Weird Workout
We are sure we have written on this subject before somewhere in a blog post or eBook or wherever, but we can’t find it and an important point bears repeating, so here it is like it is the first time whether it is or not.
An open workout is part of the build up to a boxing or MMA event where the competitors and their trainers get in to a ring or gym, or on a stage, and run though some drills in front of the media and fans. It builds the hype and lets people see how they are moving to the degree that gives you any information. Sometimes it is quite conventional such as hitting some mitts, other times it is much more creative, and it is this creative stuff that we really get a kick from. It is also more of a flow session than anything too strenuous, but you can see the power there, and that appeals to our Tai Chi sensibilities. The most notable time this entered the consciousness of fight fans and possibly the wider public was when Ido Portal took to the stage with Connor McGregor and led people to ask ‘what is that weird shit he’s doing?’
When scrolling through Instagram we came across footage of an open workout with Dmitry Bivol and Artur Berterbiev, most likely it was in the run up to the recent defeat of the latter by the former. Berterbiev’s workout included a reflex exercise with a tennis ball. Most interestingly, Bivol’s workout included a rebounding exercise where they were utilising springy power to bounce each other using a palm simultaneously placed on each others (the other being the trainer we assume) chest. A useful skill to make space in clinch and develop electric force generally. Apologies if we have misidentified anybody there, we are not the most knowledgeable fight fans. Of course the comments were full of armchair warriors mocking the exercises.
There are Facebook groups where people dedicate their unfortunate lives to debunking, or more accurately mocking, exercises similar to this in the Tai Chi world. Sometimes they may be on to something as there may be some delusion there i.e. the practitioner would claim to be able to express their skill in a full contact environment but never have or would (and that is fine for most people, make peace with that!). We would have loved to have taken the video of Dmitry Bivol and shoved it right up the timeline of those that would mock, alas, our technical skills are insufficient to get it from one platform to another and anyway it would not be good to get drawn in to arguing with such people.
The late Tai Chi master Dan Docherty who nobody could accuse of not putting his money where his mouth was, wrote about the abundance of armchair Tai Chi warriors. This is even more prevalent now given that social media is perfectly calibrated for people to consume activities but not actually do them. Time for a weird workout…