My week in Martial Arts: Oct 24th to October 28th

After recording a few pages he memorised word for word from a “Learning Conversational English” book into his new digital dictation machine that we got him for his 70th birthday, I was happy that my Dad seemed thrilled that we got him something “useful” this year. Of course my Mum was laughing as she listened to the recording on the dictation machine and it was a conversation about asking someone out on a date!
That was the events of Monday October 24th I didn’t go to Martial Arts or the gym that day as it was my Dads birthday.

As English not being his first language I was amazed that he could memorise every single word from several pages of a two way conversation. He told my brother and I that he just practiced and practiced. What does this have to do with Martial Arts? It proves that with practice you will be able to succeed and at my Dad’s age, it isn’t too late to learn anything.

So this week started with Capoeira on Tuesday, as you can see I have done a mid week update, I plan to these mini updates during the week. A great session again and we had a new member from Spain who fitted into the class almost immediately. Capoeira is a very show off type of Martial Art and therefore you are conscious of someone’s ego as soon as he steps through the door, but there were no problems! I don’t know if I said this but I shall say this again I am quite happy that I have yet to meet anyone with a huge ego for the past 4 years consistently training. I must be choosing the right classes..:)

For some reason I didn’t sleep too well that night and felt slightly faint the next day at work, it was a weird feeling and I was half way to Karl’s when I decided to go home and recover so I can train with my brother on Thursday. So I decided not to go to Karl Tanswell’s in fact because I didn’t go on Monday meant I missed a whole weeks worth!
However I am definitely there next week as I need to show more commitment and hopefully my brother will join me.

Thursday I recovered I must have been feeling faint due to lack of sleep. I went to the gym with my brother and my wrestling shoes had arrived. Lun ordered them over the internet. As well as a regular workout , we practiced our stick sparring techniques. The wrestling shoes are for Karl Tanswells stand up class.

Again missed Steve Powell’s classes, sometimes its quite hard to juggle so many on one perspective you feel good about yourself because you can fit a couple of classes in of different arts but then you are no showing a commitment to other arts so you feel bad. The advance classes we attend are also on later than our other classes and I am definitely waiting for my brother to join me in Steve Powell’s as he really enjoys doing the class with me.


Friday was Eskrima night, a great lesson mixing the intensity and the technique. We did some Hubud (this is pictured and an empty hand drill) and some grading things. Simon the Eskrima instructor was also taking photos for his upcoming website. Lun and I did some posing with sticks, knive and stick and knife. He then gave the camera to me so I can put the pictures onto my PC and use them on this blog. The first picture is one from Simon’s camera.


The key words for me today in this blog are commitment and practice. I have to show commitment to the instructors I could not see last week. Hopefully my brother will attend a few lessons as well. Practice is also a key word that must be noted; the more you practice the more something becomes 2nd nature.

Anyway thanks for visiting, enjoy the pictures!(p.s more pictures to be added tomorrow)

Kit!