Elite Training Center: Redondo

Bruce Lee didn’t like styles. He didn’t even like his own style, Jeet Kune Do, called a style. His point was that a style was essentially a set of unchanging guidelines that did not react or adapt. Like the “ancient knowledge” I’ve already discussed, some martial arts styles were perceived to be perfect, complete, and above reproach. A martial artist essentially has to conform to the techniques used by the style.

Bruce Lee started with Kung Fu, but eventually founded his own “non-”style, Jeet Kung Do
There are many parallels in other disciplines. You can’t just decide what reality you want to choose when you’re a scientist. Science is the continuous, self-correcting cycle of observing nature and attempting to explain it. Anyone who practices science is expected to abide by the results of the experiment or study. For example, if your experiment determines the age of the earth to be 5 billion years old, you can’t just say “I don’t like that” and throw it away. In science, the truth is paramount. Therefore, the scientist adapts to evidence.

Likewise, a martial artist needs a framework in which to learn. A new student must adhere to the codes of conduct for the classroom. Even people with an inherent distrust of styles have to admit that there must be some framework to base the teaching on. How, then, can you learn without a style? What advantages does it confer?

Bruce Lee eloquently used the analogy of water. If you put water in a cup, it “becomes” the cup (at least in shape). If you put it in a pot, it “becomes” the pot. It reacts and flows according to the situation. Water can yield to pressure, or crashes against something. Even though water is usually considered soft, anyone who has done a very well executed belly-smacker into a pool knows it can be very hard as well.

Whether or not styles are good or bad is not really worth debating, in my opinion. Given the entire breadth of martial art techniques, a style is simply a set of techniques loosely tied together into a theme. Karate is a style. Tae Kwon Do is a style. Other styles include Aikido, Hapkido, Kung Fu, Jui Jitsu, Krav Maga, Sambo, and many others. Each style can have variations with it, such as Shotokan Karate vs. Okinawa Karate. Each style has its own set of traditions, rules, and techniques. To compare styles is extremely difficult, and probably not worth the effort to do so. What criteria would you use? The obvious one would be whoever’s style could beat up all the others. But, in what case? One on one? With weapons? In some cases, it’s almost a “rock, paper, scissors” affect, where some styles are better in some situations, and others are weaker. Would you compare which styles have the most practitioners? Which ones train the hardest? Which ones make the martial artist a better person (it is, after all, a way of life, not a means for life. Martial artists don’t all aspire to be in the next professional fighting championship.)? In other words, styles are neutral. It doesn’t make sense to try to compare styles, and more than likely the style that would be regarded as the best would just so happen to be the same style practiced by the person making the comparison.

If no one style is the “best”, then how do we choose a style? Why are there styles at all? Part of it is certainly cultural (ie. Korean and Chinese martial arts). Styles were the product of their people, and, just as cultures differed, so did styles. Styles also focus what the students learn. This is important because we can’t know everything about fighting. In order to make it more manageable, skilled fighters created systems, which evolved into styles, to teach others their techniques for fighting. As the styles evolved, the techniques became very diverse and there is considerable overlap between styles.

What’s the problem with styles, then? Well, there really isn’t. Where the problem lies is in the application of style. Like I said in the beginning, the issues arise when the style becomes perfect, complete, and above reproach. This isn’t the problem of the style, but in the way the practitioners apply it. There is probably a sizable subset of martial artists who have proclaimed their art to be the best of all styles. It is certainly a bold proclamation, but not uncommon. It isn’t strange to believe that what you have chosen to do is the best.

Though natural, there are several problems with this. Something that is Perfect does not need to be changed. Once you make the connection that something is perfect, you no longer attempt to revise it. The danger is that you will stop testing it. There is no weakness. There are no avenues for improvement. You must “follow the path” to achieve this perfection, and failure means that you have not “followed the path” well enough. This is a slippery slope where eventually the highest state of achievement is unattainable, simply because any failure is immediately blamed by our divergence from the path and not the path itself. It is extremely difficult for me to imagine that there are things of our devising that could not be improved.

A great example of this comes straight from the origins of martial arts, and that’s the art of warfare. Without getting into any debates on the relative morality of war, is it safe to say that we as a species have ever achieved the perfect system for war? When we had bronze weapons, iron weapons came along and made bronze obsolete. Any army that did not have iron weapons was soon defeated. Likewise, with the Macedonian phalanx, a revolutionary style of fighting, Alexander the Great’s armies swept through the Persian Empire. The Roman Legions defeated the Phalanxes of Greece. Longbows trumped the simple bows and arrows of their time. Heavily armored knights ruled the battlefield of their days, but disappeared after the invention of firearms. Huge armies of musket wielding soldiers reigned for hundreds of years until the familiar accoutrements of war began showing up. Artillery. Bombs. Airplanes. Grenades. Tanks. Battleships. Carriers. Missiles. Intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with multiple independently targeted thermonuclear warheads. As scary as all that it, it does have a few valid points. How we wage war is a constant, ever-evolving process. You cannot argue with the notion that because of this, we can now destroy stuff on a level that the not even the ancient Greeks thought their gods capable of. Because we continually adapted and evolved our style of warfare, we have made it extremely capable.

If the technology of warfare has evolved for thousands of years, then can we believe that some martial arts have been around for that long, unchanging and perfect? The martial arts have almost certainly evolved, and they have been doing so since they were first created. It is not tenable for some martial arts to claim perfection, or to even claim that they are not changing. An unchanging martial art is effectively stagnant, and its practitioners are limited by its traditions and techniques. This doesn’t mean that they are bad techniques, or even that the art itself isn’t effective. However, martial arts, like any art, is enriched by a constant spring of new ideas and perspectives. To declare an art perfect or the best is denying that further advancement.

The martial arts are not on so grandiose a scale, or even as sobering a subject as modern war (though personal self defense will quickly surpass any other concerns if it should become necessary). It is very important to realize that knowledge is a continual process that should always be expanding. Sometimes, it is important not just to expand the art, but to rediscover parts of the art that were forgotten or neglected. There are some dangers with this mindset, though. Change for the sake of change will certainly lead to a dilution and marginalization of the art. There is an important point I mentioned earlier, and that’s the notion of validation. It may be that everything in the art is perfect (as it can be), and that there is no good reason to change anything. This is fine as long as there is a good reason. More than likely, most martial arts already have a set of techniques that are very well validated, and have good reasons to back up their use. The problem is when a teacher makes the implied assumption that everything is already ideal. The best teachers can say why a technique is ideal, rather than “my instructors taught me this way.” They may very well have, but they did because they knew it was the right technique (and why), not just because their teachers did it.

Bruce Lee was afraid that the arts were turning into immobile, inadaptable entities. Students were forced to bend to the style, but the style was not able to adapt to match all situations. He wanted the “style” to be the student’s, so that everything the student did was natural for him or her. I.e., “become the cup.” My personal philosophy is somewhere in the middle. Any new student needs a framework for learning. Even Jeet Kung Do has evolved into a more-or-less specified style based on Bruce Lee’s original writings. Styles also offer the traditional aspects that are hugely important for students. There is nothing good that could come from teaching students how to hurt others without the philosophical discipline that martial arts almost universally provide.

A style should also have the capacity for change, but only when necessary and appropriate. Like a scientific theory, the basics should only apply as long as they can explain or produce a result in a specific way. A lot of purists may find this concept distasteful, but the mere application of tradition should not prevent needed changes. A good example would be a case where new scientific evidence indicates that a certain stretch or exercise does more harm than good. (Note that I use evidence, not proof. Science is the most powerful concept ever created by our species, but it does not deal in proof. There can be a great deal of certainty even without proof, though.) A style should reconsider the exercise or stretch, weighing the importance of the stretch within the confines of the traditions of the art with the significance of the scientific evidence.

I want to reemphasize that styles should not be moving targets. They have their own rich history, etiquette, and techniques. To adapt a style to the whim of the current instructor would not be appropriate. However, what keeps a style relevant and effective is it’s willingness to validate and adapt. You won’t find too many armies out there practicing the cavalry charge. In order to stay relevant, all armies had to adapt to the new technologies. The martial arts may move more slowly, but the same principles apply.

To be a true warrior you must show it in everything that you do…it is not a coat you shed on and off when it suits you…it is a responsiblty that most ignore…people think you throw some punches and kicks and you are a true warrior…The true meaning of being a warrior is “To Serve”….not yourself but others and thru this service you find your true self and meaning to life as a warrior…if you can’t look at yourself in the mirror and ask the question ” what did I do to help someone else achive their goals today” and truly have an answer then maybe you need to spend more time in doing so….in the end our legacy is who we helped in life…think then ask yourself..” who have I helped today”..!

Great Boxing philosophy artical

By Professor Gordon Marino

“Know thyself” was the Socratic dictum, but Tyler Durden, the protagonist in the movie “Fight Club,” asks, “How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?” Although trainers of the bruising art wince at the notion that boxing equals fighting, there can be no doubt that boxing throws you up against yourself in revealing ways. Take a left hook to the body or a trip to the canvas, and you soon find out whether you are the kind of person who will ever get up.

For a decade, I have been teaching both boxing and philosophy. My academic colleagues have sometimes reacted to my involvement with the sweet science with intellectual jabs and condescension. A few years ago at a philosophy conference, I mentioned that I had to leave early to go back to the campus to work with three of my boxers from the Virginia Military Institute who were competing in the National Collegiate Boxing Association championships. Shocked to learn that there was such a college tournament, one professor scolded, “How can someone committed to developing minds be involved in a sport in which students beat one another’s brains out?” I explained that the competitors wore protective headgear and used heavily padded 16-ounce gloves in competition as well as in practice, but she was having none of it. “Headgear or not,” she replied, “your brain is still getting rattled. Worse yet, you’re teaching violence.”

I countered that if violence is defined as purposefully hurting another person, then I had seen enough of that in the philosophical arena to last a lifetime. At the university where I did my graduate studies, colloquia were nothing less than academic gunfights in which the goal was to fire off a question that would sink the lecturer low. I pointed out, “I’ve even seen philosophers have to restrain themselves from clapping at a comment that knocked a speaker off his pins and made him feel stupid.” I followed up by arguing that getting and taking punches makes you feel safer in the world, and that people who do not feel easily threatened are generally less threatening. She wasn’t buying any of it. Then I made the mistake of making myself an object lesson by noting that I had boxed for years and still seemed to be able to put my thoughts together. That earned me a smile and a pat on the wrist.

If I were thrown in the ring today and had to defend the art of self-defense against the sneering attitude of some academicians, I would have at least two colleagues in my corner. In Body & Soul: Notes of an Apprentice Boxer, the MacArthur-award-winning Loïc Wacquant, a sociology professor at New School University, described the sentimental education that he received training for three years at a boxing gym in Chicago’s South Side. Professor Wacquant, who earned his red badge of courage by competing in the famous Chicago Golden Gloves tournament, insists that boxing clubs are sanctuaries of order, peace, and tranquility in a helter-skelter world. According to Wacquant, whose ring name was “Busy Louie,” the gym is “a school of morality in Durkheim’s sense of the term, that is to say a machinery designed to fabricate the spirit of discipline, group attachment, respect for others as for self, and autonomy of the will that are indispensable to the blossoming of the pugilistic vocation.” The machinery often works so well that it forges a kind of mutual affection that is absent from the cool halls of academe. When he left Chicago for a postdoctoral position at Harvard, Wacquant fell into a terrible funk about leaving his fistic family. He writes, “In the intoxication of my immersion, I even thought for a while of aborting my academic career to ‘turn pro’ and thereby remain with my friends from the gym and its coach, DeeDee Armour, who had become a second father to me.”

Carlo Rotella, an associate professor of English and director of American studies at Boston College and the author of Cut Time: An Education at the Fights, spent a year taking notes in the gym of the former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes. Rotella contends that life is all about hurting and getting hurt, and that there are few courses in life that prepare you for the whirring blades outside your door like boxing. In the introduction to one of the best boxing books ever written, Rotella remarks:

“The deeper you get into the fights, the more you may discover about things that would seem at first blush to have nothing to do with boxing. Lessons in spacing and leverage, or in holding part of oneself in reserve even when hotly engaged, are lessons not only in how one boxer reckons with another but also in how one person reckons with another. The fights teach many such lessons – about virtues and limits of craft, about the need to impart meaning to hard facts by enfolding them in stories and spectacle, about getting hurt and getting old, about distance and intimacy, and especially about education itself: Boxing conducts an endless workshop in the teaching and learning of knowledge with consequences.”

Still, I think the best defense of boxing is Aristotelian. In his Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle offers his famous catalog of the moral virtues. Whenever I teach this section of the “Ethics” I always begin by asking students what they think are the ingredients of moral virtue. Respect, compassion, honesty, justice, and tolerance always fly quickly up onto the board, often followed by creativity and a sense of humor. I usually need to prod to elicit “courage.” And so I hector, “How can you be consistently honest or just if you don’t have the mettle to take a hit?”

Aristotle writes that developing a moral virtue requires practicing the choices and feelings appropriate to that virtue. Accordingly, colleges today often offer a smorgasbord of workshoplike events to help develop the virtue of tolerance, for example, by making students more comfortable with people from diverse backgrounds. But where are the workshops in courage, a virtue that Nelson Mandela, John McCain, and others have claimed to have found in boxing?

According to Aristotle, courage is a mean between fearlessness and excessive fearfulness. The capacity to tolerate fear is essential to leading a moral life, but it is hard to learn how to keep your moral compass under pressure when you are cosseted from every fear. Boxing gives people practice in being afraid. There are, of course, plenty of brave thugs. Physical courage by no means guarantees the imagination that standing up for a principle might entail. However, in a tight moral spot I would be more inclined to trust someone who has felt like he or she was going under than someone who has experienced danger only vicariously, on the couch watching videos.

In fact, boxing was a popular intercollegiate sport until the early 1960s, when a fatality and problems with semiprofessionals’ posing as students counted the sport out. In 1976 college boxing was resurrected as a club sport, and now, under the umbrella of USA Boxing (the governing body for amateur boxing in the United States), the National Collegiate Boxing Association includes about 30 college teams. Every April sectional, regional, and national championships are held. I recently chatted with Maja Cavlovic, a female boxer from Estonia who graduated from the Virginia Military Institute this spring. A power puncher, Ms. Cavlovic reflected, “Boxing helped me learn how to control my emotions. You get in there and you are very afraid, and then all of your training takes over.”

The two-time heavyweight champion George Foreman concurs with Ms. Cavlovic. In addition to being an immensely successful businessman, Mr. Foreman directs a large youth club outside of Houston with a vibrant boxing program. Since Mr. Foreman also is a preacher I asked him, “How do you reconcile teaching kids to deliver a knockout blow with Jesus’ injunction that we should turn the other cheek?” Mr. Foreman chuckled and explained, “To be successful in the ring you have to get control of your emotions – that includes anger. And the kids who stick with it in the gym are much less violent than when they came in through the door.”

Americans for the most part live in a culture of release in which passion and spontaneity are worshipped. Beyond being told that troublesome feelings are medical problems, our young people receive scant instruction in modulating their emotions. As a result, there are very few opportunities to spar with heavyweight emotions such as anger and fear. In the ring, those passions constantly punch at you, but if you keep punching, you learn not to be pummeled by your emotions. Keeping your guard up when you feel like leaping out of the ring can be liberating. After he won his first bout, I asked Karl Pennau, a St. Olaf student whom I trained, what he had gleaned from his study of the sweet science. He replied, “Learning boxing has given me a lot more than just another sport to play. It is a tough, tough game, but having trained and been in the ring, I won’t ever think that I can’t do something again.”

A former professional boxer, Gordon Marino is a professor of philosophy, curator of the Hong Kierkegaard Library, and assistant football coach at Saint Olaf College.

In Krav maga just like in the Mixed martial arts, Kali , Thai Boxing, Boxing or kickboxing we teach at Elite Training Center in Redondo Beach the straight punch is one of the most important tool we use to hit our target…it us the fastest line of attack and if used correctly cannot be seen easily…Please pay close attention to how it is done and like everything else we do practice for perfection…a habit trained is a habbit gained…

Straight Punch – Lead hand punch is called a Jab, Rear hand punch is called a Cross. Punch travels in a straight line from your face to attacker and back at equal speed. Punch comes from the body, keeping elbows down protecting ribs. Punch extends 95% or so, and recoils. Never hyper-extend your elbow or tricep tendons. Your fist will rotate, causing impact with first two knuckles. Keep wrist straight, fist tight without any air or space between fingers. Shoulders will rise to protect jaw line from counter strikes. Shoulder, hips, knees and balls of feet will rotate together to generate maximum power. 

  Magnify the Positives – Shrink the Negatives!
 
Everyday we all deal with positive things and positive people, as well as negative things and negative people. What we focus on, is a choice we all have to make.
 
Some people magnify the negatives and get stressed out by their problems and challenges. If you allow this to happen, you will soon begin to attract more negatives.
 
It will seem as if you have a black cloud over your head.
 
Whenever you magnify the negatives in your life, you’ll also be shrinking the positives. You will become blind to the good stuff, simply because you are focusing on all the bad stuff!
 
Or, you can choose to magnify the positives and feed your spirit with optimism and an energy force that attract more of the good stuff. It’s a choice we all get to make everyday.
 
Have you ever noticed how lucky some people are?
 
”The harder you work, the luckier you will become!”
 
There are many examples that prove there is a lot of truth to that statement. People that work hard know what they want and are focused on achieving pre-determined goals and objectives. They are focused on what they want in their lives.
 
They soon begin to attract the people and opportunities that also attracts the luck they need to become successful achievers.
 
A good exercise to improve on this area, is simply to try for one week to focus only on the positives in your life. Positive people, positive events, activities and actions. Practice makes perfect!
 
  Magnify the Positives – Shrink the Negatives!

That is one of our main goals when training at Elite training center….no matter if it’s Krav maga or Thai boxing or Mma or Kali or BJJ we spend our time focused on the positive things we can do and not the negitives of what we have trouble with or feel we cannot do…

Please help Elite training Center win the daily breeze competition for the best of the Southbay please follow the link below and fill out the info under the martial arts catagory use our address at Elite training center 1628 pacific coast highway Redondo beach ca 90277

http://prolin.dailybreeze.com/southbaysbest/

Please help us win and let everyone know we are still southbays best…

Within the different systems we teach slipping punches is another tech the is common to them all, weather it’s Krav maga , mixed martial arts, thai boxing Kali etc…please practice this movement because of it importance

Slipping Punches – Rotate your opposite shoulder towards the outside of attacking arm, coiling your torso and rotation of feet so the punch will slip past your face. Think of throwing a left hook, if attacker is throwing a left jab. Keep your hands up and eyes forward. 
Slip with a step – Same as above, but take a step 45 degrees forward, pivoting on rear foot so you can begin counter hook immediately on attacker.

BUSHIDO
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​In ancient times, Samurai Warriors were dedicated servants and protectors. During turbulent times they served their leaders unselfishly and would literally sacrifice their lives to protect them. The Samurai were highly respected for the discipline and dedication they displayed to their training and purpose in life. Besides developing great skill and courage, they were highly regarded for their code of conduct and the respectful ways they lived their lives.
 
BUSHIDO is the term used to describe this code of conduct the Samurai lived by.  It dealt with their mannerisms as well as their habits of daily protocol… it was their way of life. Because of this code, they were well respected and honored warriors in their villages and amongst their countrymen.
 
In modern society and current times, BUSHIDO can also serve as a similar code of conduct… a way to take the respect, discipline and protocol that is displayed in the dojo and transfer it into our daily lives. Showing courtesy and respect in school, at home, and a kind and caring attitude at work and friendliness toward our neighbors.    
 
We all know that being polite, well mannered and respectful of others is the proper way to act. However, it takes daily practice and discipline to make it a habit.  
 
Practicing your Martial Arts manners and protocol on a regular basis makes for better relationships in all aspects of our lives. Avoid the use of vulgar language and never be abusive, offensive or rude.  
 
As members of an Elite Team, we all must act and behave as leaders and positive examples of living our lives as modern-day Martial Arts Warriors.