If you know me long enough you know that I am a strong believer in cross-training to sharpen your own major topic of training and your primery discipline/style of Martial Arts!
To me Martial Arts has always been about their true original objective, Warfare!
I was first introduced to Martial Arts when I was only 6 years old, like many other people of my generation my first exposure to Martial Arts was the legendary Bruce Lee. Since I am Amer-Asian by birth Bruce Lee was the perfect fit for me to be my role model as far as the Asian side was concerned. From the first time I saw him on the big screen as a kid I was hooked on Martial Arts. Almost every weekend my father would take me to the book store in Brussells and I would buy books on Bruce Lee and any Magazine that had him on the cover.
Then one day , on the cover of the Martial Arts magazine there was someone else, he wasn’t Asian , he was American with blonde hair. The guy on the cover was muscular doing a flying side kick, it was Joe Lewis! I asked my dad : “who is this guy?” my dad said : ” I don’t know Michel. just get the magazine and read who he is” That same weekend I read the article about Joe Lewis and said to my dad : ” Joe Lewis is better than Bruce Lee dad” my dad said : “why?” I said : “Because he is a live, and one day I will be able to meet him, not like Bruce Lee he just died” ….my dad laughed, I wasn’t joking.
I was about 8 or 9 years old then, in the center fold of the magazine was a poster of Joe Lewis doing the flying side kick. At that time my entire bedroom was covered with Bruce Lee Posters, but that weekend I hung my first Joe Lewis poster/pic on the wall.
Last weekend my son, Blake, and I drove 12 hours up to High Point NC to train at the Mid Year Joe Lewis Conference. It was the first time Blake actually trained on the mat with Joe Lewis, he has known him all his life but never trained with him until last weekend. At one point Joe grabbed Blake because Blake was not doing a drill properly and Blake almost shit in his pants lol Ten minutes later Joe came back to us and said : “He’s good , he listens” …at that moment I smilled real big, Joe probably thought I smiled because I was proud and Blake probably smiled because he thought he made me proud. But , the real reason I smiled was because at that moment I realized my father planted the seed for that exact moment 35 years ago!!!
To me and my students here at the National HaganaH Headquarters the Joe Lewis Fighting System is our way to cross train in Kick-Boxing. Especially sparring. I have been with Joe Lewis for about 17 years now and I have learned so much from him both on a personal training level and on a teaching method level. He is truly my beacon and my students have benefited tremendously from him being part of my school. I believe you must spar to be a better HaganaH practitioner, while sparring has limitations due to the safety rules and has little to do with reality fighting and self-defense it is in sparring that you will build true confidence. Not to mention attributes development such as timing, distance control, trigger squeezing, counter attacking, intercepting ect….
If you want to be a true Self-Defense warrior and stay true to what the Martial Arts are, cross training is essential. If you only train in your “One” discipline or style , then you are only accountable to that one discipline/style. If you cross train then your skills will be tested on a different angle and skills that are tested are skills that are proven…and the skills you have proven in your cross training will multiple your skills in your own discipline/style!
Train Hard, Train Smart, Train Like Your Life Depends On It….
