My week in Martial Arts: June 19th till June 23rd

“Well you know I do it while I can still do it” Lun told Rick Lawrie referring to Martial Arts in a conversation after a great session at Steve Powell’s JKD Class on Wednesday, Rick replied: “I’ll do it forever”.

Mid way through my class on Wednesday at Steve Powell’s which was my 3rd lesson of the week I asked myself the question “Why am I doing all this training?” I was asking myself this question because it gone past 9 at the gym, I was covered in sweat and out of breath, in addition I had already a big session at Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast gym. I will answer this at the end of this post…..

Monday my brother and I went to the gym first. We planned to go to Karls and Steve’s that day. But as I was curling on a bicep machine at the gym it jammed in mid curl so my bicep ached pretty badly. We drove to Karl’s but I was still clutching my bicep ouch! Lun asked “Can you go?”as we were getting the stuff out of our parked cars. I remember the word of Tito Ortiz telling an injured fighter to “Live to fight another day always”on the previous nights “The Ultimate Fighter” I then thought about he injured fighters injuries and then my bicep strain…then I thought about some words from a football manager who told his injured players “It’s only a bit of pain,play through it” So I did, we did a load of stand up striking techniques and a cool take down. It was a super sweaty crazy workout. Although my arm ached a bit at the end so we did pass on Steve Powell’s.

Wednesday we stuck to our original plan for Monday and went to Karls and Steve’s. As mentioned it was two great work outs. At Karl’s we did some boxing and take downs from the clinch. It was awesome and very tiring. We then went over to Steve Powells. We did some great padwork stuff with sidekicks,back kicks,round house kicks and then we finished with some some hubud drills. It was a great lessons and I was knocked backwards by my brother’s side and back kicks several times!

Friday we went to Warriors Eskrima class. This time Lun had a class while I taught. I had a good session with William,teaching him basic strikes and disarms. I also did some amarra and we then did some heaven six which is a double stick drill. He picks up things very fast and already has an extensive Martial Arts resume. Teaching is fun when someone you teach picks it up really quickly. I feel a great Martial Art teacher not only teaches the art but also inspires and motivates. I am nowhere near that level but I aspire to be a coach that can teach and be aware of the student’s strengths and weaknesses and motivate them. I am lucky to have been taught by these type of instructors. Speaking of which, Simon was teaching the rest of the class that also consisted of Paul, Mike and Ray.

Yes I have a picture of a Barbary Macaque monkey on my blog…why? Well I could go on and link animals with Martial Arts and discuss primal instincts and so on. The truth is my girlfriend Elaine and I went to Monkey Forest in Trentham and we had a great time. I also thought it would be a great picture.
What I liked about Monkey Forest was that they didn’t cage them and it was a 60 acre forrest. I may have to rename this blog Martial Arts/UK Tourism journal, but I’ll say this again there are lots of great places to go in the UK.

As for the question of “why I am doing all this training”, it’s because I enjoy it. Martial Arts are enjoyed in many ways by different people. I would say I have quite a varied enjoyment to it, as to say I do not enjoy just one aspect. I can talk about the positive physical,mental and spiritual aspects of training as well but I guess I would have to write a new blog for that and like Rick said…
“I’ll do it forever, me”.

Again Enjoy the pics (not many this time) and thanks for reading.
Kit

My week in Martial Arts: June 12th till June 16th

Hi All

This week I have been mostly affected by Hay Fever. So I didn’t get to as many lessons as I did the week before.


Had a nice weekend as I travelled down south to meet with Elaine. We went to the city of Bath which was a great place. We walked around Pulteney Bridge
. It’s very nice at night time and is one of Bath’s best known constructions. Yes I have deviated from the world of Martial Arts again, but reminding people that there are lots of cool things to see in the UK.

Monday, my brother Lun and I went to the gym. We did a good set of weights and practiced some stick work. Lun took some pictures of me while I was practicing a few double stick drills. Capturing the action with a standard digital camera doesn’t quite work as well as the digital camcorder as some of the photos ended up pretty hilarious. The one serious one was a posed one of me shown above doing a roof block (which I still thought was funny).
I will put my goofy pictures on a Christmas special of something in the future.

Tuesday had the hay fever so couldn’t make Capoeira.

Wednesday we were going to go to both Steve Powell’s JKD Class and Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast gym. But we only managed to go to Karl’s because our Dad's phone wasn’t working so we couldn’t stay out too late. We did a load of stand up boxing drills in Karl’s emphasising on footwork. Zoning off against each other(for example moving to the left or right but keeping the boxing stance). My brother’s elbow was hurting him however but he carried on to the end. It was a great lesson and very energetic.


Thursday again went home due to hay fever.

Friday went to Warriors Eskrima class. My brother and I will now alternate weeks for teaching. This will allow us to train in our regular sessions. I found it a good work out and interesting session. We did some live knife vs empty hand sparring. The object of this was to control the knife hand and use the knife against the opponent.

It was a great drill but my only gripe is would I get in trouble if I used the knife against the attacker. The return/counter attacks are designed to kill or maim. In a real situation I would run away if someone tried to attack me with a knife. But sometimes you may not have a choice to run as I can tell you from personal experience (which I will go into detail in a future post).
In my opinion my main objective was to grab the knife hand and for the most part I did. However I will take it more seriously next time as my brother reminded me of the personal experience and that will make me drill knives with a completely different mindset. We also initally drilled knife attacks with the attackers with helmets on so full contact counters could be applied.
The helmet didn't last long however as the visor cracked.(Well what would you think twill happen in a stick class. We also did other drills such as one which involved smacking a stick against focus mitts. Lun was teaching William the amarra and other level 1 drills. It’s cool that William has been consistent.

Hopefully the rest of the beginners class will come down next week providing there is no World cup football on TV. To
Chris and LGM. hope to see you guys at Steve’s next week. As always thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures.

Keep training
Kit!

My week in Martial Arts: June 5th till June 9th

Hi All

Monday Lun and I went to Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast gym and Steve Powell’s JKD Class..what a way to kick off the week...yes that is my sweaty Minnesota Vikings t-shirt after Karl's session.

We did a load of boxing techniques and a stand up submission hold it was a very good work out as you can tell from the t-shirt. Why would someone from Manchester UK have a Minnesota Vikings t-shirt? Because i got it in Minnesota while attending the Rick Faye summer camp almost 4 years ago with Lun and therefore it has some Martial Art significance....

After a quick call to Elaine to tell her I will be late, we walked over to Steve's. It was great a whole load of focus mitt drills and some versions of Wing Chun, Silat and Filipino entry’s off punches and then we did some Silat take downs as we are learning a part of skill set, Steve Powell will tell you what works and what doesn't. When you think about it why we should practice something that wouldn't really work? Well that’s how we know it wouldn't work because we can sample it for ourselves. Again it’s also about finding your own way, a particular technique might work better for an individual. At the end of the take downs Steve would then say right practice any of the moves...so obviously we functionalise the ones that do work for ourselves that I guess is one of main components of JKD. Great to see Chris and LGM there. It was a great lesson as it was very varied.

Lately I read about the aliveness drills and live drills and in all the arts we do we practice live stuff. For example the sparring and hitting moving targets on focus pads. I think it’s important to drill stuff but also just as important to put the drill into a live practice. Matt Thornton calls it dead patterns when we repeat the same thing over and over again. You can read more about Matt Thornton here. Its funny as part of aliveness vs. dead patterns was a concept was introduced to me by none other than my own Dad.

Whenever my Dad would see a martial art demonstration on TV where one person would be demonstrating his moves on a stationary opponent, he would say the following words in Cantonese "Ker doh bei lei dah la?" before dismissing it and that simply translates to "(He is just) Standing there just to get hit,eh?" As I was young when I first heard it, I thought my Dad was just saying that to annoy me but when I look back and think about it what he said was totally true. No one will stand there in real life to let u do 20 or so intricate moves. However we do need to practice on an opponent to get the form right first but in reality it won't work like that so I guess it could break down as a stationary drill first to understand it and then into a live one.

Wednesday went to Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast gym. We did some defence against takedowns and he showed us how to get out of a bear hug like manoeuvre. Another great sweaty workout!

Friday my brother and I taught the beginners in the Warriors Eskrima class. Simon was there helping us out while he taught Paul and Ray. The two beginners William and Lisa were there and we taught them individually again but we will have to devise a plan where all the beginners can train together.

Last week Lisa told me that she had done a variant of Thai Boxing for three years. She also told me that a lot of the girls she trains with at her gym are a lot shorter than she is so she doesn’t use that much footwork where she spars. I believe getting us much information from a student who has done Martial Arts before is important as you can train them different techniques that are foreign to them. So I worked on stick sparring techniques with her. First I taught some basic blocks, strikes and then some counters. We then worked on the sparring and I told her to use more footwork so that the stick could not strike her leg. However being a Thai boxer she usually blocks leg attacks with her shins but in this case it was a stick coming at her so she had to block with the stick or get out of the way to counter strike.

Lun and I also went through some basic warriors techniques with them.

Well that’s it for today, sorry for the lack of pictures but as always thanks for reading!

Keep training
Kit

My week in Martial Arts: May 29th till June 2nd

Hi All!

I trained only once this week as my girlfriend Elaine came up to visit over the weekend…however that didn’t really stop training completely as she showed some interest in learning some stuff!

I taught some basic jab, cross and hook punching drills. She was quite good at it; I am not saying that because she is my girlfriend, I thought she picked it up quite well. I told her to do some shadow boxing so she could practice at home.

We went to the Lake District in Cumbria (pictured) and Manchester’s Lyme Park and therefore had had some great walks. I think I said this in one of my previous posts but England really does have some beautiful places. It was great going to those places with Elaine.

Wednesday Lunand I went to Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast gym. Great work out did some stand up wrestling into a take down. It was interesting stuff and a great workout. I will hopefully get back to Steve Powell’s JKD Class soon as well. We were planning on Wednesday after Karl’s but ultimately went home. Is this a lull in training?

No I want to continue consistently in everything as does my brother because he showed an interest in doing the great Manchester run next year. Therefore we both need to prepare for that one. I have raised over £328 for Marie Curie Cancer Care. I would like to once again thank everyone who donated.

Friday was Warriors Eskrima day!
William (who has his own webpage in Spanish), Paul B and Gaz all attended! Lun and Simon were mainly teaching them as Paul Hinds brought along a female work colleague called Lisa who I mainly trained as I taught her some basic weapon movements from scratch. As Paul Hinds trained with Ray, I taught Lisa some basic strikes and disarms.

She is the first girl to join our class; it was interesting as I learnt today that the way women train is different to how men train. This is because mainly that their body type being different so they may have to adjust when doing certain moves. She picked up some moves quite quickly however and she is also doing a kick boxing/Thai Boxing hybrid whose instructor was taught by Master Sken.

I think however Lun and I may have to design a special intro class for all first timers. This will cover a lot of basics so they can be able to join the rest of the beginners the following week if they choose to come back.

Anyway it was great to see Gaz, Paul B and William return, I hope they all get to do their respective gradings. Along with Lisa that was four beginners tonight. They all seemed to train hard tonight and all showed great interest.

Congratulations to Chris for a successful demo of his class. LGM assisted him in the demo which I heard attracted a lot of interest.

Anyway enjoy the pictures (mainly of the beginners in Warriors Eskrima!) and thanks for reading!
Kit

My week in Martial Arts: May 22nd till May 26th

Hi All

After the run on Sunday I decided to take it easy as this week has been just capoeira and eskrima. We are hoping to return to both Steve Powell’s JKD Class and Karl Tanswell next week. Again for those who did not catch my last post about the great Manchester run please click here to read it.

Capoeira was great; I am now using the old Capoeira trickery against people whilst playing the game. For example stopping and distracting them to look somewhere else. My legs were still sore from the running but Capoeira actually loosened them up.

Lun and I planned to go to Steve’s and Karl’s on Wednesday but we decided to go to the gym and going through a few things we were going to teach on Fridays.

We decided to go through together what we need to do rather than randomly teach and take control of the class more. As there is an average of 2 people are classes are informal and we allow them to ask loads of different questions to get their input and we also partner the respective students.

However we are changing the way we teach so if there was say 4 or more people it will be more structured. We envisioned it to be more structured and have the students learn what they were doing rather than pausing and asking a question every 2 minutes.

The class obviously is still Warriors Eskrima. But we will be drilling them about keeping things moving/alive and making sure that the person blocking does not still after a block or disarms. For example if an attacker attacks you with a weapon after blocking the defender should counter attack and not just stand there. Even though the basic blocking and disarming just requires blocking and disarming.

I also want to do a jab/cross as much as possible at the end of the empty hand drills or kicking drills. Like a retreating punch combination just in case you miss first time or there are 2 attackers and one decides to rush you after you kicked his mate away. Sometimes it’s hard to drill scenarios like this but as I said in my weekly update I think it’s important to try and progress in an Art and make it adapt to our environments.


Friday came, it was Warriors Eskrima time, Gary attended and William came back. We had a great lesson. First of all Simon taught us some traditional Warriors stuff and we did some stick drills. We then split the class and Lun and I taught William and Gary. It was great Lun taught them the first four amara strikes. Amara are a series of strikes with sticks that helps with co-ordination and line familiarisation. Instead of doing it a few times in a stationary position, Lun had a formula that required the guys to do the amara normally and then in a lunge position.

We then taught them disarms but told them to throw in strikes after disarming their opponent. We linked this with amara as we told them to throw in amara strikes after disarming. We then went through some stick and dagger drills and then we went through the heaven six. Both guys did very well.


Finally we did one in the middle continuous disarms and did some stick sparring. A very enjoyable class indeed and the first class that I think really worked as Lun and I as teachers (with more than one student). I think Gary will be ready for his grading soon. But the main thing was that our game plan for making the class more structured paid off. We also hope to get down to Krishna Godhania as well to get additional skills and teaching tips.


Anyway thanks to the comments of LGM and
Chris , who is definitely doing a demo at the Holmes Place in Didsbury, Manchester on Sunday Morning. He was ill last week so he couldn’t do it. Also special shout out to my mate Colin Wong who is doing a charity skydive in aid of speed of sight this Bank Holiday Monday. Good Luck Colin



Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures!

Great Manchester Run!

Awesome

All I can say that the Great Manchester Run was an awesome experience. Manchester is an excellent city full of great buildings and architecture. But Sunday May 21st Manchester showed that it is also full of great people.



It was raining race day. Gareth, Andy Timmins and I were wet and cold while waiting to run. We were in the pink wave which was the last wave to go at 11.15AM. In the mass huddle we noticed many people in fancy dress or crazy costumes. Once we got moving there was a huge cheer! However as we began running to the sounds of Nessun Dorma sang by an opera singer who was there especially it was just actually the 11AM wave leaving and our wave were just us moving up.DOH! Now!I really wanted to run now! At around 11.20AM we finally got running! At first Timmins, Gareth and I were running together but we soon split up I looked behind to see Gareth behind me and slowed down and asked him if he was alright he just told me to go ahead. So I proceeded to try and catch Timmins which was impossible as I couldn’t spot him in the sea of running vests and t-shirts.

I expected myself to stop and walk after the first 10 minutes but I carried on and only stopped to check my race chip was still strapped to my ankle. We were all giving these special chips that timed your run. The inspiration of the run was the thousands of runners running with me.

And so I ran....

The t-shirts that the other runners were wearing were all uplifting and kept me going. Several times I smiled because I felt lifted and inspired by the dedications on some T-Shirts dedicating to members of their family, some even had photo dedications printed on their t-shirts. I was running among like minded people doing it for a good cause, not for just one good cause but multiple charities. From every walk of life I saw people do their bit for their charity. Gareth, Timmins and I were running for the Marie Curie Cancer Care .

I always wanted to this too, drink a bottle of water that was handed out to me and chuck it on the pavement as I ran. Not like I would do that everyday (I always chuck my rubbish in the bin) but I always thought it was cool that runners always did it. Yup I chucked my bottle of water as I ran trying to catch my breath at the same time.

Once I hit about 8km I phoned (yes I kept my phone in my pocket!!!) Lun to see where he was he told me himself, Mum and Sister in Law were waiting for me under the bridge near the finish line. That was about a km and a half as I got there I slowed down to look for them but could not see them. Suddenly I saw the finish line so I just sprinted towards it doing a pretty decent impression of Road Runner (as in going really fast but not adding the “beep!beep!”). Unfortunately as I was told later, it was at this time, when my family were calling my name but I didn’t hear them!

We took some photos later after the race. I was a combination of sweat and rain as was Timmins and Gareth who both did tremendously well in the run. Timmins got 49 minutes! Gareth got 1hour 9minutes(which was awesome considering he only recently quit smoking) and I got 1 hour 2 minutes which I was pleasantly surprised at because I didn’t expect I would get back that quickly( I aimed for 1 hour 20/30 minutes!).

However Sunday 21st May it was the spirit of Manchester that stole the show. I feel great for everyone collectively who participated even though I didn’t know anyone else outside our group apart from one, our friend from University called Tricia Campbell who also ran but I didn’t see her (well done to you too!). Big thanks to my Mum(pictures with a very out of breath me), Lun and Susan for being there! Also big thanks to Dad came out for a meal later and big thanks to Elaine who gave me a good luck card the day before the event. (It worked:))
Check out Lun's blog for more photos and a different report.

I would like to thank everyone that donated online and offline.

Am I doing it again next year? DAMN RIGHT I AM!

Enjoy the great Manchester run photos(ok it was after the run but check out my brother's blog for the action photo's!)

Thank you Manchester
Awesome
Kit

My week in Martial Arts:May 15th till May 19th

This week I been training for my run, on the Sunday I ran a good 6.4 miles well walked some of the way back as it was a round trip to Manchester city centre and back to my house? All those years when I used to take a bus to my old college when I could have walked! I then did some light eskrima drills with Lun.

Monday, Lun and I went to the gym and did a heavy set of weights and went through some Eskrima stuff.


I couldn't really do any high impact stuff this week, so the only MA I went to was Capoeira. It was mostly hand stands and cartwheels so it was fun but I couldn't go full pelt when playing the game in fear of causing an injury to myself. Danny also told me of a future stage show that feature a load of contemporary dance and capoeira, I volunteered to be assistant capoeira choreographer (basically being the demo boy) But it would be a dream come true to choreograph a fight in a show or movie.

As that’s my other big passion, the latest craze in movies seems to be Keysi fighting method, as seen in Mission Impossible 3 and as seen or unseen(as the fight editing was silly) in the otherwise excellent Batman Begins. What do I think of Keysi? I really don't know as I have not practiced it and only seen snippets of it but its not overly exciting to watch on film (upward elbows, elbows and even more elbows so far) give me proper film martial arts (cool to watch even though it may not work) instead and leave the realistic stuff for us to practice outside! Plus I prefer a Thai elbow on film those are cool to watch. So I was not slating Keysi there I was just voicing an opinion of how it looks and portrayed so far on film.

Keysi is a relatively new Martial Art, which leads me to my next point..Tradition vs Evolution.
I am lucky to have trained in both traditional and modern martial arts

I know traditional Martial Artists who probably think the evolutionary side from what they read(as in stuff like MMA, JKD etc) doesn't embody what Martial Arts was all about. Check what I just said in my last sentence "WAS all about". We were once taught to do a crazy high kick in a TKD class to "kick someone off a horse". This was because Korean soldiers were once taught to this in ancient wars. When was the last time you went into the city centre and saw a group of hood rats or an unruly gang ride around on horses? In my opinion Martial Artists should always look to evolve themselves and learn new things and relate this with today’s environment, for we are not soldiers fighting an ancient war.

But before you say “Kit doesn’t respect the traditional arts” think again as I think they are great! Traditional arts formed the basis of the modern martial arts and were formed out of fighting necessity and many fighting arts are part of one country’s culture.

So what am I talking about, first I criticise a traditional art and then I praise it. That’s because I am an open minded person enjoys both sides and not prejudice against any of them. I can see what works and doesn’t work so I have arts to practice what works in self defence ( Eskrima,Steve Powell’s JKD Class and MMA) and arts that are more geared for cardio vascular stuff (Capoeira). I am criticising people who criticise Martial Arts that they have not actually tried, hence my reasoning for not criticising Keysi.

Sorry huge diversion!
Wednesday I did a quick run at the gym and then went to see my mate Gareth and taught him really basic punching drills to get him ready for the run. It was interesting to teach Gareth as he was very much a beginner although he did have a few lessons at Steve Powell’s JKD Class. He also saw a quick demo of my Eskrima and now thinks I am some kind of trained assassin. His girlfriend Gemma and himself said they would be interested in one day coming to our class.

Friday was Warriors Eskrima day. Lun and I taught again, Gaz was back after a 2 week hiatus. The guy was working late the last couple of Fridays therefore couldn’t make it. However he hasn’t lost it, he practiced at home with amazingly no sticks just the movements with his hands and got a perfect double stick heaven six drill going. I taught him the 2nd half of the drill. I then did some syllabus stuff with him. Lun was teaching a new guy called William who was really experienced in different Martial Arts. Lun taught him some strikes and locks. We then did some higher level stick and dagger drills which they both seem to enjoy.

Anyway my run is around the corner. Other than that be sure to make Chris’s demo at Holmes Place Disbury if you live in the Manchester as you will see both Chris and LGM.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the pics




Kit

Quick Update

A quick update
Hi everyone I though I do a quick update of things that have happened this week, will write up my week on Friday.I have been practicing for my run on Sunday mostly this week. I like to thank all those who have donated online and offline. I have had an awesome response. You can still donate as it's all going to Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Check Lun's blog who just tell's readers to be happy ,check it out!

Chris Sibbald who regularly comments on my blog, has a Demo to promote new Martial Arts Class coming up on Saturday at Holmes Palace Disbury for those in the Manchester area. He is graded at instructor level in Steve Powell's JKD and is a damn good Martial Artist. Unfortunatley I won't be able to make it but I wish Chris the best of luck. LGM Chris will be his demo partner check his blog too, very philosphical.

I cam across this awesome blog called Manchizzle which has a positive review.
This blog is about Manchester but written by an American freelance writer living over here. If you wondered what Manchester UK is like and want to read a bunch of other Manchester based blogs Manchizzle isn't a bad place to start!

Anyway I shall leave you with a number stick disarm picture showcase!
Thanks for reading!
Kit

My week in Martial Arts:May 8th till May 12th

Hi All

Another great week of exercise and martial arts. My initial plan of getting up early on Monday for a run was thwarted as I was feeling very lethargic. Add to the ingredients that I had a full day of Monday work ahead of me and then you get one Extra Lethargic Kit. However when I went to the gym with Lun I decided to run round the Salford campus before we hit the weights. It was a good session and we also went through a load of stuff that we plan to teach on Friday.

Tuesday I got up in time for a morning run. I went round the block twice at a moderate pace. Later I did Capoeira, I wanted to play the game but the class ran over so we didn't get the opportunity too. Great class though.

Wednesday I did a run but not in the morning, I plan to alternate my morning runs, this time I went round Salford Campus in the afternoon twice a good solid 25 minute run. Why just 25 minutes? Because I wanted to get to Straight Blast Gym class. Take one hot day, add a 25 minute run and then throw in one hour of Straight Blast stand up fighting training and you have one sweaty Kit Lok (Ok I will stop the cooking references now). The SBG training was cool we practiced single leg to double leg take downs. A lot of the lads here were at Seni and I was talking to one of them about the event.

Thursday my brother and I went to Steve Powell’s JKD Class. It was a cool class we learnt a load of filipino destruction techniques and did a lot of focus mitt work. We saw Chris and LGM and Paul B( the new guy in our class). Steve Powell spoke a load of Cantonese to Lun like "I like nice weather" and said in Cantonese “where are you going?" and then he answered in Cantonese "I am going out to the cinema!". Those were the tame words of course, all the rest were funny rude ones (which are the most fun words to learn in all languages)

Friday we went Warriors Eskrima.We did some cool Sayoc stuff with the knife this was an actually more of a preview of the stuff Simon, Paul H and Ray picked up from the Krishna Godhania seminars, if I wanted to learn more I will have to go to the Sayoc classes Krishna Godhaniaholds but it was cool nonetheless. We taught Paul B some of the Warriors Eskrima syllabus stuff. It was a good lesson as well I teaching we also learnt some new things but I guess teaching is a learning experience within itself.

Hopefully some of the original beginners will return and we will build up the beginner class, its actually ideal as if it is my brother and I teaching the beginners than if we have some on a higher skill level we can easily split the class.







Anyway going for a run in the morning to train for the run. Enjoy the pictures and thanks for reading.
Kit

Seni 06

Seni 06

“Go on Timmins!” I shouted as he competed against his opponent in the Seni 06 Light weight competition. He put on a tremendous fight but ultimately lost.

That was the start of Seni 06. I must admit I didn’t enjoy it overall as much as the first time, but my brother and Paul Ratcliffe met and saw several big celebrities from the World of martial arts and got our photos taken with some of them.

But what I didn’t enjoy about it was the fact that my brother and I were late for the Krishna Godhania seminar and we couldn’t find where to register or sign up to do the seminar (doh!) but we said hello to Krishna Godhania and walked around instead. However it was cool my instructor Simon and Paul Hinds got in and it was good to see the 2 Jimmy's,a father and son combination of Martial Artists who train under Rob Campion in Warriors Eskrima.

Seni 06 seemed to be much smaller than last year. Up to now the highlight was seeing my mate Andrew Timmins in the BJJ tournament. I bought some new Eskrima sticks and shared the costs of some training DVD’s with my brother. We also got some new stick bags so we carried them around on our shoulders (not to look hard..honest). We walked past John Saxon of Enter the Dragon fame. Yes the guy who played Roper. He was signing autographs with a promotion called Red Lizard. Everyone on that stand was wearing bad guy Enter the dragon uniforms and even one dressed up like O’Hara (the guy Bruce Lee annihilates for killing his sister in the film). We didn’t ask John Saxon for an autograph however.

As we brushed or walked past a celebrity we thought we wouldn’t see another. But then as we walked past the Cage Rage stall, a little old man in a blue jacket and a walkie talkie was asking everyone to make way. The thoughts “What was his problem” and “Hey??” went through my mind then I saw an entourage and right in the middle was a big brute of a man with a Mohawk and a goatee. It was UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Chuck Liddell! Man he was huge, like a hybrid wolf man (I meant that in a nice way) and it would have been cool to get his autograph as I am a big fan, however the line of the queue stretched almost half the arena so we did the next best thing.

Dana White was also there and I recognised him from the Ultimate Fighter. He is the president of the UFC and he was very friendly and posed for photos with people. In fact so many people got his photo I think he should charge next year. But joking aside he was a great guy and said he appreciated I watched his show. Lun introduced himself and also got his picture with as did Paul. Hmm does Lun want to fight in the UFC for introducing himself???

We walked around again and I must admit I didn’t search for the things I wanted to for some reason maybe I was tired from the driving.
However as we walked past the Combat Magazine stand, Lau Gar Fei or Gordon Lau/Liu from Kill Bill 1 and 2 and 36th Chamber of Shaolin was sat on some comfy seats signing autographs and getting photos with fans taken! Holy Crap!!!!! Return to the 36th Chamber was one of my favourites and this guy also stared in such cool films as Shaolin vs. Ninja, Legendary Weapons of China(when Kung fu films were Kung Fu films) and Tiger on the Beat. We got his photo taken with us and he signed our free copies of combat (Lun asked him to sign his copy in Chinese) it was really cool!!!


Walking around and totally star struck we then bumped into yet ANOTHER celebrity in Danny John Jules. Cat from Red Dwarf and was also in Blade 2. He was at his own stand with a few others promoting and independent Martial Arts film: Sucker Punch. As I just seen Gordon Liu there was no way I was going to be fazed by Danny John Jules, so I asked for his autographs and engaged in conversation with him. Well he began with me, as Lun was taking my photo with him he spotted Lun’s stick bag on the shoulder and he asked “What’s in the bag? what’s in the bag!” I explained to them they were sticks and he said that it must be dangerous for the hands. So I showed him my knuckles to which he replied “ooh!” and then I asked him if he did Martial Arts and he said “Yeah I did a bit for this film” and turned after a second he said “Wu Shu” I replied: “ahh Wu Shu”. Paul asked if a Red Dwarf movie was coming out anytime soon “Nah they keep pulling my plonkers on that one!” was the somewhat funny reply!

Anyway enjoy the pictures, my only regret is that we came home late on the way home so I missed my mate Paul Hinds’ birthday night out and by the time I got home I was knackered but I hope you had a good one Paul.

Seni 06 great exhibition but I not as good as the first time however the highlight was definitely Gordon Liu. Check out Lun's blog for some different pictures and perspective!
Thanks
Kit