Interested in Faji but not interested in fighting

[cloudz]

Thanks. Will definitely check out the video. Alas, I probably won't have a chance to really learn striking, which is seeming more and more interesting.

I believe he said it is his level 1 beginner idea, and probably agrees it's for entering, but he'll have to answer you. I tried it (against level 1 simple one-punch-at-a-time kind of exercise) and what I liked about it as a beginner was:
- stable structure so you can more easily feel that structure for blocks
- seems easy to transition to two hand high guard position
some tradeoffs:
- can't keep one hand high, one low, one back, one front, simultaneous block, punch, etc.
- can't really do a variety of angled strikes or some kind of big haymaker, etc.

Yes look sure, it's a useful concept. Nothing that revelatory in that you could look at 'crazy monkey' or even Tysons peek a boo style. Or think of something as simple as keeping your hands up. I know John well and it's not really a criticism; his style (at least a big part of it) is to get to his strong area which is wrestling. If you recognise these as entries, I know he does, you have to have your clinching/ wrestling down, otherwise you need to tailor things to your gameplan(s).

John has his style, some stuff I like, other stuff is not so much for me. That's all really, I think both of us can be pretty honest about how we feel about things without any worries or anymosity.

[cloudz]

If I'll teach someone just 1 technique so he can use it to fight, that will be the "rhino guard". It's one technique that can be used for both offense and defense. It's like holding a shield and spear.

If you can protect your head, you will have courage. Courage will give you confidence, speed, and commitment. When you use "rhino guard" to protect your head, and run toward your opponent like a mad man, most of the time, you can scare him to death.

The main strategy of the "rhino guard" is you don't allow your opponent's punch to come in between your arms. If your opponent tries to punch you from either side of your arms, his head will be exposed at that moment. So the "rhino guard" is to protect your head, but force your opponent's to expose his head.

While you expose everything from the neck down?
It's all good mate.. just friendly banter. If you ran towards me i'd be on my bike too.

Also whilst you can protect the side of your head pretty well, the uppercut would be pretty hard to deal with I think?

[cloudz]

Thanks, because of limited time and talent (all of us have the first issue, some of us have the second), what I want to do is follow 80/20 rules (made a thread for this but I guess it wasn't provocative enough) as Tim Ferriss advocates a lot for learning languages and everything else, so I first learn 20% of some material that provides some 80% of benefit. Then go on to the next layer of the onion and whatever that next 20% is.

If rhino guard is a good step toward that first 20%, I'm fine with that. George/cloudz, I think the material you'd have me do would kinda be the rest of that first 20% or maybe a few steps beyond. I find it hard to identify the 20% so am kinda lazily waiting for RSF to tell me. My assumption is that is the same 20% of basics that experts tend to do the most of (but at a top level), so I suppose by my definition, rhino guard can't be all of that 20%.

Just to give you an idea of some fundamentals for striking that I'd take you through. Incidentally whilst I would work on clinch wrestle simultaniously they are seperated. I prefer to work on them seperately, tailored to our gameplan(s) then as we progress through sparring drills we look at integration, tactics bewteen ranges, that kind of thing.

But let's just cover some striking basics to get you going.

Guards - I'd probably give you two, and we would cover transitioning between them. One would be on the front foot, the other one is covered in the video.
But basically there like a mirror of eachother. As you shift your weight forward from the rear guard in the video your rear hand swaps places with the front and viola yoyu are in ward off.

Then we work opposite side, so you'll end up with 4 basic positions/ guards.

Then we put in some footwork drills. forward, back, side to side, diagonal, pivot/circle, switching

Then we put in some body movements: slips and dodges, laybacks, rotations, ducks, rolls

Then we put in the basic defences. covers, parries, deflections, low kick checks, mid to high kick catches.

Then we give you some offense: some kicks, hands, elbows, knees

That's probably about as basic as I could do it. The order could be mixed in a little, so for example we can start some padwork on basic striking etc. So with that training outlined above there would be some pad work and shadowboxing drills and some simple attack defense sparring drills as you go along at appropriate times. Until we can arrive at a place where you can spar freely with light to medium contact with it.

[everything]

Thanks a lot, that sounds really good. I think all the threads lately have really motivated me to want to go learn some of this. One of my kids took up MA recently so we've messed around figuring out some punching sparring but we don't know what we're doing. Still super fun. He visited a local karate school (not going there) where they spar early on, so kinda in the back of my mind to join them at some point. This is like priority 3 or 4 after some other sports/activities, though, for better or worse. There are just too many fun things to do!

[johnwang]

1. While you expose everything from the neck down?

2. Also whilst you can protect the side of your head pretty well, the uppercut would be pretty hard to deal with I think?

Good questions.

1. If my opponent punches my chest, his head will be opened. If he kicks at me, I can lift up my leg and jam his kick.
2. When my opponent uses uppercut at me, his uppercut arm can be shorter than my rhino guard extend arms. Before his uppercut can reach to my chin, my rhino guard can smash on his face. When I move in for a head lock, his uppercut will be jammed by our body contact. The uppercut doesn't work will during head lock. The issue is whether I can get my opponent into a head lock faster than his uppercut can hit my chin. That will be the ancient old "When wrestler meets boxier, who will win" question.

The "rhino guard" is designed for the following reasons:

- It's used to open a "boxing guard" when my opponent's arms are protecting his head well.
- My rhino guard will make my opponent's jab and cross not effective. The reason is simple. My both arms already occupy the space that his straight jab and cross try to deliver. This will force him to use hook and uppercut. This will also force him to open his head.
- My both hands are very close to my opponent's face. The moment that his arms moves away from his head, the moment that I'll move in for a "head lock".

This clip shows that to execute a head lock can be as fast as to throw a punch. When your opponent moves in and tries to punch you, if you move in at the same time (this require courage and "rhino guard" just give you that courage), the clinch can be established quickly. The moment that you can bend your opponent's spin side way, the moment that the striking game is over.