Sports + martial arts page

Sports and Martial Arts

I keep on getting questions about sports and martial arts. So I thought I’d make a page just to get it out of the way. I did some judo, Muay Thai and boxing when I was young. I also played a bit of soccer, table tennis and hockey. I started doing bodyweight exercises and also lifting weights in my teens.

I was a good student when I was young. I got good marks and was a fanatical reader. I was very much interested in intellectual and cerebral pursuits, and things that involved the mind (such as computer games). I prided myself on my intellectual abilities and I had an excellent mind. But I also played some sports, and engaged in a number of different physical pursuits. I really enjoyed this aspect of my life.

I have been sick since I was 18 years old, and so all of this is a long way in the past.

Soccer:

I played soccer for three years in primary school. My father also coached me a little bit.

Hockey:

I played one season of hockey in high school.

Table Tennis:

I played table tennis on and off from the age of nine until the age of 18. My father is a ITTF certified coach in table tennis and taught me to play. He was the president and chief coach at Wellington table tennis.

Judo:

At the age of 12, I did 6 months of Judo. It was perfectly ordinary Judo at a normal club. I enjoyed it. I was in the children’s class. We spent plenty of time sparring (aka randori and newaza) amongst other things.

Muay Thai:

I did Muay Thai for 6 months in my 4th form year at high school (age 14/15ish) at Dion Crouch’s Zero Tolerance kickboxing club at the Rodney Green Arena, Napier. It was heavy on pad work, drills, conditioning, pushups and jump rope. We also did some focus mitt work. It was pretty light on sparring, and the sparring was light, as is appropriate! It included everything that might be considered normal for a kickboxing club. We also had loud, energetic music and a good atmosphere. It was great. For people who haven’t done Muay Thai, I practised a lot of low kicks while someone held Thai pads for me. We also practised throwing a lot of knees (for example, you clinch them firmly by the back of their neck and then throw multiple knees at the Thai pads that they’re holding). I was taught all of the basics (knees, elbows, kicks, punches, teeps, and how to check or parry a kick). I loved my kickboxing club. I went twice a week. I had to quit when I moved from Taradale, Napier to Paraparaumu.

Ps: My instructor competed in the K-1 New Zealand Grand Prix 2001.

He has a masters degree in education, with a focus on pedagogy.

https://youtu.be/1ULYAnCqeCk

If you like, you can find more information about him by searching online. Try Google or LinkedIn.

Boxing:

I moved to Paraparaumu at the start of my 5th form year, tried a few things, and ended up doing boxing. I would have preferred kick boxing, but I didn’t click with the new club. I ended up doing plain old boxing for about 8-9 months (I did it for cumulatively about 8-9 months, over the course of about 14 months). The club was a little run down and a bit rugged, but otherwise pretty cool. It was run out of a storage lockup unit on 15 Manchester Street, Paraparaumu. It’s beside the glass repair shop, close to the old Fonterra factory. It was the size of a two car garage - they had a double sized unit. They would just open one of the doors and the gym was inside. I did a lot of bag work, some practice with the focus mitts, and sparring. As well as some miscellaneous stuff with medicine balls etc. We did a lot of sparring. It was the sort of club where they encouraged us to jump in the ring fairly early on, even if all you could do at first was jab with your left, parry (or guard) with your right right and circle to the left (note: there are some clubs who won’t let you spar until you’ve been practising for three months! It wasn’t that type of club). That’s well we were allowed to do at first. I improved a lot while I was there. By the time I quit boxing, I felt that I was fairly comfortable in the ring, and basically competent in sparring. I used to practise a lot of shadow boxing at home as well. I also practised a lot of jump rope at home. Jump rope is a fantastic form of training and it is great for both the health and strength of the feet and ankles, as well as cardiovascular fitness. Which is important, because boxing is a tough sport that requires a fair bit of cardio. I practised interval training with jump rope, usually three sets of three minutes, to imitate the length of time in the ring. Bag work is also a good form of cardiovascular training that improves overall conditioning.

The head instructor there was named “Keith Bullock” if that means anything to anyone. I have linked to one of his fights here: https://youtu.be/iQkuJ55p0Es. He was the  New Zealand Welterweight Boxing Champion in 1984. He also won in the Australia Games Welterweight Final, Keith Bullock V Murray Thomson. He won the NZ nationals in the welterweight division in 1984 https://www.sporty.co.nz/boxingnz/newsarticle/144424?newsfeedId=545567. Kieth was very good, and great at coaching. He gave me a go on focus mitts sometimes (or sparring, even though heavily mismatched).

Boxing was fun, but it was a long time ago.

Weight lifting, body-weight exercise, general exercise, and going to the gym

I started doing push ups when I was 13 and sit ups when I was 14. I got my first set of dumbbells at the age of 15. When I first got dumbbells, I just used them for bicep curls. I got a secondhand bench and barbell when I was 16 and put them into the garage. I started practising bench press at the age of 17. Technically, the barbell and the bench were lent to us by a friend's brother, but his brother didn't seem to want it back, so we kept it for ages.

I joined a gym when I was 17. I joined it in the second term of my final year of high school. I joined the high school gym because it was good value for money. It was actually very cheap. The public gym was quite a bit more expensive, but had better opening hours and nicer equipment. When I joined the school gym I started doing ordinary weight training and using machines, including cardio machines (such as the rowing machine and the treadmill).

The downside of my school gym is that it had bad opening hours. It closed at about 4:45 pm or 5:00 pm every day. I forget what time exactly. It was open on weekdays only, and it was closed during school holidays. And I worked cleaning classrooms after school every day, including two hours of cleaning on Fridays, which means that I could only get in there Monday through to Thursday. But I was still grateful to have access to a perfectly good (and affordable) gym.

By the way, when I was 18 years old, I could bench about 62 kg. I weighed 62 kg. I don't remember what I used to squat. I will make an educated guess. My educated guess is that I used to squat about 80kg. But truthfully I don't remember what my squat was. It was a long time ago. I avoided deadlifts. I felt that they were unwise and unnecessary.

I enjoyed working out at the gym. I did free weights. I lifted barbells and dumbbells. I also liked pull ups. I was able to do 24 pull ups in one session (8-8-6-4 iirc). I liked dips and did a lot of them. And I liked tricep dips too. I used the lat pull down machine and the seated rows machine. I used machines such as the leg press machine and leg extension machine to train my legs. I did quite a lot of ab exercises like the captain’s chair, sit ups, crunches, planks, side planks, and "rugby sit ups" aka twisting  sit-ups (opposite elbow to opposite knee). I trained my forearms by using hand grip strength trainers and wrist rollers. I jumped rope as well. And sometimes I ran or cycled. I liked using the rowing machine. I didn't mind using the treadmill at the gym for cardio. I was in good shape. I was also just kind of into exercise in general.

I was fairly strong for someone of my height, weight and build.

At the age of 18, I had a nice physique. I was toned and fairly muscular, with fairly low levels of body fat (but not excessively low levels of body fat - just right, in my opinion. I kept my levels of body fat at exactly what I wanted it to be). I had nice abs, arms and shoulders, and fairly nice pecs as well. By the way, because I grew up with things like modesty and humility being an important part of my culture (I was a Christian, and Christians are very much supposed to be opposed to vanity), I don't much enjoy talking about this sort of thing publicly. It just seems weird to me.

A few extra notes:

How was lifting and the gym going by term four in my final year of high school? Well, I had exams! And so I was very busy.

At the gym I was focused on improving the form and technique of my barbell back squat. I wanted to improve my form and technique before I really started pushing the numbers upwards. And so I was just saying to myself, the form and technique need to improve. The main thing I needed for this was time. To practise over a period of time was all that I needed to be able to improve my barbell back squat. I was also doing some bodyweight squats at home to supplement lifting at the gym. I figured that I would just keep on lifting in my first year at university?? And I would get better at barbell squats, and once I was better at squatting, I would push those numbers upwards. I probably could have pushed ahead anyway, but there was no real reason to rush. Slow and steady wins the race.

Furthermore, I didn't want to keep pushing ahead with improving my bench press numbers until I had improved my squat. This was because I wanted to have balance. I could easily have improved my bench press numbers quite quickly, but I wanted to improve on my squat numbers.

I had expected to be lifting weights the following year at university!! But they took that from me!!

Another note:

I reckon that I had a disproportionately strong core. By core I mean things like my neck, iliopsoas, psoas, iliacus, quadratus lumborum, stuff like that. And I also had a somewhat tight core and fairly tight shoulders. This information comes into the story a bit later.

Ps: Just to cover the topic a little bit better... like, appearance and physique

Jesse Orchard said in wifi that I "could have been in GQ", Amanda (who is an extremely bad person) said in wifi that I had nice arms (when I was young), another girl I used to know described me as a "hot" over wifi. Another girl I knew described me as a “hunk” over wifi.

That's all for now! I haaaaaate conversations like this so much. It's so awkward and weird.

Conclusion 

At the age of 18 (before they started destroying my health with their electronic death machines), I was fit, healthy and strong. I looked good and felt good. I was happy with the way things were, and I was making progress at the gym.

Appendix One:

A brief note about boxing,

Introduction

I have received many questions about boxing. And also have faced many false accusations, either of being secretly useless at the sport or of being too “psychologically aggressive” for even doing it in the first place, let alone talking about it. Or I have faced false and misleading insinuations that I am trying to train up an army of angry normals. So I figured, why not side step all of that nonsense and tell things in my own way and in my own words. And so I’m just going to tell the story my way, and explain it my way.

That is, dryly.

The target audience are normal people in places like New Zealand and Australia. At least that is the primary audience. The secondary audience are people further abroad. For example, people in places like The United States of America, Japan, Western Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, or any number of different places around the world. But basically anyone normal, and especially anyone who isn’t a member of the philosopher-kings (aka, the fae). I’m not doing it to impress girls either (that is, I’m not posting this to impress women).

I’m not going to understate things so much this time. Sometime I downplay things a bit, but downplaying things and soft pedalling things might seem smart at the time only to cause confusion further down the road. So this time I will try to write plainly and clearly.

Here goes…

I think I might just give you a diary entry that I wrote for my own records, largely unedited.  And then refuse to defend it through argument or debate. This will upset and bother some people, but perhaps that is the best approach all the same.

Perhaps that is the best approach all the same.

**

This was first written for my own records…

A brief note about boxing

I was decent at the sport without being spectacular. (That is an understatement. I tend to understate things. Modesty and humility are fairly important to me, in a non-committal sort of way).

By the time I quit, I was satisfied with what I could do, and with what I had learned, and with what I had achieved (I.e. I had become genuinely decent at what is a fairly challenging sport, and developed some solid fundamentals and learned the basics thoroughly). And I felt that it was right, sensible and appropriate to move on. I wanted to quit while I was ahead.

I had developed what I would call a “reasonable amount of comfort” in sparring and was fairly comfortable in the ring.

I had become good at punching and had what I considered to be fairly good power, speed and accuracy for someone of my height, weight, build and age.

I preferred to use my jab as my primary means of defence rather than relying on, or focusing on, head movement for defence.

You kind of control the situation with the jab, and the use of space, distance, range and timing. I boxed orthodox (not southpaw) and I didn’t switch stances (except as a training drill, in shadow boxing).

Also, I could block, parry, deflect, slip, duck, roll and move around lightly and freely on my feet. I didn’t do much of the bob, weave, roll “type of thing”. I didn’t like it either. That is, I didn’t rely as heavily on complex head movement for defence as some other people did, preferring to use my jab, as well as straight punches in general, as already mentioned above. I would rather go head hunting.

(If I might elaborate, I was quite comfortable with things like sidestepping and slipping punches, while I parried or deflected simultaneously. Before pivoting, resetting my feet/legs for throwing the next combo. I was also perfectly comfortable with ducking (or rolling) under punches. I just didn’t like hyper complex head movements. That is perhaps over explaining, but such is life.)

I had some experience in controlling the space I was in, like not getting cornered, cornering them, paying attention to where I am in the ring. In other words. I practised fairly conventional ring craft.

At the time, I thought about training for, and then finding an amateur fight. Just for the experience. Kind of like as a capstone experience for me before I quit the sport. But in the end I felt that I that having done plenty of sparring was enough experience for me. And given the nature of the sport, the risk to reward ratio, and a bit of cost-benefit analysis, the wear and tear on the body, brain and face. I felt that it was time to move on. So I quit. There was always an “unspoken time limit” when it came to my participation in the sport.

I devoted plenty of time to shadow boxing. At the time I believed it to be one of the most important and useful ways to practise boxing. At least once you have all of the other fundamentals and basics in place. Sometimes it is like sparring an imaginary partner. Sometimes it is like sparring an imaginary sparring partner. Sometimes it’s just doing drills and scenarios. It’s kind of like mental practise you’re doing. You’re learning the mental side of things through visualisation and practise. But you’re learning it kinaesthetically, because you’re actually doing it. It is important anyway.

I developed good reflexes. That is, I had good reflexes in general before starting boxing (thanks to table tennis and judo), but developed even better reflexes by practising boxing. It's good for your reflexes. It makes you quicker.

And over time, you also develop some instincts and intuition. Shadow boxing helps with that too.

The style of boxing I had was fairly conventional, and the training and instruction I received from my instructors at boxing was also fairly conventional. (Please note: the quality of training at Dion Crouch’s “Zero Tolerance” Muay Thai class before I even showed up to boxing was excellent. I went there for six months before I even moved to the same town as my boxing class. I learned a lot there. But he is an expert in pedagogy with a masters degree in educational theory - you can look him up on LinkedIn if you want).

I jumped rope, I did bag work, focus mitt work, did some sparring, and plenty of shadow boxing, amongst other things. I also felt that cardiovascular fitness and endurance, strength and conditioning, and other elements of fitness were important, so I did those too. There was some breathing stuff as well (exhale on a punch - I used a “sss” sound. I understand that people now might use a grunt sound when they hit bags or throw punches? Im not sure what is currently fashionable. I used a “tchh” sound if I got hit in the abdomen, while tensing my abdominal wall and exhaling. It’s hard to explain in words, but I just did it). I practised the breathing stuff when punching, sparring and doing particular medicine ball drills.

I also made fairly good use of a number of online resources. I tried to stick to the most conventional and respectable advice possible. That is, I stuck mostly to the staid, tried and true methods, with a strong emphasis on basics and fundamentals (please note, this was back in 2004).

I tried to avoid excessive analysis, that is I wanted to avoid “analysis paralysis”. I also wanted to avoid overdoing with research and reading. I also wanted to avoid being hyper cerebral (technical? Geeky about it?). And I succeeded at this. I wanted to keep it super simple, and so I did.

I focussed on basics and fundamentals. And the things I learned online meshed well with what I learned from the instructors at boxing itself.

I also learned a lot just by watching the other guys spar, and from sparring myself. I also imitated their technique in bag work a little bit. By the way, sparring is kind of like a laboratory. You experiment! And if it works there, it works. If it doesn’t work there, it doesn’t work. And you have to go back to the drawing board (what going back to the drawing board means is that maybe you try stuff out in shadow boxing, see what works and what doesn’t, and try it out in sparring, and see if it makes more sense). There are exceptions though.

That’s just about it. My brief post about boxing.