Or more accurately, train with his trainer John Hackleman, although Chuck will be in and out. John Hackleman is a Grandmaster in my primary self-defense art, Kajukenbo, and I, my instructor, and one of his senior students that now owns his own school are going to California to train with him at a seminar for four days at his facility, “the Pit.” Am I intimidated? Why yes, yes I am. Here’s a news article about GM Hackleman:
I saw training at the Pit on an episode of TapouT. They were doing crazy shit like pushing wheelbarrows full of rocks up hills. I have the feeling you’re in for an adventure.
Man, you’re gonna have the time of your life, and learn things that are gonna apply to every aspect of your training for the rest of your life! What a cool opportunity. It is definitely to your credit that you are doing this - far more guys think/talk about doing this type of thing than actually get off their asses and do it!
And I think I know your personality enough to believe your “intimidation” will be quite fleeting. Whatever exercises those guys are doing are just different from what you are used to, and those guys were new to them at one time as well. What they will respect above all else is effort and attitude. Hell, all you have to do is just keep going until you drop puking to the mat! And then get up and go some more!
I assume you keep a training journal? If not, try to make a point of jotting down some notes of everything you did each day before going to bed. Everything, from warm-up, drills, assessment of your performance, can be useful when you return. And take plenty of pics!
You’ve been in this game long enough to realize that as valuable as the techniques you learn will be the relationships you make. Without question, the fture will find you training/hanging with some of the guys you meet on various occasions in diverse locales.
Thanks Dinsdale! I’m here in Cali on my second day of training, and it’s been awesome. I’m on break right now and don’t have much time, but I’ll write more when I can.
Well, I’m back. Thanks again for the kind words; it turns out I shouldn’t have worried, it was an awesome experience. I’m really, really glad I worked hard on conditioning before I went, though, or I would have paid for it dearly. I’ll tell some stories and put up some pictures as soon as I can figure out how to get them out of the magical digital picture box.
I haven’t been able to download my own photos, but they mailed me some that they took and I put a couple of them up. They were taken either at the Pit compound in the mountains where John lives and the fighters train, or down at the Pit school in town. I’m the guy with the mustache and goatee wearing a black shirt and either blue trunks, tan trunks, or black warmup pants in most of the shots:
Most of the photos on the first page are of Chuck and Antonio teaching us some takedowns, most of the rest are our own training or conditioning sessions. It’s funny, it wasn’t only a few hardcore fighters, it was actually a really family oriented place. One of the best memories I have of the place is a father tying a belt on a four or five year old boy, who said “I’m a Little Dragon!” Then he looked up at me and said “he’s a Big Dragon!”
When I first got there, the first thing I saw was Glover Teixeira, BJJ Black Belt and MMA fighter making his UFC debut soon, wearing a black gi and teaching a kids class. He was an unbelievably nice guy. John’s school is a lot like a traditional school in many respects, but he places a very, very high emphasis on conditioning, and won’t hesitate to drop you back in a beginner class if you slack off and can’t pass a PT test. If you reach black belt rank in his school, yu’re going to be in peak condition and fighting shape for you, whther your eigteen or eighty. He also doesn’t have katas anymore, although he used to. Even Chuck had to do two katas for his black belt test.
I did learn some new tricks (both technique and conditioning), and refined a lot of ones I already knew. We went over the big overhand right you see Chuck using a lot. It was surprisingly difficult.
Ah man, wish I was 20 years younger and able to do that kinda stuff again. That looks like it was a blast.
Just an observation, I’ve found that some of the best teachers and dojo’s are the family oriented ones. Garrett’s Family Karate formerly of Carmichael and now Reno is one in this mold. Not sure but something about teaching little kids makes for very well rounded instructors that tend to try find the best way to reach every individual at their level.
So, explain again how you defend yourself with a tractor tire?
Do you need a concealed carry permit for a sledgehammer?
And what a wacky coincidence that your first photo just happens to feature a certain young stud in the lead horsing that wheelbarrow uphill!
So how did you express your appreciation to your beautiful young bride for allowing you to go off and do something this fun?
Yeah. A lot of places are very-anti kids, saying true combat is not for children, the deadly techniques we teach are for responsible adults only, etc. I’ve even heard some instructors go as far as say if you walk into a school and there are children there learning, you should walk out immediately. If someone wants to teach adults only that’s fine, but I like having the kids around. They’re a lot of fun, they get a lot of benefit out of it, and they make the school more successful. Sure, you don’t teach them the eye gouges and dislocations and such that you’d teach an adult; it’s more like elementary school versus colege or grad school. The kids just adored Glover, apparently. They had a dry erase board nearby that’d they’d written on: “the Pit Kids say Glover is the bomb!”
Ancient Kung Fu technique of “grease monkey break the toe.” The tire was part of a three part circuit, sprint uphill for five minutes and walk back down, flip the tires for five minutes, and farmers walk with a fifty, sixty or seventy pound dumbell or kettlebell for five minutes, no rest in between. It’s amazing what a good workout you can get in fifteen minutes. John has a dog that’s partially paralyzed in the back legs and thus a teeny bit incontinent, so I had dog poop on my tire. Flip, flip, there it is, flip, flip, there it is, etc.
Probably not in Texas, but I’m not sure about California. I was actually mildly worried I woould bounce the sledge back up into my forehead and knock myself out cold.
The wheelbarrow was part of the “Pit Mile,” a one mile run, push the wheelbarrow with your bodyweight in weights in it (200 lbs for me) uphill for maybe a quarter mile, and throw an eighty pound medicine ball uphill for maybe an eighth of a mile. The mile run was a nice warmup, but the wheelbarrow was tough, like a walking deadlift uphill. I’d done a lot of running and deadlifting in the weeks before and was able to motor through it without having to set it down, but I was sucking and blowing air like a blacksmith’s bellows. I finished the wheelbarrow nearly half the course ahead of the pack, but the medicine ball throw was a real bitch and most of the frontrunners caught up to me. The fight team did a similar workout with twice their bodyweight in the wheelbarrow. Glover pushed 400 lbs. about as easily as I pushed 200. The guy’s a machine.
New Year’s Eve in Austin.
If I want to go back, I have to sell the Corvette (which she hates).
Well, bear in mind he’s grimacing in pain. In person he actually looks a lot like James Coburn. That’s Bob, aka “Big Bad Bob.” He’s an 8th degree Kajukenbo professor and owns his own Pit affiliated school in Oregon. He’s in his mid-fifties and is in phenomenal shape. I was neck and neck with him on most of our drills, but he had an injured shoulder. If he hadn’t been hurt he’d have blown my doors off.
