Friday, March 31, 2006

My week in Martial Arts: March 26th to March 31st 06

Hi All

Another week of the Martial Arts although not officially finished as Lun and I go to Steve Powell’s Cho Sin Kai class which will feature some great pad workouts.

Cho Sin Kai was the karate style Steve Powell was teaching before he set up the JKD class (but some of the Cho Sin Kai elements still remain in his JKD class) and it was the first Martial Art my brother and I trained in. I am quite excited as my brother is to attend this special class tomorrow.

Although the excitement was for this class, the focus was on the grading for Warriors Eskrima under our chief instructor Krishna Godhania as this is taking place in just over a week. It’s going to be intense and I hope to get more lessons in and get myself in spar mode for the level 6 apprentice instructor grading.

Simon loaned us his fencing masks last Friday,so my brother and I did some stick sparring in the gym on Sunday. It was intense but we do have to step it up a bit more I think. We also practiced some Cho Sin Kai sparring drills on the focus mitts we were taught at Steve Powells's.

Monday my brother and I went to Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym. Glynn was teaching and we did some stand up grappling and take downs. It was a great class. Andrew Timmins was there and he was very skilful in his defence when I tried to take him down.

Tuesday I went to Capoeira. It was a great lesson, Steve from Eskrima showed up again and although the class was mainly beginners everyone did real well. Again I am chief demo boy for Capoeira..:) but it’s good experience for me if I want to eventually teach in an art.

Wednesday we had an extra grading session in Warriors Eskrima. My brother and I did some free style stick sparring; palakaw (although we couldn’t do any heavy sparring because Lun’s back wasn’t 100%) and Simon and Paul was practicing what they were taught at the Sayoc seminar! Yup my brother and I missed that one as I couldn’t afford it this month and my brother had to spend more time with his wife Susan, but I wish I had tried and found a way of getting there because Simon and Paul and later on Ray was telling me how great it was. Simon told me some very exciting news as well, but it all depends on the grading…watch this space for the news.

Thursday we planned to go to Steve Powell’s but I had to go back home for a certain time that night and Lun couldn’t make it due to work and recovering from his backache. So I trained for the charity run instead and ran on a treadmill for about 24 minutes. I find running on a treadmill boring and prefer the great outdoors but it was raining and windy. I have an online sponsorship form at Great Run but those who don’t wish to donate online and wish to donate can ask me for a sponsorship form, if you live locally to me!

Afterwards I practiced some stick drills and did some light weights.

Friday was Warriors Eskrima day!
As it was the grading will be about sparring we proceeded to beat the living crap out of each other!!! Actually that isn’t true we didn’t do that at all! I did some knife sparring with my brother and we did palakaw. My brother and I were then put in charge of the beginners and we did some stick disarms with one person in the middle who had to disarm oncoming attackers. Again it was cool to teach people.

We then did the stick sparring. It was awesome everyone’s game face was on. As I was filming it and shouting some tips from the outside I didn’t get as many goes as I would like to. However it was great watching the others and there is a Sunday session which my instructor Simon promised me more sparring.

I would like to thank my brother Lun and my sister in law Susan for their kind donations. Chris for his great support on his site for my run and his donation, please visit his site as it’s great with cool pictures and LGM whose comments I really appreciate on my blog and his views on life are very interesting to read on his great blog. Oh and congratulations to my mate Rob Dale who recently got engaged to his girlfriend Lou!It hasn't anything to do with Martial Arts but its great news!

Anyway enjoy the pictures and keep training.

Kit!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

woah dude! busy week!
looks like all thethingsa that were on the horizon a month or so ago are looming large. i hope you feel like you havemade adequate preparations for them! i am sure you will be fine though- you seem to have been doing a lot, and i am sure the adrenaline will kick in on the day (especially at your escrima grading)
ooh, i am looking forward to the cho-shin-kai now!
thanks for the shout out, and i will have seen you by the time you read this post, no doubt, hehehe.
andy wrestles in competitions doesnt he? i bet his take-down defence is good, lol!
funny... i missed the class at steve's on thursday- chris said it was a really good one too :(
that escrima disarm drill sounds pretty cool- i would like to do it - aah if only i could do disarms, lmao
seems to be the season for engagements... two of nmy old school friends have just got engaged.... scary for me- i dont even have a girlfriend haahaa.
anyway, take care, man, and get that pantera cd in your car ready for the day of escrima grading- get that agression going!!

Anonymous said...

Right!! I have to be an arsey bugger, sorry guys! CHOSHIN KAI! not cho shin kai. ok rant over
How amazing was that class! I was buzzing for hours untill I adrenaline crashed. It was well needed. I can't wait for more of the same
Good luck with the grading if I do not see you, hopefully I will though!

Lun said...

What a BLAST! There's alot of physics in those punches, hip shoulder elbow FIST!! I need to work on those, I know I CAN send someone back, but not as FAR as I want! The old memories came back, especially with that leading hand punch. Shall we purchase those karate suits now??

Anonymous said...

Did someone mention Karate suits! Steve knows a place near Strangeways that sells really good ones at trade price (about £40).

Anonymous said...

You have a great site here on karate shoes. I also run a karate shoes site that you and your visitors may find interesting.