Scott Adkins Answers Martial Arts Training Questions From Twitter
Scott Adkins Answers Martial Arts Training Questions From Twitter
Actor and martial artist Scott Adkins uses the power of Twitter to answer the internet's burning questions about martial arts training.
How do MMA fighters take kicks to the shin?
How does one get a body like Yuri Boyka?
Should you ever let an attacker know you are trained in martial arts?
Scott answers all these questions and much more!
- Hi, I'm Scott Adkins, anactor and a marshall artistand this is Training Support.[gentle music]@TispyLikeJenga asks"How do MMA fightertake kicks to the shin?"I stub mine and I'm TKO'dby the coffee table."I know the feeling.Every time that I've been awayand made a movie for a few months,I come back and I starttraining again and it hurts.If you're kicking the Thai padswithout your trousers on,it takes a while to get used to it,and also if you don't doit it feels like your shinsquickly become like butter again.So, Thai pads are what Thaiboxers use mostly for kicks.They're long pads like thisthat you slip your whole forearm into it,and they're great forhitting with round kicksand then for the body you canhold them against you body,and so you punch them and you kick thembut they're very toughmaterial made out of leather,it takes a while to getused to kicking thosewith a bare shin when you're a beginner.Just kicking the Thai pads willmake your shins much harder,but there are other ways to harden the uplike rolling sticks andkneeling on beer bottlesand all sorts of stuff like that,but the truth is nothing can prepare youfor how much it wouldhurt when you kick someonein the shin as hard asyou can with your shin.In a fight, the adrenalineis gonna stop you feeling it,but you're gonna feel it the next day.@AlanRodriguez9asks "Question for martial artists,"should I ever let a potential attacker"know that you aretrained in martial arts?"In this country, the UK, it was saidthat if you were an expert in martial artsand you didn't warn a potential attackerthat you're about tostrike you can actuallybe in a lot of troublein a UK Court of Law.I'm even sure if thatstill exists any more,but I do know this story of a black beltTaekwondo instructor fromthe UK who was in a puband he was getting a bit off someoneand he said to the guy"Listen, I must warn you,"that I'm a black belt in Taekwondo."And then he got knocked out, spark,just after he gave them the warning.So, my advice to you isprobably keep it a secret.Surprise is all part ofbeing a good fighter.Never start a fight, but if you are sure,if you are positivethat there's no way outand you can't talk yourway out of this situationand that it's gonna go down,just keep it a secret andknock the other guy out.@RZAwow that's the real RZA, that's brilliant."Kick ass Friday, what movie do you think"has the best fight scene ever?"Great question RZA.Obviously, I've seen alot of martial arts films,as I'm sure you have as well.One of my favoritefights is from They Live,the John Carpenter film with Roddy Piper.I love the extended fight scene they havein the middle of themovie when Roddy Piper'strying to get Keith to put the shades on,and he doesn't wanna put the shades onand it's a great fight because it's notabout the choreography, it'snot about how well it's shot,it's really about this battle of attritionwhere one guy's trying to getthe other guy to do something,and the fight just goeson, and on, and on,and it doesn't stop, andthen you think it's gonna endand it keeps going, and it keeps going.And the way they perform it is brilliant,and it's got those funny moments in there.That is one of my favorite fight scenes.It's hard to say that'smy favorite fight scene,but certainly that is one ofmy all time favorites fights.They Live.@GetAGripGym "Possiblystupid question for gymnasts,"when you twist in your tumbling,"do you have to spot something"like you do in a turn?"You do have to spot,not only in gymnasticsbut also in martial arts.If I'm gonna throw a spinning kick,before I throw the kick I needto turn my head all aroundand spot my target so that I seewho or what I'm gonnakick before I kick it.You don't wanna be kicking blind.And the same thing with gymnasticswith like a straight backsummersault with a twist.You go up, you get the height first,wherever the head goesthe body will follow.So you twist your head,you need to see the floorso that you understand where it isand that you can land there.One of the things you need in gymnasticsand also in martial arts isspatial awareness, you know,one of the things you need to do is spot.@Shelli239 "Boxing or kickboxing question,"which stance has an advantage,orthodox or southpaw?"And is it worth knowing both?"It's generally thought that a southpawhas the advantage overan orthodox fighter.So, an orthodox fighter's gonna be someonewho's right-handed likeme, and you're gonna standwith your right hand back,this is the power side,maybe your right leg is the power side.Typically a left-handed person,so he's gonna stand the other wayand the power hand is gonna be the left.Most people are right-handed,so if you take your average gym,the majority of people thatare training in that gymare gonna be right-handed.It stands to reason that the southpaw,the left-handed guy, isgonna have more experiencefighting a right-handed guy.But to answer your question,it's definitely worthunderstanding and knowinghow to fight in both stances,and to be able to throw strikesfrom an orthodox positionand a southpaw position,and what I try to doas an orthodox fighteris I will switch stance justbefore throwing a strike,and if you're dealing withsomeone who's not very versedin that type of thingthey have to readjustand in that split secondmaybe that's just enough time,hit him with some strikesthat he doesn't see comingbecause you've changed your stanceand you're coming froma different perspective.@Nicolee_Gee asks "questionfor martial artists,"crescent kicks, straight leg or chamber?"For those of you who don't know,a crescent kick is whereI would bring up my knee,you can either do anoutside crescent kick,with the outside of the foot,or you can do an inside crescent kickwith the inside of the foot.It's called a crescent because it moveseither inwards or outwards.You need to chamber the leg.If you throw a straight leg,for me that's gonna be much slowerthan if you begin themovement with a bent knee.What I like to do with thecrescent kick and with hook kick,is I like to chamber theknee and hold my foot inso that I can kick fasteror swing through faster,and then at the last minuteI like to flick it outso it comes out very loose,almost like a flicking motion.It works perfectly with a hook kick,but also I think for the crescent kickyou should bring it up with the knee bentand then flick out the outside of the footso that you're hitting withmuch more torque and speed.I would suggest that if you'regonna do a crescent kick,you do it with the knee bent.@EllyMagero asks "So,yesterday during my training,"I decided to do the round kick."I wanna learn how tocombine the round kick"and the upper cut."To follow up the roundkick with an upper cutwould be a bit of a strange techniqueto use in my opinion.What I think you'd be better served doing,a lead upper cut off the lead arm,and then you can comethrough with the round kick.Now this is a techniquethat I like to do actually,a corkscrew uppercut.So, you've got your standard uppercutwhich is just coming straight up,but the corkscrew uppercut,it comes out a bit further, you twist up,but as I do it I step off the center lineso I'm hitting my opponentbut I'm stepping off this way.What I'm doing is I'mstepping across the lineof his body and opening up hisbody to a lovely round kickto the body or even around kick to the head.Step across on the outside of his leg,and throw that round kickinto the mid section.And actually, you see ConnorMcGregor do this punch a lot,the corkscrew upper cut.He sort of jumps forward andto the side as he throws it,and he gets close to his opponentand he can hit them with oneof his powerful left strikes.@Melissa_Heist "Okay, kickboxing question,"round kick to the head, is it okay"to make contact withfoot instead of the shin?"The shin gets me in too damn close."Well, I know what you're saying, Melissa.You don't wanna be too damn close.If you can kick him inthe head with a shin,that's preferable to the footbecause the shin is much harder.Certainly if you're kickingto the body, into the leg,you don't wanna catch them with your foot,because what you can do issometimes bend your foot back,even break your foot in somecases, that happens a lot.So, if you can kick to the headand hit them with your shin,that's gonna be preferable to the foot.But still, the foot is gonna do the jobshould you hit them hard enoughand they don't see it coming.@Rinnthehuman asks "Can you teach me how"to properly drop kick?"And the answer is no,because I'm sat here on mychair with these in my ears.I don't actually knowwhat you mean by dropkick.Perhaps you mean the ax kick?Really what you need for anax kick is to be very flexibleso that you can bringyour leg all the way up,and then of course you'regonna contract your hamstringswhen you get to the heightand bring your heel downon your opponent's head.You need to be flexible.It's very easy to pull your hamstringif you're not warmed up,'cause as soon as you get to the heightand your hamstring is fully stretched,you're gonna contract itand you're gonna bringthe heel down on theguy's head, hopefully.It's a good kick.@Jmastinef "I'm contemplating starting"at home kickboxing training,any recommendations?"Yes, Justin.I recommend that you goto my YouTube channel.Everyone was always askingme to do kicking tutorials.So, I recommend you go to the Scott AdkinsOfficial YouTube channel, you will be ableto learn some kicks fromScott Adkins himself.What a plug, what a plug.BigRam27 asks "How do you split your week"between martial artstraining and lifting weights?"Frankly, I'd die," I'm adding that bit,I think that's what he meant,"for a body like Boyka's."Muscle mass and martialarts don't go hand in hand.It can slow you down.Yes, you'll be stronger,you'll be more powerful.But, it's also a lot moreweight to carry aroundand you'll probably gas out quicker.Obviously I make movies,and people expect youto look a certain way.First time I played Boyka Iwas opposite Michael Jai Whitewho's a big guy, so I wanted to put onas much muscle mass as I could.The way I'll split up the weekis I will normally weight trainon a Sunday and a Monday,and then on TuesdayI'll do my martial arts,Wednesday and Thursday I'lldo some more bodybuilding,weight training, and then onFriday I'll do martial arts,and then I'm gonna have Saturday off.That's typically how I split up the week.Four days of weight trainingand two days of martial arts.But if I'm gonna film that'smore martial arts heavy,or if I wanna be a bitlighter on the feet,I'll probably up the martialarts and cardio training,and a bit less on the resistance training.@Yagatomo_ "this kneeinjury has slowed down"my entire existence."How did Boyka manage to 180 degree spin"into an extended knee block that caused"the Colombian dude'sshin to snap in two?"[tense music]I know where you're coming from mate.Listen, I tore my ACL in my left knee.It took me a good yearto get back to normal.Actually, I tore my ACL andthen I had to do three films.Universal Solider, I did El Gringo,and then I did The Expendables 2.All with no ACL, Idon't know how I did it.By the time I got to do Expendables 2,it was a winter in Bulgaria.Every morning I woke up in agonizing pain,but I just had to get on with it,and throw kicks at Jason Statham.When I did get the surgery done,I had to take at least ninemonths off of full contact,and I had to rehab it as best as I could.So, if you've got knee problems mate,what I suggest is that you really needto build up the muscles around the kneethat are gonna hold that in place.The stronger your leg is,the stronger your knee's gonna be.If you can build up todoing piston squats,which is where you haveone leg up in the air,all your weight's on the bad knee,and you can go all theway down to the bottomand push yourself all theway up to the top on one leg,then you know that yourknee is gonna be fixed.Yeah, and Boyka managedto do it, I don't know.It was choreographed.@Tomcomm"Hi Scott, how did you build"so much mass to playBoyka, but stay so agile?"Did you train like abodybuilder to gain mass?"Actually yeah, I did train likea bodybuilder to gain mass.When I was first startingmy weight training journey,I had the Joe Weider Encyclopedia,which, you know, thingshave changed since then,but I've still kept those principlesof body building really.If you wanna add muscle to your frame,you need to be putting your musclesinto progressive overload,you need to keep lifting heavier weightin order to put muscle onto your frame.But, you're right, it was very difficult.When I did the first Boyka movie,and the reason I wantedto put the muscle mass onwas because I'm the bad guy,and Michael Jai White's the good guy,and he was so much bigger than me,I really wanted to put onas much muscle as possiblebecause I just felt like I wasn't gonna beenough of a threat.I wouldn't be able tointimidate him if I was as,you know, normal me.So, I put on as much muscle as I couldover the course of six months.Yeah, it was a lot ofpressure on the joints.Obviously Boyka does a lot of fancy kicks,he's very agile, so if you'redoing a back summersaultand you're carrying around anextra six kilograms of muscle,it's certainly, you feel it on the knees,you feel it on the back,you feel it everywhere.It's a lot harder, but back then I was 27and I was a beast and somehow managedto keep all the kicks that I was doingand then up my game andlearn some even crazier ones,and still carry around that muscle mass,but it's not easy andit's a young man's game.Okay, so that's it.Thank you Twitter for all your questions,and thank you WIREDfor letting me give yousome martial arts training support.
