look cool :D

MMA in China: Art of War HL clip

This is a HL clip of the Art of War events in China. Art of War is a professional MMA event. They seemed very professional and surprisingly the MMA rules used seem to be the most NHB (No Holds Barred) I've seen today. It looks like they allow stomps, soccer kicks and even elbows. Even though I am more of a kickboxing fan and stylist, I think it's a great direction for combat sports in China. I've always thought that MMA is a natural progression for most Sanda/ Sanshou fighters rather than crossing over to other kickboxing formats such as K-1. This event seems to have alot of Sanda fighters competing. Enjoy the clip. There are others available that I've yet to check out and even the matches themselves.

Peter Aerts HL

Peter Aerts is one of the great old K-1 heavyweight champion that are still competing and still competitive. You guys should now know what Ducth style Muay Thai is like after all the clips I've posted. Peter Aerts is from Holland and he has the classic Ducth style of fighting. He's known for his kicks as you can see in the HL clip, hence his nickname is the Lumberjack. Enjoy!

Sambo in the NY Times!

Some of you guys might know that I love all good martial arts. I have a strong interest in grappling before but decided to focus on striking for the last couple of years, thus training solely in san shou at first then muay thai. One of the grappling styles that I have a strong interest in is Sambo. It's a Russian style of jacket wrestling. It's similar to judo but they wear shorts instead, can do leg submissions and have alot more wrestling influence instead. Sambo is not all wrestling though. They also can include striking and one of their competition formats that allow strikes is called Combat Sambo which is basically MMA. Anyway there is a new article introducing Sambo in the NY Times! I can't believe the NY Times did a martial arts article. Awesome! Have a read and enjoy.

Sambo in NY Times

Muay Thai KO HL

Old but good HL clip of various matches from Thailand. Great KOs in this clip. I find Muay Thai matches in Thailand tend to mostly be a grinding clinching affair most of the time so this is very entertaining to watch. Lots of elbows KOs too which is rare. Watch out particularly for the KO at the 42sec mark. The fighter in red shorts throws down his opponent and kicks him as he lands before the referee can stop it. Very nasty and a bit on the grey side but shows that anything can happen. Getting that last kick in on your opponent before the ref can stop you seems to be more common in Thailand than overseas.