'Solo Drills' DVD

DVD has been purchased and reviewed today as once Richie mentioned this would be coming out my interest was piqued. Although I do train each week with a few guys I tend to do most of my stuff alone - the group training is a time to try out new things on people who move and don't want to be hit (something you don't get from a bag or pad. The first thing to say about this 40 minute beauty is the simplicity of the message - there's no mysticfication and bullshit just good sound reasoning and something that will fit in really well with my current training.

A couple of points that made a huge amount of sense to me. Firstly, the idea of drilling very specific movements backed up, essentially, with the violent intent. The idea that an alteracation is more often than not a very spontaneous, fast and messy affair which needs to be dealt with swiftly and violently appeals. There's a tendency in some of my training to be quite long winded about things, a lot of different stylised movements, imagining multiple opponents and dealing with them as they come in to my space. Actually, the part in this DVD about being quite linear in this is good - fast reaction with high levels of violent intent, feet moving, feeling the emotional response in your body and going all out. I think this is going to help me immensely. Again, though, very simple stuff and nothing mystical. To top this off, and this may be completely obvious to everyone else on here, but the whole ideas that when you do this to someone they are not going to be stood still while you bang them with 6 palm strikes, they will be moving back, covering their head, coming into you or whatever - so, the drilling should reflect this and that's why the foot movement and whole body movement is so important. I've had a tendency recently when going for speed training to be on the spot flinging out fast attacks, in reality this is probably not going to happen and while the dude is recovering I'll be fighting open air. Not so good methinks.

Secondly, the high intensity stuff. I am not the fittest guy around and the fast stuff gets me out of breath very quickly. I do try and push this and it's nice to have this backed up on the DVD for the reasons behind this. A while back now I attended a 3 day intensive Hsing-I course with a fantastic martial arts/doorman guy called Raymond Towers, brilliant bloke and a brilliant (eye opening!) course. But, feck me, it was really hard work! The continual drills throughout each day on the 'iron body' training (from Taiji Quan) nearly killed me and to be honest at the time I couldn't see the point in this as I was so knackered I couldn't concentrate on the new things I was supposed to be learning - I actually thought it was getting in the way. When speaking to him about this his answer was simple and straight forward - in a real fight situation (not sports) it is fast and furious, could be life or death, and the combination or an extreme emotional response and physical demands leads to a fuzzy head, shaking, breathlessness, incoherence, loss of fine movement ability etc. If you don't train under this kind of pressure odds are against you doing it when it really counts as the blood rises and everything goes to shit. Same thing is reflected by Richie in this. It's difficult to get this emotional response when solo training because there's nothing there to set off the 'trigger', nothing to put this extreme duress and pressure on you. That's something that's bothered me because I know I should be doing more, so I will do.


Anyway, long story short, great DVD. Very useful. Nice one!

Thanks very much MrDan!

Richard Grannon wrote:

Thanks very much MrDan!

DAMN! Looks like im out some more cash :-)

The solo drills DVD was good. I just ordered the pre-fight rituals DVD too. This stage of the fight is just so incredibly important. Right there, teetering at the edge of the situation going physical.

BTW on the solo drills DVD. You talk about the emotional energy of the fight. Putting it into the drills as much as possible and all. But it made me think of something. Normally people seem to get the angry, slightly uncomfortable and very physically draining type of energy, right? The kind that makes you "gas" in no time and leaves you exhausted afterwards in a way that feels... exhausted in a negative way, if this makes any sense.

Well of course because of the rapid boost you get from adrenaline this will tend to happen anyway. But what I've found is that if you do the exact same physical thing, but with the mirror opposite. Say, an extatic, nearly euphoric form of sadism/bloodlust. (something like the Mickey Mouse avatar perhaps? Only evil...) Then I felt energized instead. Same action, same exhaustion, but in a good way. Instead of your body wheezing "hoaaaI'vegottorest" it's shouting "WEEEEEE More!" sort of... A small difference perhaps, but it seems to have a good effect on the mental state.

Quote :

Richie,



Let me be the 10,000th person to thank you for Solo Drills. I’ve wanted something like this for a long time and couldn’t be more satisfied with the content, presentation or speedy transatlantic delivery. My only quibble: you don’t charge enough for your work, mate.



Keep them coming,



--Dave

How nice is that?

This was on the doormat when I got home last night and it went straight into the DVD player.

There's not much to say that hasn't been said already. It's a great DVD, there's no guesswork and once you've seen it there's no excuse for coming up with your own routine, mixing it up with burpees etc and creating a functional fitness self protection workout.

One question, will there be others in this series?

Cheers.

Yeah there will be in a month or so. Glad you enjoyed it mate.

available from here

http://www.streetfightsecrets.com/85.html