Mind Training with Pads

One thing we recently worked on was the application of padwork to facilitate an appreciation of the minds reactive abilities when under stress.

The drills are fairly simple and might be worth trying out.

Drill 1:

• Have your partner stand back to the wall.
• Slap the sides of the partner and their head with your focus mitts. It is very important at this stage that the slaps are of a high frequency but not too powerful. The idea is to cause the partners mental capacity to begin to shut down as he is overwhelmed with the strikes.
• After a random amount of time hold both pads up for the partner to strike. They should try to strike with as little gap as possible.

The idea with this drill is to overwhelm then create an open gate. We are not working on punches, or defences here .. but the mental transition from a state of overwhelming attack to the response. The goal is to make the gap smaller and smaller until you are able to take advantage of the smallest gap in the attack instantly. This training helps us get inside the gaps in the opponents motion.

Drill 2:

• Put the partner gently on the ground and have them strike at the pads.
• Drop the pads and move away. The partner should try to get up as quickly as possible.
• Catch the partner as they are midway through getting up and put them down again. Hold the pads out for them to strike and repeat the process.

This ones a good workout! Here we are trying to work on the minds ability to multitask as they deal with falling, getting up and striking targets. Again its the time between the actions that matters in this training not the actions themselves. We are looking to limit the time it takes to react to opportunity.

The video below shows these two drills. Sorry for the poor quality!