Dr John M La Tourrette
Green Belt
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2007
- Messages
- 152
- Reaction score
- 9
“Can You Help Me Spar Better?”
©2007 By Dr. John M. La Tourrette
Ph.D. Sports Psychology, NLP Trainer, Author
“Dr. La Tourrette,
Question: You and I spoke once on the telephone this year. I'm a former student of Mr. Dale Pettit. My name is Ray Albrechtsen.
I have a "difficulty" and I wonder if you can help me or point me in the right direction.”
Answer: Sure Ray, I remember you and I do remember Dale Pettit (from Salt Lake City) from back in the 70Â’s and 80Â’s. HeÂ’s a good man. IÂ’ll do my best to help.
Question: “My desire is to be a very good fighter. I've enjoyed sparring and have had some limited success, but nothing outstanding. However, one night(and one night only) at Mr. Pettit's many years ago I did very well and it was without effort or anything done differently on my part – my body "just moved" and I was like a spectator. I have to believe that there is a mental component that I'm not connecting with.”
Answer: When you “were just like a spectator” that means that you were dissociated from the outcome.
For most people when sparring, dissociation is good for several reasons.
1. It removes them from the adrenaline dump, so they do NOT go into over-arousal. Over-arousal is bad for winning because people then try too hard. When they try too hard, they tense up and lose their fine coordination, and their cat-like contraction/expansion of muscles which are necessary for faster reflexes.
2. It also moves them into using their peripheral vision instead of their pin-point vision (fovea vision). When in peripheral vision you can more easily see all of their movements. When in peripheral vision you can more easily go into a sports type of time distortion.
3. It removes them instantly from stress. Stress gives you tunnel vision. Stress turns on that “Instant Stupid Fellow” inside your head. You know the one I’m talking about. It’s the guy that screws up when you (the by-stander) knows better.
You can easily go into peripheral vision when you spar by the simple act of looking past their shoulder. I normally check out which eye is dominant for the client, and if it is their right eye, I have them look past the UkeÂ’s right shoulder.
Another way of peripheral, without the Uke knowing is to defocus both eyes and look past both sides.
This defocus type of seeing takes several practice sessions to get down, so we teach it to all our clients on their first private session. By the time they are in sparring, in about one monthÂ’s time, they can easily do it.
I actually teach a much better drill for awareness than this called “Hakalau Prime™” that has built into it all the Master Keys of awareness, time distortion, target size enlargement, and a centered moving stance, but it is very difficult to just write about it. Sorry.
Question: “Physically, I'm okay for an average 50 year old who works out. I do a thousand kicks on the heavy bag with leg weights on; I'll work the double ended speed ball, lift weights, etc. All of that gave/gives me improvement but nowhere where I want to be. Could be I don't have the physical attributes for it.”
Answer: When I wrote “Master’s Kicking Guide” back in 1981 I was doing 2,000 kicks a night. I was also in my late 30’s and I did take the correct vitamins for healing, stretching and flexibility.
I quit doing that in my 40’s because injuries came much easier and healing came much slower. Most people do not realize it but the growth hormone that is normally secreted by the pituitary gland during exercise has “age related” shut-down systems built into our bodies. So by the age of 30 the growth hormone secretion is decreased by 40%. By the age 40 that same secretion is decreased by about 90%.
In fact after the age 50 growth hormone is normally only secreted when massive pain is involved, during delta brain wave (deep sleep), or when a growth hormone releasing vitamin concoction is taken on an empty stomach. And then once the pituitary gland starts its forced excretion the exercise should be done then to maximize that benefit.
Okay. By now you are probably wondering why IÂ’ve spent so much time on the above.
HereÂ’s the reason. You are NOT young any more, so the exercise and training that you should do should be in line with your bodyÂ’s age and your mental maturity.
The good news is, “a sneaky old man can beat a cocky young guy” if certain things are done. This is directly from Chinese philosophy where they talk about the Tiger and the Dragon, the Warrior and the Scholar. When you get older, hopefully more tactics have been learned that will easily defeat the impetuous muscle bound youth.
Hitting them when they are confused is easy. If they are not confused, confusing them is easy. My point is, there are many physical tactics of sparring, mental tactics of sparring, and emotional tactics of sparring.
And sparring is NOT Kenpo Karate, and it is simple (I didn’t say “easy”) to learn some very valuable sparring skills and be able to win by NOT being in the peak performance physical condition of a 19 year old, but by being better trained in awareness skills and attack technologies.
Back in 1973 (after 23 years in the martial arts) I devised several techniques that have embedded specific Master Keys for closing the reactionary gap without the Uke seeing you incoming easily. We have 9 simple closing gaps, and then we have hundreds of combination closing gaps.
Doing a closing gap presupposes that YOU START the attack after youÂ’ve set up the angles of attack which are determined by his physiology, his awareness, and his training.
Out of the 9 basic simple closing gaps, only 3 of them work well from kicking distance. When I say “kicking distance” I am talking about the distance you can cover with one closing gap and a kick, from a “Z-Fold Centered Stance™”, or from “Hot Rocks™” using the same basic “Z-Fold™” stance with “Power Accelerators™” and “Speed Accelerators™”. In my schools we call that “Fighting Distance Four™”.
When you’ve practiced your attack sequences from “Fighting Distance Four™” and all others practice from “Fighting Distance Three™” or less, you always have the advantage. They cannot hit you because you are outside of their practice range. You can hit them at will because they “are in” your practice range.
Because you are moving first, they are in reaction mode, which is much slower than attack mode as long as you do NOT telegraph before hand your attack or you attack sequences and targets.
Before I go any farther let me mention that my students were widely known and respected for their sparring skills. And they won most of the time, up until I quit taking them to tournaments back around 1993. Some of them still fight but I just donÂ’t play the tournament game anymore.
Of course, I was called “crazy, sadistic and mean” because I taught them how to fight so successfully.
Let me know if you want more particulars. I did put some of those concepts on kenpotalk so if you search you can find them over there.
I wrote them up years ago, and those that train with them, and use them as I taught them, do win. As the world’s greatest basketball Coach John Wooden said so often, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail”.
Putting it simply, if you want to learn how to win, to really consistently win in the martial arts and in life, there are certain skills to be mastered.
This is the first article of many on the same topic. If anyone is interested in more (besides Ray) let me know. Thank you.
Sincerely,
© Dec. 10, 2007, Dr. John M. La Tourrette
www.realspeedhitting.com
www.mentaltrainingsecrets.com
©2007 By Dr. John M. La Tourrette
Ph.D. Sports Psychology, NLP Trainer, Author
“Dr. La Tourrette,
Question: You and I spoke once on the telephone this year. I'm a former student of Mr. Dale Pettit. My name is Ray Albrechtsen.
I have a "difficulty" and I wonder if you can help me or point me in the right direction.”
Answer: Sure Ray, I remember you and I do remember Dale Pettit (from Salt Lake City) from back in the 70Â’s and 80Â’s. HeÂ’s a good man. IÂ’ll do my best to help.
Question: “My desire is to be a very good fighter. I've enjoyed sparring and have had some limited success, but nothing outstanding. However, one night(and one night only) at Mr. Pettit's many years ago I did very well and it was without effort or anything done differently on my part – my body "just moved" and I was like a spectator. I have to believe that there is a mental component that I'm not connecting with.”
Answer: When you “were just like a spectator” that means that you were dissociated from the outcome.
For most people when sparring, dissociation is good for several reasons.
1. It removes them from the adrenaline dump, so they do NOT go into over-arousal. Over-arousal is bad for winning because people then try too hard. When they try too hard, they tense up and lose their fine coordination, and their cat-like contraction/expansion of muscles which are necessary for faster reflexes.
2. It also moves them into using their peripheral vision instead of their pin-point vision (fovea vision). When in peripheral vision you can more easily see all of their movements. When in peripheral vision you can more easily go into a sports type of time distortion.
3. It removes them instantly from stress. Stress gives you tunnel vision. Stress turns on that “Instant Stupid Fellow” inside your head. You know the one I’m talking about. It’s the guy that screws up when you (the by-stander) knows better.
You can easily go into peripheral vision when you spar by the simple act of looking past their shoulder. I normally check out which eye is dominant for the client, and if it is their right eye, I have them look past the UkeÂ’s right shoulder.
Another way of peripheral, without the Uke knowing is to defocus both eyes and look past both sides.
This defocus type of seeing takes several practice sessions to get down, so we teach it to all our clients on their first private session. By the time they are in sparring, in about one monthÂ’s time, they can easily do it.
I actually teach a much better drill for awareness than this called “Hakalau Prime™” that has built into it all the Master Keys of awareness, time distortion, target size enlargement, and a centered moving stance, but it is very difficult to just write about it. Sorry.
Question: “Physically, I'm okay for an average 50 year old who works out. I do a thousand kicks on the heavy bag with leg weights on; I'll work the double ended speed ball, lift weights, etc. All of that gave/gives me improvement but nowhere where I want to be. Could be I don't have the physical attributes for it.”
Answer: When I wrote “Master’s Kicking Guide” back in 1981 I was doing 2,000 kicks a night. I was also in my late 30’s and I did take the correct vitamins for healing, stretching and flexibility.
I quit doing that in my 40’s because injuries came much easier and healing came much slower. Most people do not realize it but the growth hormone that is normally secreted by the pituitary gland during exercise has “age related” shut-down systems built into our bodies. So by the age of 30 the growth hormone secretion is decreased by 40%. By the age 40 that same secretion is decreased by about 90%.
In fact after the age 50 growth hormone is normally only secreted when massive pain is involved, during delta brain wave (deep sleep), or when a growth hormone releasing vitamin concoction is taken on an empty stomach. And then once the pituitary gland starts its forced excretion the exercise should be done then to maximize that benefit.
Okay. By now you are probably wondering why IÂ’ve spent so much time on the above.
HereÂ’s the reason. You are NOT young any more, so the exercise and training that you should do should be in line with your bodyÂ’s age and your mental maturity.
The good news is, “a sneaky old man can beat a cocky young guy” if certain things are done. This is directly from Chinese philosophy where they talk about the Tiger and the Dragon, the Warrior and the Scholar. When you get older, hopefully more tactics have been learned that will easily defeat the impetuous muscle bound youth.
Hitting them when they are confused is easy. If they are not confused, confusing them is easy. My point is, there are many physical tactics of sparring, mental tactics of sparring, and emotional tactics of sparring.
And sparring is NOT Kenpo Karate, and it is simple (I didn’t say “easy”) to learn some very valuable sparring skills and be able to win by NOT being in the peak performance physical condition of a 19 year old, but by being better trained in awareness skills and attack technologies.
Back in 1973 (after 23 years in the martial arts) I devised several techniques that have embedded specific Master Keys for closing the reactionary gap without the Uke seeing you incoming easily. We have 9 simple closing gaps, and then we have hundreds of combination closing gaps.
Doing a closing gap presupposes that YOU START the attack after youÂ’ve set up the angles of attack which are determined by his physiology, his awareness, and his training.
Out of the 9 basic simple closing gaps, only 3 of them work well from kicking distance. When I say “kicking distance” I am talking about the distance you can cover with one closing gap and a kick, from a “Z-Fold Centered Stance™”, or from “Hot Rocks™” using the same basic “Z-Fold™” stance with “Power Accelerators™” and “Speed Accelerators™”. In my schools we call that “Fighting Distance Four™”.
When you’ve practiced your attack sequences from “Fighting Distance Four™” and all others practice from “Fighting Distance Three™” or less, you always have the advantage. They cannot hit you because you are outside of their practice range. You can hit them at will because they “are in” your practice range.
Because you are moving first, they are in reaction mode, which is much slower than attack mode as long as you do NOT telegraph before hand your attack or you attack sequences and targets.
Before I go any farther let me mention that my students were widely known and respected for their sparring skills. And they won most of the time, up until I quit taking them to tournaments back around 1993. Some of them still fight but I just donÂ’t play the tournament game anymore.
Of course, I was called “crazy, sadistic and mean” because I taught them how to fight so successfully.
Let me know if you want more particulars. I did put some of those concepts on kenpotalk so if you search you can find them over there.
I wrote them up years ago, and those that train with them, and use them as I taught them, do win. As the world’s greatest basketball Coach John Wooden said so often, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail”.
Putting it simply, if you want to learn how to win, to really consistently win in the martial arts and in life, there are certain skills to be mastered.
This is the first article of many on the same topic. If anyone is interested in more (besides Ray) let me know. Thank you.
Sincerely,
© Dec. 10, 2007, Dr. John M. La Tourrette
www.realspeedhitting.com
www.mentaltrainingsecrets.com
