I’d developed cellulitis in my thumb the week previous as a result of biting off a tiny piece of skin at the cuticle. I’d visited the Emergency Department five days earlier and had it examined, when it first began to swell. The human mouth contains more germs than a dog’s, apparently.
Are boxing, MMA and kickboxing unique in terms of the way each style deploys hand strikes?
Yes.
Ben Edwards is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of Australia’s most exciting – and experienced – combat athletes. Few fighters are qualified to comment on MMA, boxing and Kickboxing: Ben has excelled at all three.
T.T: How did you come to striking? Was it through a traditional martial art? How were you initially taught? Did those elements of style change once you started kickboxing?
B.E: I used to punch the shit out of my punching bag when I was a teenager.
This article, originally printed in International Kickboxer Magazine, is republished here as an introduction to ‘Bangin’ Ben. He was recently interviewed for this blog on the subject of striking and the way it differs for MMA, boxing and kickboxing. Ben is a unique authority, having fought at an international level as both a boxer and a kickboxer. He also stands poised in the brink of international competition as an MMA fighter.
What’s the difference between warming up for fitness and warming up for self-defence training?
One is psychological, the other is slightly physical. When I teach, I have three-tiered mindset: scared, angry and controlled mindset. Those are the three I play with. The warm up is about getting you into that frame of mind. Visualisation, self-talk. With fitness, there’s only a little bit of self-talk in that.
Jim Armstrong, Dean of Raw Combatives, deals with the vagaries of combat described by Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman in his seminal books On Combat and On Killing.
Grossman devised a scale to chart the way in which an individual’s motor control deteriorates when the heart rate becomes accelerated by the stress of an impending human conflict. While all accelerated heart rates result in a deterioration in performance, psychological stress is a different stimulus that brings a unique set of problems.
Do you have to train for the same activity differently, depending on the stress, even if the skills you employ are the same? Grossman says you do, the US military believe him and this is what Jim Armstrong thinks about it.
It was a strange feeling: I was bonded to them by more than a little bit of fear. The malocca was transformed into a throne room and the courtiers partied in the room below us. I sat on my throne, a giant black widow spider at either hand, remote in the shadows.
Shihan Cameron Quinn regales the Tyger with insights into why – and how – a rock climber comes to qualify as a warrior.
The ayahuasca, a thick, tar-green puree, ran into the glass. I raised it to my lips, held my breath, and attempted to pour it down my throat without tasting it. The flavour was like a fist squeezing the base of my tongue.
Excerpts taken from an interview with author Gary Taubes, posted on ‘Five Books’ website.
