My Weekend in Martial Arts: November 11th to November 12th 2006:Guro Dan Inosanto!

“Look Lun, it’s him!” I said to my brother excitedly as we came down for breakfast at a hotel in Edinburgh
“Erm Who?” Lun replied
“Dan Inosanto!!!!”

But before we even get to this part this was the trip that nearly wasn’t. It was most definitely a last moment thing and therefore I did not mention this trip on my previous blog. I also forgot to mention this to the students at the last Warriors Eskrima class but emailed them to tell them Lun and I wasn’t going to be teaching on Friday. There was no ulterior motive for not telling them where we were going, we sincerely didn’t know whether we were going or not due to the recent events regarding our Uncle. However Mum insisted we go in the end (as long as we could get back!).

We almost didn’t make the whole trip because the train in front of our train hit a cow which delayed us for about 2 hours to add to this surreal scenario a man in a chicken suit was walking up and down telling jokes (all for a good cause plus keeping the passengers amused while stuck on the train).

The surreal theme continued into the next day as we saw Guro Dan Inosanto getting some breakfast from the self service area of the hotel restaurant in which we were also staying in. I did joke with Lun the night before “Maybe he is staying the same hotel as us” and it turned out he did. He was sat with Rick Young who was the host and a man who turned out to be Guro Dan’s assistant called Joel Hart. We didn’t really want to disturb them eating their breakfast as we thought it might be rude to interrupt.

Eric his wife Amanda, Chris and Sahid all from Steve Powell’s JKD class picked us up from the hotel. As we were made our way to Leith Academy we saw Guro Dan, Rick and Joel get into a car, our first thought was to “FOLLOW THAT CAR” but decided against it because we had a Satellite Navigation in the car anyway and would have looked very suspicious.

AT THE SEMINAR

Lun and I approached Guro Inosanto as he was looking at his notes and when to say hello. He was extremely warm and friendly and thanked us for coming. He taught some cool stuff stick and dagger, stick, empty hand, I can’t really go into everything because there were a lot of drills. The thing that I also loved was listening to the history of the Philippines. The stories of how his father brought all the feuding Filipino Californian communities together which led to Dan Inosanto by so many different Eskrima instructors. The way Filipino’s were unjustly called “Warlike and Barbarian” by invaders just because they defended their country was also explained to us. I find all the history fascinating about Filipino Martial Arts, I could just sit in a seminar with Guro Dan just talking about the history and then one seminar just training. I love hearing history from a view point from somebody that experienced things first hand rather than the propaganda history that we are sometimes misled to believe. During the break we spotted someone with a Warriors Eskrima T Shirt on. His name was Russell and was an instructor from Weston Super Mare in Somerset, ironically near my girlfriend Elaine. It was cool to talk to him and he had nothing but good things to say about Krishna Godhania. We also recognised a few other Martial Artists attending.

Later that night Lun and I went with Steve Powell’s entire group to have a dinner. I go on record and say that Eric and Chris are two of the first English guys I have ever went to a restaurant with who knew what they are ordering (Roast Duck and Char Siu with rice) taught to them by Steve Powell himself of course. We spent the evening discussing the seminar and having good food at this restaurant in Edinburgh called the Great Wall.


DAY 2

Speed, the speed of Guro Dan Inosanto at 70 is phenomenal. The day before Guro Dan showing us a move that started off with a sweep and quickly into an arm bar. My jaw just dropped, if he is this fast at 70 he must have been more phenomenal at my age I thought to myself. Joel Clark was his tall teaching assistant who was very friendly and helped us out a lot. I noticed him Joel doing Capoiera moves as well during the breaks and we had a short discussion about that art. Joel is pictured below.


Again Guro Inosanto talked about the history and also showed us some awesome silat moves. The underlying theme of the whole seminar was finding what was best for the individual. It’s not the style that defines the use; it’s up to the individual. There are so many other things that happened at the seminar that Dan explained or shown, my only regret is not gathering our fellow instructors from my Warriors Class to go but like Guro Dan said “Its up to the individual to see what fits best for themselves…”

Special thanks to Eric and Amanda for giving Lun and I, a lift back to Manchester. I also like extend my thanks to my parents, Steve Powell who introduced us to JKD, Krishna Godhaina whose Warriors method kept our interest up in weapons and Lun who made it all possible. Below is a group picture with Guro Dan Inosanto

This weekend was a tremendous honour to meet Guro Dan Inosanto, one of my Martial Art dreams comes true.

Thanks for reading
Kit

My Week(end) In Martial Arts: Dan Inosanto!

Hi All
I am posting this from a hotel in Edinburgh! Lun and I finally made it to the Dan Inosanto seminar! This is day one of a two day seminar and so far its been interesting,such as we are staying at the same hotel as Guro Dan Inosanto,learnt a lot of Filipino history and their knife fighting culture,seen several well known Martial Artist's from all over England, a Warriors Eskrima instructor called Russell and most of all learning some great stuff. Shall post a more detailed updatate soon!
Keep Training!
Kit

My Week and a half in Martial Arts: 19/10/06 to 07/11/06

“Wow I just did it like it was natural” Richard said after blocking an Eskrima strike. Richard has been coming down to our Warriors Eskrima consistently for the last four weeks. Yeah that’s what you call subconscious competence I thought to myself. A term quite new to Lun and I, although this concept was what I called it 2nd nature or natural instinct in the past. Hang on, before I launch into another posting I must apologise for not updating in a while, I have been busy at work, Elaine came up for a week and I slowly getting my Martial Arts back together. Lessons? The past 3 weeks we only trained in one lesson as Lun and I have mainly been teaching the Eskrima class.

Friday October 20th we had an Eskrima lesson where I taught the double heaven six to the new guys Richard (who I mistakenly called Steve the previous week) and George. These guys were complete beginners in Eskrima (whilst our other beginners have a basic grasp on techniques as they have done Martial Arts), while Lun was teaching the more experienced beginners William and Stephen.

It was a challenge to teach complete novices. Everything is taken into consideration; co-ordination is the biggest factor dealing with weapon training. This involves footwork and getting the form right. There is a little trick I do to make sure the guy is striking properly with the stick which is just standing in front of them and using my body as a template for the strikes. I found this has helped the students (well 3 of them so far) but it’s difficult some times as I put myself in their shoes four years ago when I started in Eskrima, I can totally emphasise with them and I like to pass on little tricks I picked up so they can pick the skills easier. For people who have trained in a Martial Art previously I tend to teach them more stuff as they should be able to pick up stuff more easily. I also tell them the stories behind some of the moves and how it looks when it is applied, so they get a better idea.

I went to Glastonbury on Saturday 21st to see Elaine. On Sunday on the way to Bath to meet Elaine’s sister and her sister’s boyfriend Louisa and Carl who practice Wing Chun and Five Animal Kung Fu respectively, we stopped by Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol. I would say being a new instructor is like being a newly constructed bridge, bridges take a long time to construct and once it is built, it is ready for people to cross over to the other side; however people need to have confidence to cross the bridge first. Finally after being tried and tested many people can use the bridge to help them get across. That’s my analogy of it anyway and being of Chinese descent I have a right to be philosophical!..:)

On the 28th October I took my Mum to Birmingham and drove Elaine back to Glastonbury. I have done almost 20,000 miles in my car and I have only had it since December last year, in my last vehicle it took my five years to get to 31,000 miles!
On the way we went to Gloucester Cathedral as pictured and then Montacute House which reminded me of Wayne Manor from the Batman comics and films.


Friday 26th October we taught William and Richard some stick and empty hand stuff. One of the moves was a various jolt to the throat to rock the head back before finishing off an attacker/assailant with a few jab crosses to the throat William made an interesting point upon being shown this move “End up in jail, no?”. I told him that: “Well you don’t have to jab cross the throat in reality you can just jolt the throat and run, but he did have a valid point regarding the attack” In fact I think William is one of the most cautious people I have trained with and that’s a good thing. In fact all three of our beginners seem to understand that they can be taught something and not to maim or hurt someone with certain things they are taught. However as Krishna Godhania once told us we always have to train for the worst case scenario.

Thursday November 2nd Lun and I went to Steve Powell’s JKD class. Greg took the class and it was great to see Chris and LGM Chris there too. Greg is just an awesome teacher and as written earlier the stuff about subconscious competence is something that he told the class. Basically there are four stages, subconscious incompetence (you think you know it but your crap), conscious incompetence (you know you are crap but you are trying to fix it), conscious competence (you got the skills but need to think about it first) and subconscious competence (you are so good it becomes second nature). This concept or matrix is also used in business models but it’s a very interesting matrix to apply to Martial Arts.

Friday 3rd November Lun and I went through some basic drills with William, Stephen and Richard. As William and Stephen has had more lessons than Richard, I taught Richard some basics on his own and then finished with some focus mitt work.

Sunday 5th November: My Mum, Lun and I drive down to Birmingham to visit our Uncle who was recently diagnosed with Cancer. He was all smiles and showing a lot of vitality but my Mum always said that he is the kind of man who doesn’t want anyone to worry. It was there and then I decide that I am most definitely going to run for charity again next year, I am running for him and everyone of my family and friends who have somehow been effected by Cancer.

Monday 16th I went to the gym with Lun did weights. We then did some focus mitt sessions just doing 3 of 3 sets of 20 reps of various punching drills. It was a good and necessary work out.


Tuesday 7th November: I ran in the morning just once round the block…the running training has begun again.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures.

Kit