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Train with a legend Superfoot coming to Derry
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25-04-2007 9:53pm#1
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buck65 wrote:Bill's backround is in karate, would a TKD student be out of place there?
BIll Wallace -> great kicker, TKD - all bout the kickin
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The following may intrest you...it was a review of my training with Superfoot published last year in Irish Fighter. Great guy on and off the floor.
I'd certainly do my best to attend this.Double Impact – Duality and Unity in the Martial Arts
By Paul J.O’Brien
B.A., N.C.E.H.S., Lic. Acu., Cert Clin. Med. M.T.C.M.C.I.
The Martial Arts have long been associated with duality and eastern philosophy. No where is this seen more than in the images prevailing the martial arts industry, particularly the symbol for Yin and Yang. The nature of duality in the martial arts is reflected in the various styles we have, hard liner styles such as Shotokan Karate as compared to softer circular flowing styles such as Tai Chi. It is also evident in the new focus of martial arts as traditional versus modern.
In the Double Impact seminar hosted by Eugene Mc Quinlan, no where could this be seen more clearly, as Grandmaster John Peligrini of Combat Hapkido teamed up with The Legendary Bill “Superfoot” Wallace to give martial artists a taste of this duality, Reality and Sport. This has been done before, people constantly argue back and forth about the virtue’s of which is better and that’s where this was different!
What is unique about Grandmaster Pelligrini and Grandmaster Wallace is a complete lack of friction or competition. During the seminar those martial artists present saw something truly spectacular in the martial arts – completeness, total respect for each other’s abilities and area’s of expertise and what is more a genuine openness and desire to learn about something they didn’t know.
The seminar itself was divided into eight sections over two days. One instructor would flow into the next teacher’s class and visa versa. Our first session was with the Legend, Bill “Superfoot” Wallace. Wallace walks on to the floor, a stiff, old, grumpy man complaining about cold Irish weather…but if you watch very carefully you can see the beginning of a wry smile, and mischief in his eyes. Those students who saw this smiled to themselves as they realised what was about to happen.
How are you going to kick someone in the head?
Within seconds this stiff man became a lightening fast, insanely flexible, powerful, grinning head kicking machine. For the next few days the “Superfoot” never stopped moving, putting his students through incredibly effective flexibility drills, devastating combinations and conditioning techniques and subjecting us to a sharp wit leaving us in laughter as his ability to slip through the best defences left us in awe. It was very much like Yoda bouncing around in the latest Star Wars Films, except Yoda wasn’t green or short…
From the start we were exposed to the Superfoot philosophy, simplicity and relaxation. The effectiveness of Superfoot’s technique both in competition and in teaching is in its simple, unassuming self evidence. This was obvious from the first as he took us through a series of practical stretches and warm-up techniques for the martial artist.
“Boxers warm up by doing light shadow boxing, swimmers warm-up by swimming lengths and yet, Martial Artists warm up by running laps and doing Jumping Jacks! This is the worse thing they could do! Exercises like this cause the muscles to contract and get tighter, and then how are you going to kick someone in the head?”
Superfoot broke it down and explained that only three muscles need to be relaxed in order to have full flexibility and achieve the splits. A common mistake is that everyone tries to do work each muscle at once, instead of taking their time and working on just one area and getting it to relax.
Unlike other methods of stretching and flexibility Superfoot’s technique is a method of educating the body and its muscles through awareness and conscious control. Simultaneously strengthening the muscle used to achieve the kicks he is famous for, Wallace taught us allow how to take control of the unresponsive and untrained muscles keeping us from achieving our flexibility potential.
How do you block a kick that’s already hit you?
Following on from this Wallace demonstrated his incredible footwork – a simple two movements that allowed him to gain over a foot in distance when launching an attack without seeming to have moved. The ability to close distance without your opponent realising it is an incredible advantage in any form of combat and particularly in competition, and as Wallace often pointed out “he can’t block a kick that’s already hit him!”
It was a truly inspiring sight to see children and adults, beginners and experts realise that this technique could be mastered in mere seconds and applied instantly. We ran drills and successfully applied this brilliant simplicity and directness to our abilities and saw our skill level, success rate and sheer kicking ability sky rocket. There really is nothing like knowing you can put your foot anywhere on your opponent and he’ll never have the chance to block it.
Technique is good but not enough…as we learned when Master Wallace introduced us to the psychology that helped maintain an undefeated record. He taught us step by step the methods he used successfully through his career to cause his opponents to walk into his lightning g fast kicks.
I’m going to be honest here; I have never liked competition fighting. I’ve tried it. I’ve sucked at it and hated it for showing up huge glaring weakness I have as a martial artist. I never understood the enjoyment people got out of sparring. Now I suspect on reflection the reason for that was because I was always the one losing. After training with Superfoot Wallace I was landing kicks every which way from Sunday. I was tagging my opponent relentlessly, creating openings in his defence and landing my
As Superfoot says, “Its only fun when it’s my turn and I’m kicking him in the head. I don’t like getting hit, so I make sure I never am!”
Combat Hapkido – Locking up the street
In the second half of the seminar we went from closing the distance to being up close and personal dealing with reality based conflicts with a unique twist – joint locks! Now I know several of you are reading this and saying, “Joint locks….in a street fight… now way…it’s not gong to work.” Well I would have agreed with you. Joints locks were cool things to play around with in training and looked great impressing your friends or in demonstrations but in a street fight with someone trying to smash a bottle over my head? Forget it!
Well, I humbly admit I was wrong. Very wrong. Grandmaster John Pelligrini founder of Combat Hapkido, illustrated the lethal and realistic application of joint locking specifically for the street environment. Utilising as series of quick and effective easy to learn techniques, Grandmaster Pelligrini reduced one of the toughest martial artists I know to a quivering mass of unresponsive muscle. With one simple natural movement astoundingly painful locks were systematically applied to an uncooperative opponent, (which caused more pain), to show street application. Every technique we were shown worked. Every technique can be done easily and every principal underlying them is cold hard and effective. I know this because for over thirty minutes Grandmaster Peilligrini, a man smaller and weaker than I put me in lock after lock for over thirty minutes.
In a very foolish tactical decision I asked could these techniques really be done to an uncooperative violent opponent, who would struggle, kick, scream and punch. I was invited to try. I launched attack after attack, straight punches, hook punches, low bows, chokes, grabs, head butts, everything. I even, much to my shame, lost my temper and tried to rush him with a tackle to the ground. I ended up a sprawling mess on the floor.
The worse part was that by the end of the course every one of us, including junior members could do the same to me. Each practitioner became a puppet master able to jerk, twist and manipulate their aggressor in any way they wished.
The breaking point of learning
Throughout, what I can only describe as the most painful lessons in my martial arts career Grandmaster Pelligrini described each lock in its most simple and basic terms – thereby making it quicker to apply and more effective. Utilising both pressure point strikes, which he carefully pointed out to me, and structural destruction of the human body he taught the assembled crowds how to effect, both pain submissions, joint breaks and more.
That may be you say, but how do you do that on the street? Well it’s quite simple. As Grandmaster Pelligrini pointed out, no one is going to stand there and let you put them in a lock. Referring to an earlier lesson taught to us by Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, you must manipulate your aggressor into allowing you to attack them in the manner you want. You can affect this through simply striking them and distracting them in that manner or you can interrupt them through eye contact, conversation or a number of other methods. Once suitably distracted applying a joint lock is extremely easy.
It is also, as Grandmaster Pelligrini pointed out extremely practical. Joint locks allow you a non-lethal solution to a violent confrontation and thus allow you to stay on the good side of the legal system. Also for many real life defence situations, restraining them for the Gardai may be the preferred solution, particularly those involved in law enforcement or security work.
Between the laughter and the pain
The most profound lessons however were not in the class, but when we broke for lunch. Unlike many traditional teachers there is no mystery, or over elaborate ritual. Both Grandmaster Pelligrini and the Legend Bill Wallace are extremely down to earth men. Throughout lunch matters both serious and trivial were discussed, the role of martial arts in helping the community, the nature of modern morality and its effects on society, the nature of the martial arts throughout the world and how it fragmentation effects its development, the nature of age on the martial artist and how to overcome it, why McDonald’s chicken nuggets improve flexibility, why martial artist are better lovers, how to flirt, and finally the nature of what passes for dancing in today’s club scene.
It is a rather unique experience to sit besides two of the best martial artists in the world today and see them crack jokes and play off one another with the same fluidity and grace shown in their techniques. As Grandmaster Pelligrini often said throughout the two spectacular, “Were not paid for teaching martial arts, they pay us for the comedy – we’re a double act”.
During lunch I asked both Bill “Superfoot” Wallace and Grandmaster Pelligrini what the most important thing they wanted their students to take away from the two day seminar was. The answer was simply an IDEA. An idea, that their may be another way to kick, to warm up, to train, to punch, that might just work for you. Perhaps the idea that although you may not do a particular style, or maybe you don’t have an interest in this martial art as opposed to another, go anyway, support it, support your fellow students and instructors, because they will support you and in that way we all become better martial artist, better people, create a better community and a better world.
Between the laughter and the pain, the sports and the reality, the kicks and the locks those martial artists who attended got to see what happens when you’re open to other ideas. You get laughter, you get a better understanding of things, and you leave having learnt a bit about yourself and knowing you have some very good friends. Oh… and that it is surprisingly easy to kick someone in the head.0 -
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