My week in Martial Arts: January 8th 06 to January 13th 06

Hi All! this is a long blog as it has been a very Martial Art themed week….Today I am knackered.

“Err the gym closes at 3.30pm” I told my brother on Sunday in the foyer of the Salford University Tom Husband leisure centre. It wasn’t the start to the week we wanted. I did get a good work out though; Lun thought it was too short. We did however more than make up for it after the week was done. Later my brother found pictures from our old ChoShin Kai karate days, when I say old I mean 1984-85 when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I can’t tell what belt (because the picture is in black and white) I was, I think I was orange belt then, but that class was upstairs in a pub. The picture is of me sparring against my mate Barkery who I believe is working in the radio industry. If you come across this blog Barks give us a shout.

Monday morning 50 Hindu Squats, I still need to add my routine in the morning, however so far it’s going well. Monday evening we went to Karl Tanswell’s straight blast gym. Karl was easing us into the New Year by asking us to take it easy at it was our first time back since last month, but we still went through a lot of techniques mainly jabbing and crossing and still a cool work out. We also learnt a cool defensive technique. It was also the debut of our new boxing gloves and my mouth guard in sparring!

Tuesday I had a rest well I did my Hindu squats and watched Tom Young Goong the latest film from Tony Jaa. The stunts and fights are awesome and very well done. Bizarrely it didn’t make me want to train more as I train anyway and I saw it as a great piece of entertainment but I think it will inspire people to take up Martial Arts.

Wednesday end of work, a colleague mentioned he was going to do Tae Kwon Do that night. One of the managers at my workplace Alan Mather runs a TKD school in which he was going to. I told him I also use to go; (as I did a few lessons when I first joined my company) the guy asked me “Why’d I stop?” I simply replied “Oh I do other things now”.

Later that night, I went to Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym class Lun had to spend time with his wife Sue that night.
It was a great lesson we expanded on jabbing and crossing techniques ,did a boxing blast which is throwing jabs and crosses while moving with the foot work and did some take downs. As always a great workout. Karl mentioned my fitness level was up,that was great compliment but I know I still got a long way to go.

“Have you guys ever been to an ATG seminar” I asked the brothers Carl and Chris who trains regularly at Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym “Yeah it’s really good! Really knackering but really good” Basically ATG is open to members of the Straight Blast Gym and a 4 hour training session held every month. I am considering going but I still have not started any Jiu Jitsu training as of yet.

Thursday at work, I spot a Book of Five Rings on another colleague’s desk. The colleague is called Wellington Tsang, it turns out that he does Akido and was trading books with Alan Mather. We talk at length, its interesting to talk to someone who does a different art.


A seminar my brother and I will be attending for sure is Rick Young’s seminar at Steve Powell’s JKD class We went to a seminar of his last year and it was great. The JKD class itself was on Thursday and it was awesome!!! We carried on with some stop hit kick techniques and did some awesome focus mitt work. The holder (of the mitts) would throw some punches and at you and then the other person would use various destruction techniques to take out the punching arm or catch or block the punch. The holder will then throw a kick and the opposing person would block and then do a what’s called a four count, the holder would hold the mitts for one round house to one side then jab ,cross or hook combo’s and then another round house kick to the other side. That was just one combo of several we did that night.

One great thing about Steve's class is that he can always make my brother and I laugh. Steve knows some words and phrases in Cantonese, some are quite funny phrases. He told us a funny story about him ordering in Cantonese at a restaurant in Chinatown but the waiter didn’t understand him because he only spoke Mandarin! Well that works against us as well because my brother and I only know Cantonese (not a lot but enough to order at a restaurant!) It was a great workout; however I still need to brush up on my body mechanics.

Friday-you know what? I am beginning to think I should have wrote a daily blog for this week!- “Have you sparred with Wellington yet?”Alan Mather jokes as he catches me on the stairs at work. He then tells me that The Book of Five Rings he traded with Wellington was the same book but by different translators and the literal translation was different. That’s really interesting as it makes me wonder how many books have been translated this way.

Warriors Eskrima was a great lesson we worked on our cardio. Part of this was pad work as shown in the pictures above. We did a lot of conditioning and in between our conditioning exercises we had to run around the squash court in between exercises. We then did several sparring techniques, including empty hand sparring, kicking and grapping and also did some stick sparring techniques. Tonight, it was only my brother and I, but instructor Simon Campion made us work hard. We have to get better at our conditioning to enable us to get ready for our grading which is soon, tonight was a great step in the right direction.



To top it all off the Samuel Kwok/Calson Gracie Double Impact Seminar DVD arrived, the significance of this?My brother and I attended the seminar along with our friend Andy Timmins way back in February 2004..We feature in it doing some BJJ(looking clueless because we never did any BJJ prior to that day!) Anyway you can check out the DVD here It was a great seminar one half Wing Chun, the other half BJJ.

A very eventful week in the World of Martial Arts for me! Thanks for reading, I am going to try and manage my blog better next week!

Kit!

My week in Martial Arts: January 2nd 06 to January 6th 06

Tuesday morning 6.45A.M I was feeling knackered but it was time for work. Monday was a bank holiday here in the UK so it was time to get up early Tuesday. Having got changed I felt that I was going to fall into the same routine washing and getting changed is followed closely by breakfast and rushing to work.“Pick yourself up, Kit” I told myself and then did 50 Hindu squats before breakfast. I felt much better for it as it was what I planned for that morning setting off a pattern for the rest of the week. After work we planned and went to JKD.

“HING DAI!” was the familiar friendly greeting from our instructor Steve Powell when he saw my brother and I at his JKD class. “Hing Dai” means “brothers” in Cantonese. Yes my brother and I returned to Steve Powell’s JKD class and we hope to keep it up this year. This had been our first actual class with Steve Powell for a few months due to the fact that we haven’t been in a while and the last class we attended was taught by Greg Hall. It was great to see him and it was also awesome to hear that Steve reads Lun’s blog and my own blog.
I feel honoured that he reads our blogs and will promise to keep on blogging.

It was also cool to see Chris for the first time since I discovered he too writes a blog. We talked briefly about the blogs and it was great to finally talk to him. He was also used as the main demo guy when Steve Powell had to show us some moves. If an instructor has to choose a person as a demo guy that is a sign that the chosen guy or girl is really good at their art.

The class itself was great we learnt defence and counters to sidekicks from Jun Fan, Filipino and Silat disciplines. We also did a lot of exchanging kicks and punches. The lesson was without doing any pad work as Steve thought he would ease everyone back into training; however it was still a great and entertaining work out as we were exchanging some kicks for almost an hour. I personally enjoy both pad work and non pad work classes. The way I see is it is that when pads aren’t involved it’s more about skill and control and with pads or focus mitt sits still about skill but with the added power and speed.

Wednesday my brother and I went to the gym. It was the first time for me in the gym in the long time and we did a heavy set. We also worked some cardio on the running and bike machines.

Thursday was a rest day, Friday though was a return to Warriors Eskrima. It was a great lesson indeed. We did knife and stick disarms, empty hand sparring and practiced drills in preparation for a grading that could be happening in March. Tonight I was focused and pleased with the way I took the lesson, as sometimes you can have off days. Although I have to remain focused all the time.





It’s great when we focus on skills even though our last grading will comprise of different kinds of sparring. However the skills we learn will help us in our last grading as we were focusing on technique. We didn’t go to Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym class this week and Capoeira is not on till the 17th. Other than that it was a very tiring week as it was busy at work but a great week in Martial Arts and exercise. I hope I can keep it up for the rest of the year.


Enjoy the pictures and thanks for reading!
Kit!

Goals/Resolutions of 2006

Happy New Year!
To celebrate the New Year, well the first thing I did in the morning was exercise I did 50 Hindu Squats and 50 roof blocks and 50 reverse roof blocks with my heavy sticks for each arm. I then did a light work out on the inflatable punch bag. Check out my brother’s by the way, Lun is posting more than ever (and they are good with plenty of pictures).

What better way to actually try and keep resolutions by publishing them on my blog. Then checking what I wrote today on January 1st 2007 to see if I was consistent with my resolutions. I am going to try and keep my resolutions this year, compared to other resolutions( such as smoking, the most common and broken one is people saying that they are giving up smoking) my resolutions/goals hopefully shouldn't be too hard plus I am glad I don’t smoke. These are more goals than resolutions and to elaborate on my Christmas post. .


1) GET FIT- I need to lose some weight. The most common thing for a lot of people (me included) is that they dwell on the problem and not the solution. I think the way forward is to recognise the problem and then concentrate on solutions. I recognised the problem why I am still slightly overweight is that I sit down at work all day by a PC and being through the Christmas period I have lots of junk food in the house. I also find I don’t eat at the right times (for example my supper will be late as a result of training after work which kinda defeats the purpose of training if you want to lose weight). That’s it, problems recognised over and done with, what I need to do to fight it is exercise every day and control what I eat and when I eat. This begins by exercising in the morning with only a few exercises and slowly building up the routine to add more. I will keep you updated on the progress.
2) LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERYDAY- As human beings we are probably doing this unconsciously every day anyway at work or at play. However my goal is to directly learn something new everyday be it any skill (Martial Arts, Work and Education among others). To consciously learn and retain the skill and make a log of it.
3) TRY AND MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR OTHERS- Although I am going to try and make this year “my year” as in making a better life for myself, I must not forget that if my family and friends need help I shall always be there for them and I will help my family as much as possible. I live near my parents for example who are retired and will need to watch out for them as they get older and just be conscious of things that they might need.
4) READ MY BOOKS- I read all kinds of books but I have several books that I read halfway and start another. For every book I have completed, there is a book I still haven’t completed or halfway through. This isn’t right at all! Its kind of trivial but kind of important to that I need to finish reading several books to go hand in hand with resolution number 2: LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERYDAY.
5) DO MORE FILMING- Another hobby and passion is film I bring my dv camcorder to every Eskrima lesson and I plan to film everything we have done in Eskrima with my brother to keep as reference points. This is more of a goal.


Well there you go my gaols/resolutions for 2006. Check back soon for my regular Martial Arts blog every Friday night/Saturday Morning.

Thanks for reading and happy new year.
Kit

More Pictures

Hi All
As promised here are more stills/photos that were filmed/snapped over 2005. Please read latest post if you missed it. Enjoy the pictures.









Apart from the very last photo, all are from my Warriors Eskrima class.
Have a happy and safe new year
Kit

Christmas Post!

Hope you all had a great Christmas!
There were no lessons for me last week, hence why there was no Friday update. So my brother and I trained at home(as in learning techniques from several DVD's) and I practiced some boxing on my new inflatable punch bag. Christmas however is a time for being with your family and meeting with old friends plus rushing around shopping that's what I have mainly been doing.

In an earlier post our Eskrima friend Mike humorously stated in reference to the pictures of the post “Another Lok Brothers Extravaganza!” Well guess what Mike this time it’s a Lok Brothers Christmas Extravaganza picture showcase! Actually it’s just mostly stills from what I filmed this year which I never got to post, not all of them are my brother and I. I realise I have a lot of pictures to post so I shall post some more later this week before the end of 2005.

You maybe wondering how come there are no pictures from Steve Powell’s or Karl Tanswell’s. Well this is because it’s not as easy to set up a camera in the class as those classes have a greater number in people and because of time restrictions I don’t want to disturb the flow of the class. In Eskrima and Capoeria I always have a bit of time to set up the camera which enables me to produce pictures of both.

Highlights of the year
Personally this year has been a bit crap, however in terms of Martial Arts it has been very enjoyable. Among the cool things in Martial Arts this year was (and this is in no particular order).

1) SENI 05: This is a Martial Arts Expo held in Birmingham UK each year. My brother, Simon (Eskrima Instructor), Timmins, Paul and Eskrima Paul all went and saw Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tourneys (before I started at Karl’s but I saw him and many of my current class there), a stunning display of Kalarippayat an Indian Martial Art, Capoeria displays, Eskrima displays by our own Pangulong Guro Krishna Godhaina and last but not least participated in a knife fighting workshop by again our Pangulong Guro Krishna Godhania.We also spent a lot of money buying Martial Arts gear. SENI 05 was awesome walking around it was like a who’s who of Martial Arts either demonstrating or promoting their school or gear. I have a couple of pictures displayed from this event although taken with my phone so the quality is not as good(these are shown). Next year I am taking the digital camera.


2) Steve Powell’s JKD class: After long absence well about 6 months my brother and I returned to JKD hopefully in the new year we shall continue to train there on a more consistent basis. Under JKD the highlights were training under Steve Powell again, attending a seminar with Rick Faye and having a lesson under Greg Hall.

3) Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym: The MMA Stand up fighting has helped me immensely in my sparring in Eskrima not only that but you are guaranteed a great work out here.

4) Warriors Eskrima.: It was great to go and train at Pangulong Guro Krishna Godhania house with Simon earlier this year. It was an eye opener and a good experience for me. Also getting my Level 5 grading was great!

5)Capoeira: It felt awesome to help make a DVD for teaching Capoeria to school kids.


6) This blog: I feel that this blog does motivate me and I am glad people read it. I have had emails from the US, Philippines, Europe and all over the UK. But what motivate me the most is when my family, friends and fellow Martial Artists read it. I like to say thank you to the Warriors Eskrima group as they have read my blog every week since its inception. I also like to give a shout out to Airah (who has her own blog that has nothing to do with Martial Arts but has always posted positive comments on mine) and Chris who does have a blog on Martial Arts and attends Steve Powell’s school. Last but not least my big brother Lun who always reminds me that “You haven’t updated my blog yet”.

Well that’s it, next year my goals are to start BJJ and grappling lessons and keep a better fitness regime at home. Yes I shall keep the blog updated and I WILL post more articles on it. I will try to keep the blog a bit more personal and not always go post about Martial Arts, sometimes I may feel need to write and therefore will post. As I intend to include blog the significant events of my life (don’t worry I won’t post the boring events!)

A big thank to you all for reading this year. Enjoy the first batch of 2005 pictures,I shall post more soon!
Have a happy and safe New Year
HAPPY NEW YEAR

KIT

My week in Martial Arts: December 12th to December 16th

Hi All

Yup this week has been a total slacker week for me in terms of attending Martial Art lessons. I had only attended one class on Tuesday. However my brother comes back from California today and I will go through the lessons I had with Karl Tanswell and Warriors Eskrima from last week with him over the weekend.


On Monday I had to sort out a few documents with the car dealership as I was changing my car which prevented me from going to Karl Tanswell’s class . Tuesday though I went to Capoeira. One of the veterans of our class, Ken Pudsey returned. Ken’s another Martial Art nut like me as he does several Martial Arts and I have mentioned him in an earlier post.
Simon came to take some photos which will be posted at some point on the Flowdrills site.


Ken’s reasoning for returning was due to some personal problems and therefore he wanted to do something spontaneous and nothing strict or rigid. Capoeira is a very spontaneous art. Martial Arts in general is a great stress reliever and makes you forget about what problems you have. It builds self confidence and the more Ken does during this time the better.


As for the lesson itself because it was only Ken and I attending we did some advanced stuff, which involved multiple cartwheels into spinning kicks and some defensive manoeuvres. We did one side attacking, one side defending sparring. It was a very good workout and ended with playing the game. It was the last Capoeira class before Christmas.

If you look at the list of Martial Arts I attend which include JKD,Eskrima and Stand Up Fighting, you may find that Capoeira is the odd Martial Art out. The reason I do Capoeira is because it’s a totally different art from the others. There are a lot of great defensive movements and lot of kicks that are not really taught anywhere else. It also keeps me flexible and gives me a chance to learn about another culture.

Well Wednesday was my birthday and I became 29 years of age. On that same day I purchased a new car and went to a Foo Fighters concert. Yes I finally replaced my Vauxhall Corsa (pictured silver car) which I had for five years with a Vaxhall Astra (pictured). I have had many adventures with the Corsa going up and down the UK and it never really broke down on me in the middle of any journeys. The Foo Fighters was an awesome concert (pictured) they entertainingly turned every song they did into great big epics with longer guitar solos and even drum solos. It was a very good day apart from my brother was away but other than that it was cool. Some of their stuff makes great training music as well!


Today Friday I had to pick up my brother so therefore missing Eskrima. However his birthday present to me was an inflatable punch bag! I can’t wait to use it and it will be cool to practice some punching combinations I learnt at Karl's.

I shall try and work on some articles for this journal and hopefully attend more lessons next week!
Enjoy the pictures and thanks for reading!
Kit

My week in Martial Arts: December 5th to December 9th

Hi All

First of all a special shout out to my brother Lun who is currently working in California. Lun, I hope you will be back soon! I miss my brother!
Well another week of Martial Arts but only two lessons, however both of them were great. Pictured is Rick Faye’s Sunday Seminar Series Knife Training and Defence DVD that my brother ordered and arrived earlier this week.

Rick Faye is simply an awesome instructor and this seminar DVD is like being inside one of his classes and is very enjoyable indeed and very helpful. I am not sure if it is suited for beginners but if someone was unsure joining a Martial Arts class of fear of intimidation and atmosphere (much like some people I know who are afraid to join their local gyms for the same silly reasons) should watch a copy of this.

Speaking of the gym that’s where I went on Monday as I have not done a gym workout for a while. I needed to pick some weights up again and will try and find a more regular slot in the New Year to fit my schedule.

“Danny I can’t make it to Capoeira, my car broke down” I couldn’t believe it but my car broke down for the 2nd time in the space of three weeks. In addition it was exactly in the same spot outside near where I work and at the same time. So I was frustrated I missed the Capoeira class.

Wednesday I received an email from a friend of mine Paul Ratcliff I know he reads the blog and that’s why I mentioned him by name. Another Martial Art enthusiast he is a black belt in Karate, trained in JKD and was an integral part of our Capoeira. Unfortunately he can’t make lessons due to his work commitments but I hope he does return to Martial Arts as he is very dedicated.

Later that day I went to Karl Tanswell’s class . Again we broke down a stand up move into groundwork ending with grabbing the opponent’s legs to crash into the ground. Simply awesome. When I say break down the move I mean we practice the a few moves and then add some more moves and then finally or link it together.

Due to a visit to the dentist recently I decided to purchase a mouth guard. I brought two one for Lun and one for myself. Like Karl said “You don’t want your teeth knocked out don't you?”

Friday I received an email from another good friend of mine Gareth Gray who was feeling down as he just quit smoking. I immediately sent him an article I came across on Rick Faye’s site The article spoke of Sarah Kennedy an instructor now at the Minnesota Kali Group who initially used Martial Arts to deal with her depression. It’s very inspiring read for anyone feeling down. It also worked for my friend Gareth who emailed back telling me it was inspiring.


Later that night it was Warriors Eskrima time!We did a lot of conditioning work, which included step ups, sit up’s, leg raises, back raises, shadow boxing, stick conditioning and press ups. We then did some work on parrying punches and then we did some close quarter sparring stuff changing the scenario so we only had a little space to fight.


In addition we did knife vs empty hand sparring and stick vs empty hand sparring.
“I could see how training at Karl’s has improved your stance” Simon said during an empty hand sparring session. That was cool that I was incorporating other skills from different lessons and making it second nature, however when I slipped a punch I should have kept my guard up which Simon also spotted! We did some grappling work at the end of the lesson, I really need to work on my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (so far my brother and I have only attended one lesson at Karl’s due to scheduling conflicts)

Anyway that’s it for this week, as always enjoy the pictures and next week as I am off work until after Christmas in that time I hope to do more regular updates!

Kit

My week in Martial Arts: November 28th to December 2nd

Hi All

In an interview Bruce Lee held on a chat show called the Pierre Burton show in 1971. He was asked if he could repeat one of the lines he used in an episode of a sixties crime drama called Longstreet. In the series Bruce Lee was basically playing himself as a Jeet Kune Do Martial Arts instructor and therefore wrote most his own lines. With much charisma and enthusiasm Bruce Lee reiterated this piece of philosophical wisdom:
“..empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water, Now you put the water into a cup , it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes a bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow, or it can crash! Be water my friend”

The whole interview was shown on Channel Five here in the UK on Sunday and was very entertaining to watch. Bruce Lee was not only a break through Chinese actor, not only one of the most important Martial Artists of last century but an excellent philosopher. The way Bruce Lee effortlessly weaves his philosophy with Martial Arts was and still is massively influential. Just check out his quotes.

The interview kicked off my week in the World of Martial Arts. We went to Karl Tanswell’s class on Monday and the first thing to meet our eyes was a magnificent championship belt laid out on the counter that separates the waiting area from the training area. Karl announced that Rosie Sexton retained her Cage Warriors Fighting Championship Women title. She trains at Karl’s gym and is regarded as one of the best female fighters in the UK and possibly Europe. Lun and I haven't had much chance to talk to her as she trains in the more advanced classes. However it is quite cool training at the same place where Rosie trains and other great fighters under Karl. In fact it’s quite daunting because they are all so good at what they do!

On that day we trained variations on jabbing and crossing. Learning how to slip and dodge effectively. There was a lot to pack into an hour even though it sounds like one or two techniques.

Tuesday I went to Capoeira , another awesome lesson. I was helping Danny Henry with the teaching again. Capoeira really keeps me flexible as there are a lot of stretching exercises involved I am going to help my instructor devise some leaflets to give to beginners. These leaflets will explain Capoeira and will illustrate some basic moves to help the new people.

Wednesday went to Karl’s again and trained more stand up fighting. I still need to work on my sparring, as I seem to leave myself open. I am so used to using an Eskrima gunting, this is where one hand parries an attack and your other hand counters the attack at the same time or just blocking a strike with your own elbow. Bruce Lee however said “empty your cup” as I need to approach each Martial Art as how they are and not mix it up. All in all a great lesson and it was a continuation from the class on Monday.

Friday we attended Warriors Eskrima class. We did plenty of pad work and swapped partners throughout the lesson. I taught Paul who is a level lower than me the knife drill called Palisut and was quite happy that I could teach him. I am going to ask if we can have more than one lesson as I feel we need more than one coming to the grading. On the plus side I have my brother to train with and plenty of DVD source material.

That was my week in Martial Arts, again I apologise for no mini updates. Hopefully things will get back to normal soon!
Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures!
Kit