Empty your tank: Training with Steve Morris

I trained with Steve Morris at Arthur Meek’s Bristol Gym on Saturday. There was a mixture of guys in the gym, some who had trained with Steve before, some who hadn’t, and from a variety of Martial Arts backgrounds.

Some were MMA fighters looking to get better, some were from more “Traditional Martial Arts” who wanted more realistic fighting training.

This was more of an Introduction to the Morris Method of training, concentrating on effective stand up fighting, and this involves a lot of learning by doing.

Steve sets up the drill, explains the rationale and off you go. As you are doing something right or not so good, he will let you know, and why.

He has been writing on his blog recently about heavy bag work and also isometric work to increase punching power, I was doing some of this before the lesson started and he helped me with that.

Another guy was doing some static stretching and Steve explained why this wasn’t the most effective method of preparing for a session- so he showed us a way of stretching the leg using a pole or other hard horizontal surface. By rotating the shin along the pole and using the arms as you would when kicking and by coming up on the supporting foot you are: conditioning the leg; rehearsing the skill that is to follow; and increasing your range of movement. This is different from sitting on the floor in box splits and not rehearsing anything.

The key points that I picked up on are as follows- other people may have picked up on different things, Steve goes around the gym picking up people as a group and also as individuals, so there is a lot of information being processed.

• The session then started with some warm up drills – moving around the gym- mostly on the feet because it was a stand up session, but also some floor work to show what we could do before a groundwork or takedown session.

• 5 minutes of emptying the tank work– punchbag carries, medicine ball throws, pulling and dragging another person, resisted sprints. Most fights end up being done in a fatigued state or the effects of adrenaline or fear alter what you can do, so you need to practice in that state. The session then reinforces simple, gross motor patterns that you can rely on when you need them, rather than being very intricate and it goes out of the window when it counts.

• skipping– not mindless activity, but co ordination, putting in bursts and more complicated movements.

• shadow boxing– a major part of the session. Visualising the fight inside your head , so you have to defocus your eyes, rather than focus on a point in the gym 5 metres away. The use of vocalisation of effort, in time, out of time, not a repetitive beat. Let the vocalisation set your body’s tempo because it will make it move faster.

This vocalisation later becomes a form of encouragement when you are fatigued, and also a way of contracting the body when you are getting hit. We also worked on footwork, using the excuse me step to adjust your position around the attacker and also to break rhythm from block to attack, or to move from punch to kick. It ensures that each attack is a separate bullet, not piggybacking from the previous attack and therefore being less effective. The movement has to be focussed on the attacker, not dancing around aimlessly- you have to go to where the attacker is, you have to fight him.

• Using the head to initiate movement– the head helps us move faster and in the direction we want to go. We threw a football at a wall using hip action, arms or violently throwing the head first- the head movement definitely makes the whole action more powerful. Compare this with standing still and being told to keep your head perfectly still and rotate around the hips. Try any kick or punch where your head is moving (always keeping your eyes on the opponent) and then when you have to keep it still.This is learning from feedback- you can see the ball bouncing off the wall faster when you are using your head action.

• Pad work– here the pad man is key, he isn’t just a stooge, he helps replicate the fight, and he is training himself too. We started off with hand fighting, finding distance, then throwing shots at the pads or the body armour hard. The pad man can then initiate clinches or kick you with push aways, but obviously not with full power. We then moved to making the punches and kicks twice as hard by having the pad man attack our strike with their pads. This effectively doubles the impact of the strike. Steve used the analogy of having a car hit a tree at 60mph, you will fly out of the window. If you hit another car also travelling at 60mph, the impact is 120mph. Having the pad man hit your strikes with the pad means that you are both getting more conditioning.

• We finished off with clinch work, moving into the clinch, avoiding getting butted, and then looking to get the opponent off balance for throw downs. Throw downs are better for stand up fighters because they can look to strike when the opponent is off balance, rather than fight the floor. This was done with everyone in the gym, and as you know, wrestling and grappling is pretty tiring.

• But not tiring enough- as Steve said there were still a few vapours of gas left in the tank! 50 press ups, 50 sit ups, 40 pull ups (with a jump) using the girder in the gym, then neck strengthening exercise with a partner. Then the last 5 minutes of shadow boxing, putting everything together. Then the tank was empty.

Nearly 4 hours of training, in a hot gym (picture quality is poor) and buzzing at the end. The key is to take those points and maintain them when I next train. Then look to increase that again.

Steve Morris Training Course Review

Individual strength and conditioning coaching for fighters