How to Take a Shot to the Groin
One of the rudest moments someone participating in any sport can experience is when they discover that groin protectors aren’t perfect. While I’ve never seen anyone strut around the mats like their groin was invulnerable with a cup on, there is definitely a misconception that it keeps strikes to the groin entirely pain free. It doesn’t. Taking a shot to the groin isn’t just about standing there and taking it, and once you learn how to use your body to effectively minimize the energy delivered with a groin strike, while at the same time allowing your partner to train proper targeting, you’ll be a lot more comfortable taking groin strikes in your training.
Why I Yell at Students During Belt Tests
Yesterday, I ran a green belt test for 4 students. During the test I yelled… a lot. I yelled when students weren’t lining up for a breakfall quickly enough. I yelled when people were stalled on techniques. I yelled when people weren’t doing kiai enough. I yelled when doing counts for striking drills.
Not only do I yell, when I do it during tests, I do it with an angry tone. This is one of the hardest things for me to do, because in reality, I really like my students and just want to help them do their best. But the yelling is one tool that helps me do that. This is a concept in the martial arts that I think deserves elaboration.
Book Review: American Shooter by Gerry Souter
A brief preface: When I was asked to review this book, I was offered the chance to interview the author about guns for self-defense. I think the idea was that it would make it slightly more relevant for this martial arts blog, with our focus on self-defense. I declined the offer because of my view that in Canada, guns are not, for civilians, truly self-defense tools. Our culture and our laws make the use of guns, handguns especially, difficult to use for self-defense. In Canada, guns are in a lot of ways viewed more as tools; for farmers, hunters, law enforcement, and the military. However, for understanding the differences in our views on self-defense with our brothers to the south, I thought that this would be an interesting book to review, so I give you:
American Shooter: A Personal History of Gun Culture in the United Sates by Gerry Souter (more…)
Coming Back to the Dojo After a Break
As we near the end of the summer, I start getting emails from students who took a break from their training for whatever reason. Some use the summer to explore other interests, usually some sort of outdoor activities like hiking, paintball, triathlon racing, etc. Some go on extended vacations. Some have seasonal jobs like being a lifeguard or a farmer. Others just find it unappealing to go and train indoors when Vancouver summers have such lovely weather. (more…)
7 Ways to Help Your Child Deal with Bullies
As the start of school draws near, the issue of bullying in schools comes to the forefront of parents minds. Parents of children who are targeted by bullies often feel powerless to help their child. They want to enjoy their time in school and have the best learning environment to help them grow, but bullying can get in the way of this and can have serious consequences for their child over the long term.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I have done extensive research on this issue leading up to the ‘Take a Stand’ Bully-proofing and Self-Defense class for youth that we’re hosting. Here are the top 7 ways I’ve come across to help your child deal with bullying. (more…)
Connection & Subtlety for Improving Effectiveness of Throws
As always, I try and take away concepts from these events, rather than specific techniques because I find concepts easier to remember and often have greater impact on my overall development. (more…)
The Importance of Role-playing in Martial Arts Training
This past weekend I taught at the Canadian Jiu-jitsu Union summer camp, an event featuring 10 hours of training over 2 days with 8 instructors. I usually like to work with a particular theme and this year I worked with the theme of being a role-player. By role-player, I don’t mean playing games like Dungeons & Dragons though I do think that the martial arts attract many such players. But even if one has never touched such games, if you train in the martial arts, you’ve probably been a “role-player” at some point. (more…)
Over $500 Raised for Flood-ravaged Sicamous
We at Pacific Wave Jiu-jitsu believe in giving back to the community as a dojo. Recently, in conjunction with BCIT Jiu-jitsu, we held a “Water Balloon Revenge” event to raise funds to donate to flood-ravaged community of Sicamous, BC. Every summer the Canadian Jiu-jitsu Union holds its summer camp there so a number of member dojos decided to raise funds to help the community in different ways. We decided to have a bit of fun with it and give students a chance to “take revenge” on their Senseis by buying water balloons for $5.00, which they could throw at a Sensei of their choice.
We managed to raise over $500 with all proceeds from the balloons being donated to the Eagle Valley Community Support Society, which supports Sicamous in times of need (like now). Check out the video below for a recap from the event. Or check out the photos on our Facebook page.
Be the Black Sheep: The Payoff of Being Different
“Don’t mind anyone else, you don’t make mistakes.”
It was during an unexpected water break in the middle of my four hour plus grading for my brown belt six years ago that my first Sensei leaned in and whispered to me. He was one of a half dozen black belts assisting in the grading that day, and while the comment may seem odd, I knew to what he was referring.
About twenty minutes earlier, the grading panel had been yelling out the names of different chokes, and not entirely certain I had heard correctly, I began applying a choke. From the corner of my eye, I noticed everyone one else was doing a different choke. Assuming I must have simply heard wrong, I adjusted to perform the same choke as everyone else. Turns out everyone else was wrong.
This story came to mind the other night after I had begun a warm-up during class. I started off with the warning, “Listen carefully to the instructions,” and I proceeded to rattle off a set of exercises. (more…)
5 Advantages of Training with a Female Martial Arts Instructor
For some reason, a lot of people think that because I am a female martial arts instructor that my students would probably be mostly women. This is far from the truth. The reality is that my division of men to women is pretty much the same as it is in most martial arts schools, with more men than women training. People train for all sorts of reasons, but many of my students, both men and women, look at training under a female instructor as beneficial to their learning. Here are some of the reasons why:
1. Less Macho Training Environment. One of the reasons many people are hesitant to take up martial arts training is because they are worried that there will be too many people who train with a macho attitude using the dojo as their own personal proving ground. They worry that this kind of environment would make the social element unappealing, and the training environment potentially dangerous as people take out their personal baggage on unsuspecting partners. With a female instructor running the show, a class is less likely to attract people with macho attitudes because they’re (more…)
We're proud to announce that Lori O'Connell Sensei's new book, When the Fight Goes to the Ground: Jiu-jitsu Strategies & Tactics for Self-Defense, published through international martial arts publisher Tuttle Publishing, is now available in major book stores and online. More about it & where to buy it.