Martial Art Training For Disability

People often asking me: Can disabled people learn martial art?

Of course, everybody can “Kungfu fighting”. Whatever your disability types, you can learn "Kungfu".

All you have to do are be creative, strategic and keep high spirit. Use all remaining body parts on your body as weapon, you can also use your teeth to biting, your forehead to headbutting or even spitting to opponent’s eyes with your saliva if necessary.

Honestly, i also suffering visual impairment. Without glasses, i can’t see anything.

In sparring and fighting tournaments, i relying on my sense of touch (skin) to feel the wind / air movement and the heat from opponent’s body. My hearing often fail because the tournament venues always noisy with loud cheers from the audience.

When i was beginners, my coaches are always move my arms and legs using their hands to show me the detail of punches and kicks. 

Based on my personal experiences, using opened hands fighting stances like Curve Fingers and Straight Fingers style are better for visual impairment sufferers like me.

You can use your palm as extra “Radar” to detecting the air movement and the opponent’s body heat (Sadly this technique only works when you fight using palm opened MMA/Kungfu glove, you can’t use your palm if the event organizer force you to wear full closed Boxing glove).

Endurance Training

Endurance training is very helpful to build your stamina, train your speed and burning your fat.

At dojo we train fighting techniques focusly, sadly we lack of other physical exercises because doing too many exercises in one day will cause overtraining and injury.

Outside training day at dojo, we should spend out free time at free day to do endurance training.

There are various endurance trainings you can do. Like walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, soccer, basketball, skipping rope and other “moving” sports.

All types of sports are complement each other, there is no sport that is weaker or stronger.

My favourites are walking, cycling and swimming. How about you?

Nanpai Kungfu

Nanpai Kungfu (南派功夫) is an Southern Chinese Kungfu style created during Ming dynasty in 16th century.

Generals Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou taught a special Kungfu style to the local armies, civilians and monks to fight together against Wokou pirates raid at Southern China areas.

How To Land Proper Punch & Kick

This is how to use your body part to land proper punch & kick to the target.

French Kickboxing

French fighting style also known as Savate, Savate De Rue and Boxe Francaise.

Created by sailors in the southern port of Marseille in the 17th century. According to historians, it was developed by sailors on board the ships during their trips to the countries of the Indian Ocean and China Seas.

Prematch Briefing

Prematch Briefing is mandatory meeting must be attended by all coaches and fighters before tournament, very important to socialize the tournament rules used by the organizer.

There are so many martial art tournament organizers nowadays. Those organizers created their own rules based on their own personal taste and style, that why prematch briefing is important. For examples:

- Some Taekwondo organizers permit all basic strikes, other organizers ban punches.

- Some Karate organizers permit all basic strikes, other organizers ban kicks.

- Some Kickboxing organizers permit Round Kick to calf area, other organizers only permit Sweep Kick to ankle area.

- Some Kenpo organizers permit all basic strikes, other organizers ban both elbow and knee strikes.

- Some Tui Shou organizers permit all basic throws, other organizers only permit pushing the opponent body with palm techniques.

- Some Jujutsu organizers use single point match tournament format, other organizers use point collecting match format.

- Some Knife Fighting organizers permit blocking/trapping using the unarmed hand, other organizers only permit blocking with the knife.

Dizzy? Me too.

Although there are so many tournament organizers with different personal taste, at least all good martial art tournament organizers are agree with 1 thing: Ban all strikes to most fatal areas like back brain, eyes, neck, throat, back bone, bladder and testicle for safety.

Prematch Briefing is also effective method to prevent cheats by corrupt referees. When i participate at a Karate fighting tournament in 2008, the organizer told us at prematch briefing “All basic strikes are permitted except to groin area!!”, but there are corrupt referees who give a penalty (yellow card) to fighters who use kicks and at other side they let the fighters who pay them to use any kicks they want, of course the coaches and audiences protest together (because they already knew the real rules, coaches and audiences aren’t stupid).

Kenpo

Kenpo (拳法) is a Northern Japanese (Muromachi Kingdom) fighting style created in 15th century.

Developed from Chinese Kungfu (功夫) brought by Buddhist monks to Northern Japan.

What Is Martial Art?

Martial Art (Art Of Fighting) or Self Defense is an ancient survival skill used for unarmed fighting against attackers like bandits, enemy soldiers and wild bad animals.

In the battlefield or street fighting, sometimes our weapon are thrown or broken, that's why we must know how to defend ourselves even without weapon.

Not only for fighting, self defense is also useful to trained as daily aerobic exercise for fun. Today, there are lot of aerobic clubs which that incorporates self defense techniques worldwide. Like Aerobic Boxing, Cardio Kickboxing, Aerobic Karate and Aerobic Muay Thai.

For psychological aspect, self defense is best training to build your courage, confidence, calmness and sportmanship. Self defense is best sport which train both your physical and psychological.

Generally, all self defense schools have 1 same basic principe: Hit the enemies first quickly as possible before they hit you.

By the way, you don’t need to mastering all techniques forcefully. Even legendary masters and world champions only focus mastering their own favourite moveset. For Examples:

- Some martial art schools are focus on punch like Boxing.

- Some schools are focus on kick like Taekkyon.

- And some schools are focus on both punch and kick balancedly like Karate.