Forteza Fitness

Event Review: Combatives Training with Lee Morrisson

Dan Vigil gets a "love tap" from a Millwall Brick, courtesy of Lee Morrison

Dan Vigil gets a “love tap” from a Millwall Brick, courtesy of Lee Morrison.

This past February, Dan Vigil hosted a three day combatives seminar with UK instructor Lee Morrison. Originally scheduled for last year, the seminar had to be rescheduled due to a training injury Lee received. Seeing in person how hard the man trains, this isn’t too surprising!

I missed the first day of training, but Lee did his best to catch us up. The seminar began with going over the proper mindset needed for successful self defense, or what Lee calls combative psychology. A lot of self-defense instructors teach their students to not become victims; Lee pushes that much further, and instead teaches how to become a worse predator than the one you will potentially face on the street. A lot of emphasis was put on proper mindset in three distinct stages: pre-conflict, during the actual fight, and perhaps most importantly, post conflict. Lee makes it his mission to help develop your inner predator, with an understanding that it doesn’t have to hang on your shoulders like a burden. Instead, it is something you tap into when you need it, and leave it locked away when you don’t.

The structure of the seminar was interesting. There was a lot of downtime between actual physical training sessions, because Lee’s emphasis was on mindset, which required a lot of prepping us for the next training session, and some after action review post training. Lee’s approach was very module based; we would focus on a specific set of skills, recap, and then move on to more training. While there was a lot of classroom learning, when we were on the floor, it was all out, high intensity, and high impact training.

Instead of waiting for trouble to come to you, Lee is all about preempting. As he put it: you hit f@#$ing hard, and even more importantly, hit first. We worked a lot of pad drills, both against a single target, and multiple opponents. The holder would give the trainee feedback. If your hit was judged hard enough to do significant damage, the holder would fade back and allow you to engage the next target. If your strike was full of weak sauce, then the holder would keep the target in play, and you would have to blitz in with multiple strikes before turning your attention to the next target.

Other modules includemultiple opponent tactics, counter grappling/mma, and improvised weapons. Not much in the way of actual technique was covered. Instead, you used your preexisting skill set, and Lee focused his energy on getting the proper attitude and mindset, and working on developing power to all of your strikes. Lee talked a lot about how the guy on the street is going to be hitting you with hurt and anger, and you have to do the same to him. Emotional content, as Lee (both Morrison and Bruce) says.

A few of the drills we did felt as close to a real fight as I’ve felt in a long time. This is where the training got really interesting, as one of the best takeaways from the Lee Morrison seminar was just how hard you can train, and still be ok. Having shorter training segments allowed us to really amp up the intensity, and and then be able to recover as we transitioned to the next topic..

The last thing that really stood out about Lee was how athletic and explosive he was, and how necessary such attributes were if you are going to train in his blend of combatives. In the UK, all weapons have been outlawed, which of course criminals could care less about. When you don’t have guns or knives to rely on for protection, your empty hand skills need to be at the highest level. Lee trains as hard as a professional fighter; spending hours every week hitting pads, and dedicating himself to a rigorous strength and conditioning routine. The athlete in me really appreciated this, and because of my day job, I am able to dedicate a lot of time to training. However, for those with far less free time to train, I honestly don’t think it would be possible to emulate Lee directly.However, between his combat psychology, and the intensity of his training, any student of self protection will get a lot out of training with Lee. Even if you don’t have the physical attributes to fight like him, you’ll still get a lot out of it. Plus, it might inspire you to make a bit more time to train.

I would suggest that if you ever get to train with Lee, you bring your own training partner. That way, you can train as hard or as light as you want. Also, Lee really was one hell of a nice guy. I was able to go out to dinner with him and some of the group on Saturday night, and he was super cool, which makes training and hanging out with him that much more enjoyable.

Lee's a great guy to spend time -- with was probably a good thing for all of us, cause he can seriously deliver the goods!

Lee’s a great guy to spend time — with was probably a good thing for all of us, cause he can seriously deliver the goods!-Keith

 

 

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IKFF Kettlebell Certification Review

By Keith Jennings

This past January, I participated in a Kettlebell instructor certification seminar with the International Kettlebell and Fitness Federation (IKFF).  This was the third kettlebell certification course I’ve attended, and it was both the most comprehensive in terms of technique, and yet also the most sparse in terms of catalog of techniques.  Since my reason for taking this course was to focus on the primary kettlebell lifts used in sport competition, this suited me just fine.  The IKFF website describes their approach as such:

The IKFF is an organization whose goals are two-fold: to promote Kettlebell training and complete mind/body fitness on a global scale, and to support our members in developing the all-encompassing skills needed to accelerate their own fitness and fitness-oriented businesses.  The vision in creating this is to offer passionate fitness enthusiasts a no-nonsense, ever-evolving resource they can trust is on the cutting edge of athletic training and conditioning!
 
Most Kettlebell courses are either run like a diabolical bootcamp, where learning technique often come second to getting your ass kicked during two days of relentless training.  The reasoning behind this is, if you want to consider yourself a kettlebells instructor, you better be just as bad ass as the piece of iron that you working to master.  I’m ok with this approach, and found these courses to be a lot of fun.  Other courses almost try to do too much, mixing in Hard-Style with Sport training, all the while trying to find time to work on supplemental training such as joint mobility or gymnastics.  With the IKFF certification course, the emphasis was completely technique based.  In fact, much of the seminar was spent without a kettlebell in hand, making sure we had the correct body mechanics down before even picking up a bell.  The only kettlebell lifts taught were the single hand swing, the clean, the press (and its many variations), and the snatch.  Many of the standard kettlebell exercises, such as the Turkish Get-Up and the Windmill, were barely mentioned.  Instead, the IKFF is singularly focused and dedicated to kettlebell Sport lifting, known as  Girevoy Sport.  Taught by IKFF Head Master Trainer Ken Blackburn, he emphasized that with sport lifting, the devil is in the details.  Even the smallest detail will make a huge impact on your performance.  I have had kettlebell sport technique explained to me in the past, and have seen elite athletes perform both in person and in video.  However, it wasn’t until training under Ken that I have come to truly appreciate the intricacies of such technique, why this is the preferred method for lifts such as Long Cycle and snatching, and I have become a true believer.
So, what does this mean for kettlebell training at Forteza?   Like most things in life, there are positives to both sides, and we will be incorporating sport style into our already established kettlebell regimen.  In the next blog, I will go over what the differences are between Hard-Style and Girevoy Sport, and the roll of both in you future training.  In the mean time, I will be teaching a special kettlebell class on Sunday, February 23rd at noon.  This will be about four hours of learning, where the focus will be more on proper technique and body mechanics, and low on sweat (until the very end of the class, of course….).  I will be posting details soon, but this will be a very inexpensive class, and recommended to anyone who trains at Forteza and wants to take their kettlebell training to the next level!

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Western Martial Arts Workshop After-Action Review

Forteza Co-Owner and Chicago Swordplay Guild founder, Gregory Mele has just posted an after-action review of the 2013 Western Martial Arts Workshop. Begun in 1999, WMAW is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, international event of its kind!

As a bonus, here is some footage of the CSG’s own Rob Rutherfoord in a rapier exhibition bout with the Virginia Academy of Fencing’s Bill Grandy:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzQ2rffzZG0&w=420&h=315]

And a high-intensity, Bowie Knife duel between Forteza’s Keith Jennings and Thayne Alexander:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEig6Ih_gIA&w=420&h=315]

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Tomahawk and Long Knife Seminar Review and Training Footage

Meredith Lyons has posted a review of our recent Tomahawk and Long Knife seminar. This was the second part of our American Heritage Fighting Arts series, following on last month’s Bowie Knife Wokrshop. Next up: single-stick, both a training tool for the military saber, and a form of self-defense and fencing sport in its own right, and one of the martial arts of choice of the original Rough Rider himself, Teddy Roosevelt.

More on that soon, but for now, here is some video of both the recent ‘hawk and knife seminar, and some bowie knife fencing from the end of our first workshop:

‘Hawk and Knife
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzuqFhAFUG0&w=420&h=315]

Bowie Basics

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And you can find more Bowie sparring clips at the recent after action event review.

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Bowie Knife Workshop After-Action Review – American Heritage Fighting Arts

Just in time for Independence Day, Forteza kicked off our American Heritage Fighting Arts program with a three hour introduction to the Bowie knife.  While we had originally planned to launch this new program with a seminar on the tomahawk, due to a snafu with one of our distributors, we found ourselves without tomahawk trainers! Oops.

This worked out just fine, as there is no other weapon as  quintessentially American as the Bowie knife.

The Man – the Knife. While Jim Bowie’s knife duels are famous, there is no evidence of any special design of his devising, or a connection to the weapon that would come to bear his name

The Bowie was not so much a new invention, as the inheritor of about two-thousand years of European big knives, beginning with the Germanic saex. Although taught in fencing salles throughout the south – particularly in New Orleans, alongside the sabre and dueling sword, there was little formally written on fighting with the big knife, with the most notable sources being an illustrated newspaper interview from 1890 and  John Styers much later “Cold Steel”.  Our own Bowie knife system comes from Forteza Combatives instructor Keith Jennings’ 14 years of research into the weapon. Keith has at one time or another studied with three of the modern masters of the Bowie: James Keating, Dwight McClemore, and Pete Kautz. The program taught at Forteza reflects the teachings of three instructors, as well as Keith’s own research into the use of the knife in Western martial culture going back to the medieval ages, through the World Wars, and to today.

The seminar focused on the basics of large knife dueling starting with the grip, the basic stance and guards, and the three basic thrusts. After learning how to attack safely using the age old True Times, students worked on defensive actions, including basic parries, stop cuts, classical fencing techniques such as the inquartata and passada sotto.

Next, the students learned the deadly back-cut, taking advantage of the Bowie knife unique blade design. Using the clip point of the blade, students went through the mechanics of a proper back-cut, and how to use it both offensively and defensively.

Finally, with enough basic training under their belts, it was time to pressure test what the students had learned. There were a lot of different training backgrounds present, from historical fencing, to Filipino martial arts, Military knife training, and boxing. All of this showed up in their sparring, and everyone was quick adapt the bowie knife to their pre-existing skill set. There were several nice passes, and all of the fighting looked crisp, deadly, and ended quickly, just as a Bowie knife fight should!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbW3geT7ze0&w=420&h=315]
Bowie Fencing Video Clip One

Bowie Fencing Video Clip Two

The next in our line of American Heritage Fighting Arts seminar series with be the Tomahawk and Long knife Seminar on Sunday, August 4th.

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Tomahawk and Long Knife Seminar – July 14th!

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Forteza is celebrating the USA’s birthday in style with a special seminar on fighting with the Tomahawk and long knife!

The Tomahawk is a uniquely American weapon, and has seen service in every armed conflict in our nation’s history. In this unique seminar, we will explore the versatility of the Tomahawk and take advantage of its full potential as a weapon, and how to combine it with the long knife for a truly dynamic paring! Keeping one foot in history, and the other in the modern world, we will look at how the Tomahawk was used historically, as well as modern application.

This is the first in a series of seminars and classes offered through Forteza as part of our American Heritage Fighting Arts program!

When: July 14th, 2013 from 12-4pm
Cost: $40 for members, $50 for non-members

*Preregister by July 1st and receive a free Cold Steel training tomahawk, a $17 value!

(We will also have a few trainers for sale at the seminar.)

To reserve your spot, please contact us at info@fortezafitness.com

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Introduction to Martial Blade Concepts this Sunday at the Nearing School of Wing Chung

To help our good friend Phil celebrate the opening of his new studio, Keith will be teaching an Introduction to Martial Blade Concepts, at Philip Nearing Wing Chung. The seminar will be at 1363 W. Chicago Ave. in Chicago from 12:30-4:30pm. The cost of the seminar is $50. Come and familiarize yourself with the knife and the fundamentals of how to use it to defend yourself with a top drawer instructor. Any questions or inquiries can be made via Facebook email or simply calling me at 312 282 9571. See you there….

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After Action Review: Mike Janich and Martial Blade Concepts at Forteza

The Forteza-MBC Family

The Forteza-MBC Instructor Crew

On April 6th and 7th, renowned self-defense instructor Mike Janich presented a two day workshop on empty hand combatives, and empty hand vs. knife tactics.  Mike is the founder and head instructor of Martial Blade Concepts, which is described on the MBC website as:

Martial Blade Concepts (MBC) is an edged-weapon system specifically designed to meet the needs of today’s concerned citizen and armed professional. Based on Michael Janich’s extensive analysis of the Filipino martial arts and many other systems, MBC takes combat-proven tactics and adapts them to modern tools, threats, and legal concerns. The result is a practical, easy-to-learn system that is ideally suited to modern self-defense.

Mike Janich’s Martial Blade Concepts, as well as the adjutant systems of Counter Blade Concepts and Damithurt Silat (Practical Unarmed Combatves), is the base system four own Combatives program taught at Forteza.  Students were very excited to train with the founder of the system they train in, most of whom had never met or trained with Mike before.  Forteza instructor Keith Jennings also ran a prep seminar two months prior, so by the time Mike arrived in Chicago, all of the students in attendance had a solid base level of skill, which allowed us to skip right past the basics, and jump right into the good stuff.

Mike Janich takes Thayne for a big ride!

Mike Janich takes Thayne for a big ride!

Day One was dedicated to empty hand skills.  Mike focused on taking the instinctual startle response, and educating it to make for a functional tool that can be used under stress.  Students were brought through variations of the cycling drill, Hubud, and shoulder stops.   Saturday ended with a look at Junkyard Aikido, his expression of joint-locking techniques.  Focus was on how to apply joint locks in an actual combative situation, and to use them to either viciously stop the fight, or use the lock to transition to either a weapon or escape.  Special shout out to visiting MBC alum Thayne Alexander for taking so many hard falls on the hard wood floor!  It was an impromptu school of hard knocks style clinic on how to fall properly.

Day two was Counter Blade Concepts, and how to transition from empty hand into knife deployment.  Mike started with his signature video presentation which shows footage of actual knife attacks, and the aftermath of such an assault.  The message was clear: knife attacks happen suddenly and violently, and seen over and over again in the footage were pre-fight indicators, off hand probing, and aggressive gross motor forehand thrusts and slashes predominately coming from right handed attackers.  This reality check helped to bring a very serious tone to the day’s training, and with the problem clearly defined, Mike brought people through his counter-blade system.  Rather than flashy disarms done against static attacks, focus was on shutting down the attack using a split X-defense, compression locking the attacking limb, mobility kills using low line knees and kick.

The MBC patented "Yojimbo" and its Chicago-legal little brother. Porkmen beware!

The MBC patented “Yojimbo” and its Chicago-legal little brother. Porkmen beware!

After lunch, Mike set-up his famous “Porkman” demo: a pork roast attached to a PVC pipe and rigged with twine and Ceram wrap to provide a model of bone, muscle, tendons and skin. Forteza instructor Keith Jennings did the honors with his newly acquired “Chicagojimbo”, a modified Yojimbo 2 with the blade ground down to the legal Chicago length of 2.5 inches.  Even with the shortened blade, and with very little effort, the knife had no problem cutting straight to the bone.  This impressive demonstration showed not only how capable even a small carry knife can be, but also how dangerous it really is to face off against a knife attacker.  With the demonstration fresh in the students’ minds, everyone trained with newfound enthusiasm and respect for what even a small blade is capable of.

There were over forty people training on the floor, with room to spare.  The positive feedback from the seminar was overwhelming, with everyone asking when we’ll have Mike back out for a follow-up seminar.  The answer: as soon as we can! Thanks to Mike for making the trip out to Chicago, all of the MBC alumni from all over the Midwest who came out in support, and for all of the students in attendance who trained hard.

Full house!

Full house!

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Zombie Survival Seminar at Forteza Fitness and Martial Arts.

Saturday, May 25th Noon-5pm
Cost $50, $40 for Fortzea membership holders.

Z-Day is coming, are you prepared?

You’ve packed your bug-out bag, you’ve got your Survival Guide, and you know the truth behind the growing reports of “Bath Salts” and “Bird Flu”. But you still have to get out of the city alive! Our staff offers the best and most unique edged weapons training and combat acrobatics, and we will teach you how to hone these skills for when you need them most.

May is Zombie Awareness month! In order to prepare for the (hopefully) coming zombie hordes, the staff of Forteza Fitness and Martial Arts is proud to present a one day workshop on the key combat skills needed to survive the zombie apocalypse, based around three, simple truths of combating the Reanimate.

Rule One: Where there is one Zombie, there are a dozen. 
Greg Mele, expert in Medieval weaponry and tactics, will show you how to put spear, sword and shield to use when the zombies horde swarms. Learn how to choose the best long weapons for the job, and how to form a phalanx, using teamwork to increase your chances for survival.

Rule Two: They WILL get close.
Keith Jennings, Chicago’s only full instructor in Martial Blade Concepts, will show you how to use small blade weapon tactics using both the machete and small folding knives to hunt down and destroy the walking dead. With the proper skill, these last ditch weapons can mean the different between life or undeath.

Rule Three: They keep coming! Sometimes your best offense is a good defense, also known as the RLH (RunLikeHell) method. 
Brian Connely, stunt master of Asylum Stunts, will train you in advanced tumbling and evasion skills. When all of your weapons have failed you, and you find yourself surrounded by the undead, these evasion skills might be your only chance to escape and seek out your friends, or better yet, get to your weapon and turn the undead into dust.

No one knows when the Apocalypse will strike, so better to be prepared!

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2012: The Year in Physical Fitness

FIGHTINGFIT! CHICAGO’S MOST UNIQUE BOOTCAMP

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Martial arts is one of the most effective forms of cross-training available. It combines aerobic and anaerobic exercise with a diverse workout that builds core strength, cardiovascular fitness, hand-eye coordination, balance, and timing. There are plenty of cardio-kickboxing routines out there, but we wanted something a little more challenging, and more in keeping with what Forteza is all about. Thus, FightingFit!

FightingFit! is a solo training program that combines a great way to build confidence, bust stress, and get in touch with your inner warrior through a combination of weapons training, basic boxing skills, body-weight exercises, Kettlebells and “old school” fitness techniques that literally extend back hundreds of years, you can now use the tools of the warrior to build endurance, agility, raw power, reaction time, and fluid motion.

This was something that hadn’t been tried and we weren’t sure how it would do. The good news is that the program has seen a lot of service this year. Students from all of Forteza’s other programs, and some folks who just wanted a new way to get in shape came together to train. A lot of pounds were lost, and no one failed to get stronger. 2013 is off to a great start, and we are looking at new drills, new routines, and yet another season of fighting our way to fitness!

(The FightingFit! program was also a big hit with the media, being showcased in the Chicago RedEye, and with WGN’s Jonathon Brandmeier. Jesse Kulla explained FightingFit to Johnny B on this PodCast (starting at 6:50), and was later invited to demonstrate on his TV show.)

BRING ON THE SPARTANS: ADVENTURE RACING

Forteza had a busy adventure race season, participating in not one, but two Spartan Races!  The Spartan Race is known as the most difficult mud run out there, with only a 70% success rate.  Three of our athletes traveled down to Indiana for a 5K Spartan Sprint in April, and in October, we had a whopping eleven Spartan compete in the 9 mile Super Spartan.  As if the obstacles and mud weren’t enough, the weekend of the Super Spartan also dropped into freezing temps.  However, even through cramping and near hypothermia, the entire team made it through the end.

You can read more about Forteza’s The Road to Sparta on our personal training blog.

TEMPLE BURNING

Bootcamp groupIn order to prepare for the challenge of two Spartan Races, we had to run two Temple Burnings in 2012.  The Temple Burning is an annual tradition of a full day of physical training designed to push each athlete to their breaking point.  Temple Burnings aren’t just for the Spartan Racers; there is a mix of martial arts students, personal training clients, and weekend warriors.  The first Temple Burning was done along the shores of beautiful Lake Michigan, and highlighted such fun activities as uphill burpees, a pull-up contest, and sand sprints.  The second Temple Burning was even harder, and only included the Spartan Race team.  Each athlete had to keep a 25-35 pound kettlebell in their backpacks as we ran through the 5 mile course, which included break out kettlebell circuits, tabata rounds, and the dreaded hill sprints.

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