Rodney King and John Will Seminars

May is a busy month with seminars with two world-class coaches at Revolution.

Friday May 2nd - John Will BJJ Seminar. £50 with £20 deposit required to book a place.

Saturday May 24th & Sunday May 25th - CM Head coach Rodney King is back for his first European seminar of 2008. £60 for both days with a 10% discount for CMD Pro members.

Email phil@revolutiongym.co.uk for details.

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Double Header Seminar

The double Header seminar run by Gordon Scott-Russell and myself was a great success. With Gordon bringing two car loads of the Scottish horde down with him, Revolution matching that number and Jamie Ward and one of his guys down from Sai Martial Arts, it was a pretty full mat.

GSR and I have very similar ideas on training and coaching so it was great to see our respective students mixing in and working with each other throughout the day. A room full of people training solid material, without ego, and in a healthy and alive environment – couldn't be better.

Grappling for strikers

First up we had Grappling for Strikers, in this session I was working to build everyone's understanding of how clinch can be used to keep a fight standing. By looking at what grapplers are trying to get from a clinch situation we could then look at what a striker needs to do to negate the grapplers game.

Focusing on making and breaking contact, defending level changes, controlling the position and grips and how you could create opportunities to strike safely in a clinch situation, my session was a whistlestop tour of the things a striker needs to have in their clinch game.





There was a range of experience levels on the day and I was really impressed with the progress that everyone made. Great job all round. From big ideas to tiny details I’m confident that everyone took something away from today that they can add to their game.

Especially bearing in mind that this isn’t the main area of focus for most of the people who were training it was good to see people stepping out of their comfort zones and getting stuck in.

Padwork and Power

Gordon’s sessions on padwork and power are always a huge success and today was no different. His knowledge of, and coaching of, kickboxing are fantastic and I spent the whole session playing with new toys and tucking away really nice ways of explaining key ideas.

Gordon and I have overlapping styles of standup, but with some significant differences based on the formats we train for – me MMA and Gordon K1-style kickboxing. These differences meant that even the most experienced of my guys got a lot out of the session.



Gordon emphasises live padwork. The striker is working but so is the feeder, so the round looks almost like sparring, with both sides working to get the best out of each round. With movement, returned shots and counters all part of the experience for the striker, this is a method of padwork that needs to be felt as a workout. Fantastic coaching, great details and big improvements across the board. Thanks Gordon.

Working together

The best thing of the day is seeing clubs with very similar philosophies getting together to train. Even though we're hundreds of miles apart. It was particularly good to see Paul (from Gordon’s gym) and Gaz (from mine) working together throughout the day, swapping ideas, tips and techniques. Fab.

We'll be doing this again, probably up in Scotland next, and it would be great to see others taking the opportunity to get some great training in. Regardless of your style, I think we can all agree that working on new ways to improve your functionality in striking and clinch is only going to help anyone.

I know that everyone who was there today can say they have boosted their game. Thanks everyone.

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Absolute genius

Action men as tool for demonstrating techniques. I love it.

Check out B Stuffs blog

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90% rock

Spent time recently looking at solidity of structure within CM and have been talking about the gaps that people leave.

From a CM standpoint closing these gaps is vital for ensuring your defence works. if you put up a guard but it has gaps in it you are doing little more than putting a house of cards in front of your head for protection.

Instead you need to look at being like a pyramid, easily 90% rock, if you ran up to one of the Giza pyramids and smacked it you'd hurt your hand, bounce off or do a combination of the two. Take all the gaps out of your guard and structure and you begin to have the same effect.

When I bring a hand up to cover my head I want to make sure two things happen:

1) My head is solidly supported by my traps (I imagine trying to raise and cross my traps over before pulling my neck back into it), this allows force to be channeled straight down into my body.

2) My arm must be stuck to my head at the forearm and bicep, with the elbow pointing out the front. This locking of the arm to the head means that the shot is carried down into the body. Keep your arm loose and your shoulder will move (so will my head because when I stick my arm to my head, my head sticks to my arm - both are supported). If your head and shoulder move you will tend to find your guard buckles and your head takes the shot.

Which sucks.

Close the gaps - think 90% rock and see what happens.

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28 hours at work

Is rubbish. I've just spent most of the last three days chained to my desk trying to get something out the door. Just sorted it now which is a relief.

But I have been working for 28 hours straight now. So I feel more than a little puchy.

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Balancing coaching with the rest of life

You may have noticed that I've been quiet of late. This isn't due to me having nothing to say, anyone who knows me would have to argue with that, but because work has taken a huge step for the busier and is eating more of my life than ever before.

Which is both good and bad.

Good because after 15 years working in the design and web design industry I am finally getting to a position that allows me to bring a lot of my skills to the table, from design to people skills to communication to coaching. It's hard work and I'm currently snowed under following an increase in work load caused by the sudden removal of my line manager from the company.

Bad because it is over-running a lot of other things and is competing with the time I get to spend at the gym and at home with the family.

So if I am somewhat sporadic with my postings you know that it is probably due to me being up to my neck in search engine optimisation reports or trying to put together an eleventh hour pitch for a new client.

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Using shadowboxing

I have an admission to make - I’m a big fan of shadowboxing.

I haven’t always been but that was largely due to trying to think about what I was doing and trying to put together moves that looked cool. In recent years I have learnt to play while shadowboxing and have begun to see it in a whole new light - as a tool for my own training and as an invaluable aid to coaching.

Many, many people make shadowboxing an external thing, concentrating on (and feeling self-conscious about) how it looks. This is often exacerbated by people being urged to imagine the person they are fighting, adding another external response.

Just say no kids. Shadowboxing is a tool for internal awareness.

When I’m sparring I try to be as consciously unaware of my opponent to maximise the amount I am unconsciouosly aware of them. The less attention I pay to them the more aware I am of myself. Shadowboxing helps me learn this state.

Go inside, feel your balance, your movement, your breathing, your own rhythm.

Just throw things, never plan. Let the punches come out, let the movement come out. Play your own tune. Shadowboxing is your perfect 10 moment, no pressure to hit hard, no energy from an opponent to absorb.

Just you, the floor and your own skills. It's a thing of beauty.

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