Explaining why Russians are good at tournament fighting

[KyoKrazyRussian]

Hi, I'm new to this forum and I practice Kyokushin everyday.

I'm Russian as you can tell by the name

I'm mainly here to explain why Russians are good at all the tournaments. I don't mean to brag but in the Articles everyone asks why are the russians so good, and if there is a secret. I wish to discuss about this topic and I don't mean to offend any Brazilians or Japanese karateka's who are surely also very talented at this amazing martial art.

First let me begin to explain that there is no secret at all to the way Russians train in the martial art. They do the same thing many other schools do except do it with all their determenation and love. I had practiced in a Russian Kyokushin school and I want to describe the classes, which were one of the most amazing classes I had ever took in my Martial Arts journey.

Meditation for about 20 minutes, it prepares the mind so much for class and it was taken so seriously, it was done after the class had ended. Classes were 2 hours everyday of the week. It was a very special class and only KGB(Russian FBI agents if you will) people were allowed to attend. I was the only non-KGB student there, simply because the Master was my neighbor. At the time I was weak and frail and I knew I needed some kind of Martial Art to help myself in life. Anyways, classes were begon with Meditation, it prepared us for walking on heated rocks that left our feet black. After that we would walk on sharp pieces of glass. The reason we performed this was to maintain focus, and to gain mental toughness. It taught us to forget about pain to prepare us for fights. After Meditation we would do basic jogging in rivers were the water current went against you. We would constantly be running in different environments. Stretching was done to pain, people cried from the time we did it. It was no joke, we didn't waste time streching but wanted to get those who weren't flexible , flexible in the quickest amount of time.
Then strength came in, Horse Stances were done, but not for long because it was more important to do that at home. So our teacher encourage us to do it at home. We carried people our weight on our backs and did full sprints for 30 minutes. Strengthen our legs and punches on wooden blocks. We would also train at winter but that wasn't a big factor because in Russia the word cold is much different than in America. In Russia you wouldn't dare go outside with just a uniform.
Sparring was done with extreme focus on technique. It wasn't light fighting but full forced fighting. But no knockouts, it was more focused on making eachother stronger by kicking in the shin thighs arms and using different attacks when doing this. It was like our iron body training.
We would do all this in 2 hours a day training. And for those who wished went to the gym to weight train, which was everybody

But before the gym, meditation was done for 15 minutes at the end to relax our body.

I hope this helps the understanding of how Russians train. Any questions please ask.

[vapor]

That is a pretty intense description.

Don't suppose you have any videos of that do you?

(Be sure to post a little more about yourself in the INTRODUCTION forum)

vapor

[kyokushin4life]

Wow that sounds tough! Welcome on board!

renaming the thread's title now..

[im.aho]

Originally Posted by KyoKrazyRussian

classes were begon with Meditation, it prepared us for walking on heated rocks that left our feet black. After that we would walk on sharp pieces of glass. The reason we performed this was to maintain focus, and to gain mental toughness.

We would also train at winter but that wasn't a big factor because in Russia the word cold is much different than in America. In Russia you wouldn't dare go outside with just a uniform.

The heated rocks and glass, this is for Kyokushin training?

Also, what do you mean by "in Russia, you wouldn't dare go outside with just a uniform?" Do you wear full winter gear - winter jacket, winter boots over your gi when you train outside then?

[BrazilianKick1]

That does sound pretty intense!! What did you guys do for stamina??

[KyoKrazyRussian]

Originally Posted by im.aho

The heated rocks and glass, this is for Kyokushin training?

Also, what do you mean by "in Russia, you wouldn't dare go outside with just a uniform?" Do you wear full winter gear - winter jacket, winter boots over your gi when you train outside then?

Well in Russia it gets very cold at winter, so we would rarely train when it was REALLY cold outside, but we did train when it wasn't snowing and there was a little cold.

The heated rocks and glass is for kyokushin training. We also would make a fire and you would have to do a flying side kick through it , every class was interesting and painful. Although the karatekas in my class would overcome the pain from the glass and rocks. I can't explain how it is done, but I'm sure most of you are familiar with meditation and we did certain excersises that allowed us to get our mind off fear and pain.

Sorry I don't have any videos of the training, we were a hard class and we always focused on training our selves and not taking videos or anything. And most of the people there were poor and didn't have enough money to buy a video camera. Kyokushin was their life everyday..

And Stamina, just a lot of fighting. Just full blown fighting were we would kick eachother everywhere except the head, to get the body tough. Sparring was 30 minutes so you can imagine how big all the people were in the class, Bones got stronger from all the kicking and everybody left looking like a BodyGuard after a year of training

Hope that helps

[Anders]

Originally Posted by KyoKrazyRussian

Hi, I'm new to this forum and I practice Kyokushin everyday.

I'm Russian as you can tell by the name

I'm mainly here to explain why Russians are good at all the tournaments. I don't mean to brag but in the Articles everyone asks why are the russians so good, and if there is a secret. I wish to discuss about this topic and I don't mean to offend any Brazilians or Japanese karateka's who are surely also very talented at this amazing martial art.

First let me begin to explain that there is no secret at all to the way Russians train in the martial art. They do the same thing many other schools do except do it with all their determenation and love. I had practiced in a Russian Kyokushin school and I want to describe the classes, which were one of the most amazing classes I had ever took in my Martial Arts journey.

Meditation for about 20 minutes, it prepares the mind so much for class and it was taken so seriously, it was done after the class had ended. Classes were 2 hours everyday of the week. It was a very special class and only KGB(Russian FBI agents if you will) people were allowed to attend. I was the only non-KGB student there, simply because the Master was my neighbor. At the time I was weak and frail and I knew I needed some kind of Martial Art to help myself in life. Anyways, classes were begon with Meditation, it prepared us for walking on heated rocks that left our feet black. After that we would walk on sharp pieces of glass. The reason we performed this was to maintain focus, and to gain mental toughness. It taught us to forget about pain to prepare us for fights. After Meditation we would do basic jogging in rivers were the water current went against you. We would constantly be running in different environments. Stretching was done to pain, people cried from the time we did it. It was no joke, we didn't waste time streching but wanted to get those who weren't flexible , flexible in the quickest amount of time.
Then strength came in, Horse Stances were done, but not for long because it was more important to do that at home. So our teacher encourage us to do it at home. We carried people our weight on our backs and did full sprints for 30 minutes. Strengthen our legs and punches on wooden blocks. We would also train at winter but that wasn't a big factor because in Russia the word cold is much different than in America. In Russia you wouldn't dare go outside with just a uniform.
Sparring was done with extreme focus on technique. It wasn't light fighting but full forced fighting. But no knockouts, it was more focused on making eachother stronger by kicking in the shin thighs arms and using different attacks when doing this. It was like our iron body training.
We would do all this in 2 hours a day training. And for those who wished went to the gym to weight train, which was everybody

But before the gym, meditation was done for 15 minutes at the end to relax our body.

I hope this helps the understanding of how Russians train. Any questions please ask.

Osu!!

i think the russians are better in tournuments beacuse they are more
think in the ways of Kumite and they have a funktional child education
in Budo .
And if a wolrd champ quits then the russians always have an replacment for
the World champ thanks to the child education in Budo ..

[im.aho]

Originally Posted by KyoKrazyRussian

Well in Russia it gets very cold at winter, so we would rarely train when it was REALLY cold outside, but we did train when it wasn't snowing and there was a little cold.

The heated rocks and glass is for kyokushin training. We also would make a fire and you would have to do a flying side kick through it , every class was interesting and painful. Although the karatekas in my class would overcome the pain from the glass and rocks.

And Stamina, just a lot of fighting. Just full blown fighting were we would kick eachother everywhere except the head, to get the body tough.

OSU!
haha, just a little cold, but I am sure the "little cold" version in Russia is extremely cold elsewhere in the world. What temperature would you say is "little cold"?

In regards to walking over the heated rocks and broken glass... do the karatekas get injured during these exercises?

It is meant to be a painful experience, but do the karatekas' feet get cut up by the glass?

And the full blown fighting... you mentioned that you kick each other everywhere except the head. Do you kick kin geri as well?

[koji112091]

Sounds awsome. I always kew it's not because of the reace but how much one trains. It's always about how on trains.
thanks for explaning.
OSU!

[KyoKrazyRussian]

Im.aho- When the karatekas walk over the heated rocks and glass in the beginning they will get cuts and bruises. But the whole idea of it is to forget pain and just imagine like you are walking over water, if you truly believe this then you won't feel any pain. Most of the time the karatekas would walk off with nothing on their feet. But it is definetely a painful experience if done incorecctly thats why I wouldn't recommend it to a Novice.

Yes we do everything, including kin geri, we just worry about strengthing eachother. Thats one of the parts I hate in our class(note: We had a facility but we were usually training in the woods or near a lake) because usually the guy your fighting is huge and really gives you a beating. But in return for that we got a strong body

koji112091- Yes your right its not the race but more importantly how one trains.

Osu!

[Cappz]

The dedication of the Russians is impressive. One more proof of as the kyokushin it is a malleable and adaptable art. I think the Russian technique varies enough of fighter for fighter. That is another very interesting thing... always with high spirit degree.

keep rockin, man!
cheers from Brazil
osuuu

[twosix]

Hmm I imagining myself being one of the student in those classes and I realise I need more more mental training than physical.But after all is said and done I read a thread a while ago that well known or best fighters dont Face each other on the first bouts, they only meet at a later stage of the tournament(fixing matching.)If true then one needs more than bizzare training methods to ever win world tourney