I asked world record holder Paul Doods to tell us what drives him to accomplish his incredible feats. Here’s his reply:

Tony,

To be honest, I’m not too sure. I might just be a bit crazy, I know when people see me train they usually say that!

To be serious though, I think it’s the fact I love pushing myself to the limit. If targets/records have been set and people say they can’t be broken that motivates me even more to prove them wrong. It all started obviosuly when I joined the Tri C program as I knew I had to get in good shape before I came to Chicago. As I am a small guy, I needed to concentrate more on speed, endurance and stamina rather than relying on strength.

The first ever thing what drove me was watching Martin on Lucky 13 going all the way through non stop. At first I didn’t think I would ever make it but I knew I wanted to be in as good shape as him, and as you know when I trained with him that was one of my best ever feelings. When you made me do that 2 hr session the first time in Chicago, the only thing that ran through my mind was that I wasn’t going to quit and you weren’t going to break me. I wanted to make you proud to call me your student, and that was my and is my main drive. I want to be proud of myself and make you and my family proud in an area where not many people excel.

I know that I can never rest on my laurels as I always want to improve and keep moving forward. I just love training! Everything has been kicked up a notch since then our first meeting regarding my fitness as it is my forte, but obviously I still love the Catch Wrestling and Boxing.

You instilled the self belief in me that I can achieve things, whereas I used to have low self confidence. I now believe that I can do anything regarding fitness. Not straight away obviously, it will take many attempts to break more world records but if you have the dedication, mindset/willpower and support from people who believe in you, then you can do anything.

This was posted by Terry Dow, a top student under the legendary Bill “Superfoot” Wallace.

Ok, everyone I had a hip flexibility question in another thread, so lets start a new thread on flexibility for you all.

here is a stretch I have my students do for stretching the ligaments in your hips.

We call it the FROG STRETCH - kneel down and place your forearms on the floor in front of you. Hips should be directly on top or over your knee’s, then slide knees apart as far as you can (kinda like doing a split on your knees). hold for a length of time (until you feel like you are starting to relax) then without moving your knees, push your hips straight back to the ground (try to sit your butt on the ground behind you) hold for a length of time, then rotate hips forward trying to get your stomach on the ground. on the forward one, stop short of comfortably lying on your stomach, say when your hips are still an inch or two above the floor, and try to sink them straight down to stretch the upper head of your quad.
LASTLY rock forward and backward getting your full range of motion in as far as you can in each direction.

Remember everyone that STRETCHING involves time. my teacher Bill “Superfoot” Wallace recently said it best in a seminar. you are NOT STRETCHING ANYTHING. you are TEACHING the muscle to RELAX. if you guys only spend five or ten minutes you are not doing anything other than warming up a little, and getting rid of some tension that probably built up in your body through the day of doing what ever repetitive motion you go through all day. to gain flexibility you need to have TIME to relax, really hold the positions until you FEEL the muscle start to LET GO and loosen. only you know how long to do this for, so don’t ask me “how long should I stretch for” that is a question only your body can answer.

REMEMBER stretching is a work out too, I read another thread on OVER TRAINING. same thing applies here! loosen up every day for a few minutes, but only really STRETCH HARD a couple days a week.

I will be holding a seminar on defensive tactics, grappling/anti-grappling for Law Enforcement Officers only early in 2008. I’ll send out an email notification as well as post it here on the blog as soon as I confirm the date. The use of TASERS is becoming quite alarming and in many instances it is not needed. What I plan to cover is arrest techniques and compliance holds as well as teaching the concrete way of getting off the ground no matter what position you may find yourself in. It will be an in-depth seminar with lots of drilling. I want everyone to leave the session well prepared to face the task on the street. Again, I’ll keep you posted here on the blog.

Tony

It’s that time of year again when many folks decide to make a new years resolution. One of the key factors in making your resolution successful is to set both a short term and long term goal. For example, if you’d like to lose 50 pounds, set short term goals of perhaps 5 lbs/monthly. Don’t set the bar so high that you get discouraged. If you want to increase your lifting totals do the same thing. Instead of thinking of adding 100 lbs, break it down to 10 lbs/month. Don’t let roadblocks or setbacks discourage you. It’s always part of the equation. Rarely do any of us have the kind of smooth sailing you might envision.

So in closing, best of luck on your goals. I look forward to meeting many of you in 2008.

Tony

On December 24th the world lost one of its greatest musicians. Jazz pianist Oscar Peterson died at the age of 82. He was universally recognized as perhaps the greatest exponent of jazz piano in history. Why would I mention this on a fight blog? Because Oscar had a tremendous influence not only on my music, but on the way I approach fighting. I’ve been a jazz musician since I was young and developing the ability to improvise is crucial to becoming a solid jazzer. Listening to Oscar, studying his transcriptions, gave me an insight into how a truly great man thinks. It made me dedicated to applying those same musical principles to the way I fight. I approached fight techniques like I would music scales. I approached fight applications like I would musical arranging. All in all, it made me a much better fighter by applying time tested theories derived outside the box. It made me think quick and assess situations instantly. For that, I owe Oscar and others a big thank you. So now when people miss his music, I’ll not only miss that, but his tremendous gift of thinking outside the box that he gave me.