Jak Othman's Kickboxing International

Strike it effective with June.

Here I am a typical urban girl going through the final term of my degree course at college, and still kicking around enjoying every single minute of Kickboxing. I never trained in any other fighting arts before I met Kru Jak. The only art I did was traditional Malay dance with the legendary Puan Azanin, that was one great experience which I will treasure all my life! So my first martial arts training is fitness kickboxing and now crossing over to Muay Thai @ Thai kickboxing the art that many consider too rough for girls. Guest what? Wrong! The girls at the studio love every single minute of it! Miss Penne Tan who is now in her early 50’s still can knee the **** out of you, if you stand in her way! Go girl!

Being an instructor at Kru Jak’s studio gave me the opportunity to meet up with many characters, which most martial art schools called students, but at our place we call them clients! Training directly under a master like Kru Jak also open my eyes to appreciate and respect other form of martial arts. He taught us that martial arts are like food. They are all tasty and good. But you will have to choose the one that satisfy your taste buds and needs, cooked by the top chefs in town. There is no such thing as the ultimate fighting art, but Kru Jak always say, ~`You must find the best teacher the best communicator who want to give it all to you.’ That’s what he wants to be and being with him also motivates me to be the best possible communicator between my clients and me during our training sessions.
Teaching is a great experience. I love it so much. The more you teach, the more you improve your own techniques and strategies. Teaching the martial arts also expose you to all kind of situation. Especially, teaching those who are already senior ranking in other arts. Some are nice people, respectful and their former martial training show in their ethics, but some are pretty bad! Disrespectful, arrogant and zero ethics. Kru always say, ` You are my cake and I am the cake tray. If I’m a square, you will also be a square! Now, you know what he meant, girl? Yeah, find yourself a good instructor!

At the studio we always have to put up with these bad martial artists during new intakes. They normally brag and show off their skills before the session starts. But Kru was right all the time. Wait till they were asked to strike the heavy bag. They will blast the bag with their best kick. Their kicks are normally nowhere! Sometimes they even missed the heavy bag. Some stop almost immediately after the first strike because they hurt their hand or feet! As a matter of fact, we do have to put up with those who refuse to wear gloves when they strike the heavy bag. You will be surprised how the heavy bag can turned a Bruce Lee impersonator into a timid little rabbit after a 5 rounds session. That’s why we always checkout a newcomer who claim he or she’s a kick boxer or boxer, by looking at their bag work.

That’s the thing about kickboxing, we do not strike air during training apart from what we called shadow boxing during warm ups. Most of the training we will be striking full blast on the heavy bags, boxer focus pads, Thai pads and the large foam shields. A legendary kick boxer ~ Benny ` the jet ‘ Urquidez once said, `The way you train is the way you react!’ If you pull your kicks and punches during training, you will do the same thing in real situation. For this month’s article, I would like to discuss how training with the boxer focus pads could boost your aerobic kickboxing or fitness boxing, what ever you call it!

You can dance, jump up and down, punch and kick air for 45 minutes, sweat like a dog with the aerobic version of kickboxing. How about 45 minutes of full blast pad work? You will sweat like a dog, get aerobically fit and on top of all these you will strike accurately, fast and powerful when the real situation arise. Apart from that nothing gives me more stress relieve than the boxer focus pads, Thai pads, shield and heavy bag drills of kickboxing. This is our version of fitness boxing and kickboxing. You will definitely loose weight, tighten up; relieve stress and street lethal with our version of aerobic kickboxing. Now, secure the hand wraps, glove up, pump up the music and I shall take you through what we at the studio called the junior PAIN DRILL!

Square off with a boxer stance with both arm close to the body and form a mini triangle in front of your body. You are now standing in the safe zone (outside your opponent striking range). Relax step forward into the combat zone and blast your techniques. Immediately step or shuffle back to your safe zone after completing each combo.

Your friend hold up the pads for you, let proceed with the first drill ~ a double jab at same level. Exhale sharp through your nose /mouth as you execute the techniques, slowly first and build up to maximum power. Then double jab high and low, sinking your weight on your boxer stance as you shoot the low jab. Don’t forget to cover the side of your face as the blast the pads. Here at the studio we call it ~ answer your phone. Follow through with a double cross, still answer your phone! Do each combo 10 times.

Here’s the rest of the junior pain drills

(Alternate hands)
Jab cross
Jab/cross 4x
Jab /hook /jab / hook
Cross /hook / cross/ hook
Jab /uppercut/ jab / uppercut
Jab / uppercut / hook
Cross /hook / uppercut
(Same hands)
Jab / hook (same hand)/ cross / hook (same hand)
Jab / uppercut (same hand)/ cross / uppercut (same hand)

Hey, what if you have to train alone at home? That’s easy. Get some old clothes and roll them into a ball. Put in it your mum’s old sarong and hang it with a piece of rope at your doorway. Get yourself a pair of boxing gloves preferably 10 oz and above at any sport shop. If you have trouble getting them contact me. Our studio has lots of them! If all these are troublesome just do shadow boxing in front of your mirror, OK! I’ll do it all the time between revision sessions just to KICK THE STRESS OUT!

If you are interested to learn more about our version of kickboxing you can contact me via e-mail: n4utig4l@yahoo.com

. In part 2,I shall discuss about application of the above drills for street survival.