Starting Jiu Jitsu Training

Just sitting down to write a quick update about Brandon.

Brandon has starting taking Jiu Jitsu as of Tuesday. He's really enjoying the few classes he's attend and everyone in the class has been great.

This is going to be a great addition to his list of martial arts skills. As his skills in stand up sparring and forms progress, there has been a lack of time to devote to his ground work. Although, I did see him pull off a quite impressive arm bar last week.

The addition of Jiu Jitsu classes will help cover any potential weaknesses in his defense. It will also free up Sifu Oscar to concentrate on developing Brandon's Wushu forms.

Last night they brought in a guest instructor from Paragon RGV Brazilian Jiu Jitsu out of Edinburg. He was great. I was told he has 29 years of experience in BJJ. I've never had the opportunity to see a black belt in BJJ train a class. It was a treat just to watch from the sidelines.

I'm hoping with the ground work Sifu Oscar has laid for his grappling, it will allow Brandon to progress with BJJ quickly.

As far as everything else; he's stand up sparring is coming along extremely well. He's also been advancing on his forms nicely. He's currently working on an Eagle Claw form. It's a rather complex form. We are hoping Brandon will earn his Brown Belt by Christmas if not sooner.

Also, next tournament may be August 5th.

Brandon Sparring with Kickboxers

For all our friends that have been following Brandon's progress, you know he has a real challenge trying to find people to spar. So, he does crazy things like spar with adults from the local kickboxing class.

Last Thursday the instructor from the kickboxing class allowed Brandon to spar some of his students. I believe he sparred 5 in all. It was a great learning experience for him. All the students, were more than happy to give Brandon some pointers.

This is only the second time Brandon has sparred where face contact was allowed. At least this time he was prepared for it. You can tell the hands from the adults can land hard against Brandon but they didn't seem to bother him. He reminds me of Rich Franklin. He doesn't get geared up until someone actually hits him. He's still relatively small and hasn't started adding any weight on his frame. We appreciate them taking it down a notch and not trying to punch with all their might.

We believe Brandon did very well. He kicks are spot on; landing may solid hits. He still needs so work with his hands. The good news is Brandon will also be taking boxing lessons this summer from a previous Olympic champion. These lessons should help out tremendously.

Brandon is still looking for people to spar so he can improve his skills. However, as previously mentioned in earlier articles, it appears most martial arts schools are an island to themselves and either don't want to help anyone outside there little group or don't want to be exposed for how bad they are.

Results from Saturday's MMA Tournament

Brandon participated in a 3 school tournament on 2/16/13. All three schools have tournaments coming up and the leadership felt this would be a great trail run for the students. It was a good size turn out. Unfortunately, it was mostly for the younger kids.

Brandon performed Nan Quan 2 for his Kung Fu form. There was no one else there at his age level for forms. So, he won by default. One of the issues he did encounter was space to properly do the form. This tournament took place in a gym and the only place to do it was inside an Octagon; not the best place for a Wushu Form. However, he was able to adapt and did receive a nice scoring.

Brandon also received first from point sparring. He faced 3 other opponents. He won with scores of 6-0, 5-0, and 6-1. Brandon can be very quick and usually blocks well.

Then Brandon participated in continuous sparring which he likes the best. This has been the first time he was able to do continuous sparring at a tournament. Unfortunately, it did not go as expected. I was not there, but I’ll explain from what I’ve been told.

**Before I explain this event, let me state this was the first get together from the 3 different schools and there was a little bit of miscommunication with took place on how things should be done for the continuous sparring.**

There was only one other person who wanted to do continuous sparring. He was 16 years old with some MMA training. He also wore MMA gloves and not the type worn at our sparring sessions.  Most people would agree that the MMA gloves are better suited for damage over regular class sparing gloves. Brandon has been taught not to hit in the face during sparring. Brown belts and above are able to contact with the face. From our side, it looked like the kid had only practiced punching to the face.  So, with all the advantages going to his opponent; gear, age, height, weight, and rules to fight by, Brandon did not do to well.

I was told the first round had some good back and forth to it. However, by the time the second round came up, Brandon wasn’t able to deal with the constant face punches. The instructors informed him he couldn’t punch to the face anymore to try and make it more sporting. However, the opponent struck him in the face again which ended up being a more devastating blow to the eye.

They disqualified Brandon’s opponent at that point and told Brandon he got first.

However, both Brandon and I, realize Brandon’s opponent was probably saying WTF? What do you mean no hitting to the face? What do you mean my gloves give me an advantage? What kind of sparring is this?

We wish it could have ended another way. The positive side of this match was Brandon realizing the importance of blocking face contact. This may be a duh moment for most people but he’s been trained with no face contact up to this point. Brandon is a true competitor. So, he’s asked his instructor to help learn about fighting at the next level as the other kid was. Brandon’s instructor has agreed to help modify instruction after this coming tournament.

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Saturday Night Kempo Surprise.

Tonight, Brandon was in luck. We had a guest student come by and give him some good sparring sessions. The student is a girl trained in some kind of Kempo. I believe she’s 14 and has a black belt. She is currently cross-training into other styles of Martial Arts.

It was nice to see Brandon spar against someone of his age with more experience. I wish he had the chance to do this more often. The whole thing was exciting to watch. I thought Brandon did extremely well against her.

This particular class gave us a better understanding of Brandon’s strong and weak points. I hope she becomes a regular student. There is also a possibility her father, which is also a black belt, might do some sparring with him. Quality training! This is could be some exciting stuff.

Unfortunately, there isn’t any video. I’m not sure if there will be any in the future either. I did bring it up but either they didn’t understand, hear, or care for the idea of being on video. Hopefully, if they stick around they’ll allow some video footage. I don’t shoot anyone in Brandon’s videos without their permission.

We’ll keep you updated.

I wasn’t too familiar with Kempo myself. So, I supplied a video for anyone else in the same boat.

Just 2 more weeks till Brandon test for his Red belt. That’s one below Brown in this ranking system.

Learning Rope Dart

Yesterday my son started learning the basics on Rope Dart. This is really for advanced levels in Kung Fu but we figured we would give Brandon some basics. A quick look around YouTube for example and you'll see a bunch of fail examples. Few people have mastered this weapon and it take lots of practice. The most famous example I've seen with this weapon was by Jackie Chan in Shanghai Noon.

Hopefully, we will be able to show some footage of Brandon with some basic moves in the near future. He has to learn them for his next level belt. He's test is coming up in a few weeks. That's not much time. He's dedicated though. He was outside last night practicing by the porch light.

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Kung Fu Versus Taekwondo

Kung Fu Versus Taekwondo

On Friday, Brandon's normal sparring partner did not make it to class. Luckily for us, his instructor requested a sparring partner with someone in the Taekwondo class in the other room. I have a lot of respect for people who will spar without an moments notice. It was a short sparring lesson but I feel it was very helpful. 

Having Brandon spar someone who knows Taekwondo just helps him gain a wider experience base. In a few weeks three of the instructors will be bringing their teams together for an in-school tournament. This will pit Kung Fu versus Taekwondo. I expect it to be a good time for everyone. In addition, it will help with preparing for the upcoming tournament in Houston. 

After the short sparring session, Sifi Oscar went a few rounds with Brandon. It's always good to fight someone better than you. This allows you to see you weeknesses and find out what's possible. 

In need of additional Kung Fu competition

Today we are posting Brandon's 3rd sparring video. You'll notice we have the same person sparring Brandon. Unfortunately, we are currently waiting on more people to join the class for Brandon to fight against. Remember, this school has just started but Brandon has been with the instructor for 3 years.

We were hoping to see one of Sifu's old Kung Fu students come back. At least he said he would be coming back. He has some skill and is 3 years older than Brandon. So, this would be good practice for him.

I would like to have Brandon go to some other local schools and "challenge some kids to sparring." However, I know people frown on this. I'm not sure why. It just seems to me, if I was trying to perfect my marital arts skills, I would want to compete against new people.

I guess this is what the tournaments are for. It just seems like an expensive way to go about it. We've already spent $300 on the upcoming Kung Fu tournament in Houston and we haven't even left yet.

Speaking of the tournament, there are some rules we are going to need to follow. First off, Brandon needs to stop punching and kicking people in the face. This might be great for a fight but not for competition or classroom sparring. It's an easy way to get disqualified.

It will be interesting to go to this first large tournament. We aren't expecting Karate Kid or anything. However, we expect the level of skill to go far beyond our local tournaments.

Read our most recent post on BKO Kung Fu.

BKO Kung Fu Sanda Class

What is Sanda? In laymen’s terms, it's Kung Fu without any ground work. This style is very popular with Brandon's current instructor. A Sanda match will involve kicking, punching, and takedowns. Once an opponent is taken down then the point is gained and the fighters are reset. A well known UFC fighter has a huge background in Sanda. He names in Cung Lee and was one of the best fighters in the world.

I know some people will disagree with my last statement. However, they probably had UFC blinders on. Kung Lee did not come to the UFC till after his prime, in my opinion. He is still able to kick butt. It’s hard to be a fierce competitor at 40. Before UFC he dominated his own field of martial arts.

I like the Sanda aspect of fighting due to its ability to help transition a fighter from traditional stand up fighting to ground work. In his current school, he is able to learn Stand up, takedowns, and grappling. I continue to tell Brandon that only knowing one type of fighting is a very bad strategy. I’m hoping later on he will get some more training with elbows and knees. I have thought about getting him some Muay Thai training. However, no one really teaches it in our area. Well, one person does but his prices are ridiculous.

So, let’s get to today’s film. Brandon is going to be giving commentary on his fighting. This will help in a few areas. One help him examine what he is doing right and wrong and help him to vocalize his ideas. Both of these can help in all aspects of life.

Enjoy today’s video.

and if you want to see a Cung Lee video, I found a cool one on youtube.

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BKO Kung Fu's First Sparring Video

After taking a few weeks off for the Christmas break. Brandon stepped back in Class for some Kung Fu sparring. I was impressed by his performance. There did appear to be an increase in skill since last month. However, we don’t plan on taking any time off for the remainder of the year.

Many of his strikes where clean and he had some good kicks. I would like to see him put combo punches coming in at different angles. In addition, we need to work on him not telegraphing his spinning back kick. He did some ground work after sparring. This is his greatest area of opportunity. So, at his request, we have no film of this yet.



We are looking forward to his first large tournament in March. Usually, we just go to local tournaments with maybe a few hundred people. This next tournament will be a Kung Fu Tournament in Houston. We’ll have to drive their on Friday. Spend the night and then do the tournament on Saturday. Afterwards, we’ll have to drive right back.  It’s too much of a strain to stay another night with finances, work, and school. We are going to be videoing most of that trip for you guys.

…and now here’s some footage of Brandon Sparring yesterday.

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