Mike Young - Martial Arts Home Training: The Complete Guide to the Construction and Use of Home Training Equipment

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Young has spent the last thirty years training in a wide array of martial arts disciplines, and has drawn from them all in developing his own style of full contact fighting. Mike has traveled the world, including such places as mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Brazil, Indonesia, Hawaii, France, and Belgium, to train in martial arts and is also a certified Police Defensive Tactics instructor. In addition to serving as a law enforcement officer, boxing coach, and martial arts instructor, Mike has been a contributing editor for a major international martial arts magazine for the past twelve years.

Among the styles Mike Young has studied and drawn from are Aikido, Boxing, Capoeira, Chinese Wrestling, Doce Pares Escrima, Eagle Claw Kung Fu, Hapkido, Hsing I, Jeet Kune Do, Judo, Jujitsu, Kajukenbo, Kali, Karate, Kenpo Karate, Krav Maga, Lua, Monkey Kung Fu, Northern Praying Mantis Kung Fu, Northern Shaolin Kung Fu, Savate, Shootwrestling, Taekwondo, Tai Chi Chuan, Taido, Thai Boxing, Western Wrestling, and Wing Chun Kung Fu. Through his travels and wide training experience, he has developed many unique training methods and modified and updated many traditional methods for modern conditions. Some of these methods are shared with you in Martial Arts Home Training.

The author with the famous Monkey King, Master Lia Wu Chang, in Keelung, Taiwan, 1992.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would first like to thank Elsie S. Young, Richard K. L. Young, Margarethe F. Young, Kathy Young, Pat Young, Dean Sensui, Owen Uyehara, Jason Yoshida, Walter Wong, Fred Degerberg, Jim Leone, Ruben Diaz, Mark Wiley, and Randall Roberts, who helped make this book a reality. Without their help, support, guidance, and inspiration, this book would never have been conceived or completed.

There has also been a multitude of martial arts masters and teachers who have been pivotal in my own personal martial arts development, whom I would like to thank. They are listed below in the order in which they came into my life. These people include: Richard Miura (Wado-Ryu Karate), Alfred Dela-Cruz (Chuan-Fa Kajukenbo), Fu-Ling Tung (Tai Chi Chuan), Raymond Tabosa (Escrima), Patrick Hodges (Northern Shaolin, Pa Kua, Hsing-I, and Monkey Kung Fu), Master Hong (Hapkido and Tae Kwon Do), Jason Yoshida (Judo), Eiichi Jumawan (Boxing), Eddy Pedoy (Escrima), Kimo Pang (Internal Shaolin), Hide Hirayama (Taido), Cherie Jung (Taido), Bob Duggan (Hwa Rang Do), Richard Bustillo (Jeet Kune Do and Kali), Dan Inosanto (JKD and Kali), Randy Duarte (Capoeira), Daniel Duby (Savate), Bernie Pock (Northern Praying Mantis Kung Fu), Walter Wong (Wing Chun), Easie Williams (Boxing), Augusto Franco (Capoeira), Elba Serrano (Capoeira), Andy Lau (Eagle Claw Kung Fu), Bira Almeida (Capoeira), Camisa (Capoeira), Itabora (Capoeira), Fidel Fraijo (Boxing), Al Fraijo (Boxing), Kenny Hui (Northern Shaolin), Richard Sylla (Savate), Fred Degerberg (Eclectic Blend), Lhoucin Benghafour (Savate), Ivan Umek (Savate), Ajarn Surchai (Muay Thai), Francis Fong (Wing Chun), Rorion Gracie (Brazilian Ju-Jitsu), Herman Suwanda (Mande Muda Pencak Silat), Liao Wu Chang (Monkey Boxing), Huang Ken Wang (Shuai Chiao and Sombo), Ken Liu (Pa Kua), Mark Wiley (Kali), Nicholas Saignac (Savate), Bob Koga (Aikido), Machado Brothers (Brazilian Ju-Jitsu), Tony Pascual (Ju-Jitsu), Ron Balicki (Shootwrestling and Kali), Jerry Walker (Lua), Eyal Yanilov (Krav Maga), Hing Piu Ng (Eagle Claw Kung Fu), and Tom Meadows (Combat Whip/Latigo Y Daga).

CHAPTER 1

THE NEED FOR TRAINING AND TESTING

Ive had a fascination with the martial arts ever since I can remember. Growing up in Hawaii on the island of Oahu, I was constantly exposed to martial arts at a very young age. I can still remember going to Japanese samurai movies when I was four or five years old and dreaming of one day practicing martial arts like the samurais. At age nine or ten, my friends and I would never miss the Chinese Kung Fu movies that played in several theaters in old downtown Chinatown. We would catch the bus every weekend and savor the experience of a bloody Kung Fu movie. I would later go home and practice whatever moves I saw in the movie and try to build some of the fascinating Chinese martial arts weaponry.

At a young age, I had already completed making plywood hook-swords, dart-shooting staffs, miniature shuriken boomerangs, sword catchers, and many more ingenious devices I saw on the silver screen. The construction of all these devices of destruction was encouraged by my creative dad.

Finally, at age 13, I was allowed to formally study martial arts. I was very excited to start my martial arts training with my fathers friend who taught Wado-Ryu Karate a few blocks from my house.

From the first day I started Wado-Ryu Karate, I fell in love with the martial arts. I wanted more, and while living in Hawaii, I studied many martial arts systems, including Cha-3 Kenpo, Tai Chi Chuan, Zen Meditation, Chuan-Fa Kajukenbo, Escrima, Judo, Aikido, Boxing, Kickboxing, Northern and Southern Shaolin, Monkey Boxing, Pa Kua, Hsing-I, Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido, Wing Chun, Internal Shaolin, and whatever I could learn from friends and relatives who studied other martial arts styles.

The beauty of living in Hawaii for me was the wide range of cultures, which brought a rich mixture of martial art traditions, readily available for whoever wanted to practice. Living in the friendly climate of Hawaii, I was always able to train, compete, and exchange ideas with other martial artists from different styles. The Hawaiian environment allowed my martial arts knowledge to expand and let me know that there were a lot of martial arts out in the world to explore.

After reading a magazine article in 1976, I traveled to San Francisco to explore a new martial art from Japan called Taido. This art woke me up to another dimension in martial arts. When I returned to Hawaii, I continued to train with more enthusiasm, recharged from the recent trip to San Francisco. After tasting new ideas from what islanders call the mainland, I then attended the legendary Aspen Academy for a month and got exposure to many different martial arts systems.

Returning to Hawaii to work and go to school, I knew I had to go back to the mainland to study all of the other martial arts that were available there. In 1980, after I graduated from the University of Hawaii, I returned to the mainland (Los Angeles) and started to study all the martial arts systems I had read about and now had a chance to study. It was in Los Angeles that I studied Kali, Capoeira, Savate, Tai Mantis, Wrestling, Boxing, Fencing, Wing-Chun, Pencak Silat, Thai Boxing, Gymnastics/Tumbling, Eagle Claw Kung Fu, Judo, Ju-Jitsu, and Shootwrestling, just to name a few! The diverse and eclectic atmosphere of Los Angeles drew martial artists from all over the world to this martial art mecca.

I had adopted the Bruce Lee philosophy of absorb what is useful to learn as much as I could about other martial arts and to look for the good and the bad of each martial arts system. I started to cross-train in different systems to develop my own personal fighting style.

A big martial arts reality check came when I became a police officer in 1981 for the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. During the police educational process, I quickly found out what did and did not work on the streets. Theory and practice met the streets of L.A., dojo, and home training.

Becoming a police officer further stimulated my martial arts growth because the job exposed me daily to life-and-death situations, situations in which split-second decisions needed to be made regarding whether to use force and, if so, what type and how to use it. I was confronted daily by the lessons of which martial arts techniques did and did not work on the street.