Well, do you want to start Karate?

As a Dad, there is a natural worry for your kids. You see them watch TV and play video games, and think to yourself, I really need them to do something. This year it's been a breakthrough year for my eldest kids 8 and 6. They started to learn piano, one is in the chess club at school, the other Yoga...but something was missing. Then the Red Tiger Karate club came to their school to do a demonstration.

"Dad! Dad! there were karate people kicking each other today" said Ava(my daughter)

"Yeah I saw it too!" said Leon (my son)

and before they could say anymore I asked(rather quickly) "Well, do you want to start Karate?"

"YAY" shouted Ava

"I think so?" said Leon

"Well lets do this!" I said excitedly

Red Tiger Karate are a Greater Manchester based Shotokan Karate club. They have over thirty schools around the North West area. I knew they were a good school because ironically I used to work with someone who is one of the chief instructors of the organisation (but not the one we attend), Sensi Mike Beckwith, this was back in the early 2000's and I just remembered him as a friendly approachable person with no ego. Along with the kids liking the demo and Sensi Mike, it felt like a good place.

As the first class started at 6pm on a Monday, we needed the kids to have an early meal before class but also nothing to heavy! So supper times on Karate days are usually quite early to give the kids time to digest. The first class consisted of mainly children from my kid's school and other children. There was a warm up and some basic kicking and punching but also fun sporting games that the kids would compete in. I have never really experienced a kid's Martial Art class before, when I first started it was me and my brother Lun and a school friend my age, Barkery or some random kid mixed in with the adult class. This was when the great Steve Powell was running his Karate classes in the 80's(who is still teaching to this day). The sporty games(such as trying to get across to the other side of the hall without being tagged with a pad or glove) kept it varied for the kids.

So did the kids enjoy it, yes they loved it, although one comment from my little girl slightly worried me.

"I love it because my friends are here!"

hmm does that mean she would give it up if all her friends give up? This story goes back a few months, so stay tuned for further posts.

When we came home, the kids were still full of energy as they loved the lessson. So I did one thing any Dad would do, as well as going over what they learnt, I put on the original Karate Kid on Netflix for them to watch(obviously the end tournament scene)

"Why did he tell Johnny to sweep the leg?" asked Leon

Looks like I will need to show them the whole thing and the whole Cobra Kai series one day.

How did it feel being an ex-Martial Artist watching their children practice? pretty good really, I have seen techniques that I have done before and I can see where my kids need to improve.

However, how did it feel for a Dad to see their kids take up Martial Arts? pretty damn proud. Like I mentioned earlier, I will have lots more content around my kids lessons and the experience of being a Dad with kids who practice Martial Arts and then finally catch up to present day where it becomes like a weekly journal.

Like the old days but this time with my kids. Thanks for reading!

Next Generation

Well, well, well, it's been a long time , a very long time,10 years in fact.  I have not really done any Martial Arts for a while,but my kids , my kids are currently studying Karate.  This is where I began almost 40 years ago.  Stay tuned for my kid's adventures in Martial Arts and my adventures being a Dad to kids...studying...Martial Arts...

Lun's new blog

My brother Lun has a great new look to his blog and an article on a local karate club.

A new direction

I realise I still get 500 hits per month on a blog I stopped 3 years ago!This was the time I stopped Martial Arts but I still keep in touch with my peers and have facebooked almost all my instructors. Therefore I am going to try and post new content soon and take this blog in a new direction! Watch this space!

Rising up again?

I wrote an epilogue to the Martial Arts Journal in February 2010, however something has rekindled my interest again which might lure me back.

1) My brother rejoined Steve Powell's JKD class last week

2) In addition to that my brother and I have been trying out the Tabata training method in the gym.

This Tabata training consists of
1) warm up
2) 20 seconds work
3) 10 seconds rest
4) repeat 7 more times

I read a lot of MMA and combat training guys do this conditioning training but I am doing it to get back into condition again! Being a team leader at work(although I do a lot of walking around) you do tend to ensure you have a nice meal every night to replenish the energy spent sorting stuff out. However with my brother Lun going back to JKD and this Tabata training being very enjoyable who knows?

I might start kicking some pads again......

Epilogue

My last blog entry was 9th June 2008, today is 7^th Feb 2010, a year and almost 8 months since I last posted, which is a very long time. Lots of things have happened during the last year and 8 months as not all was Martial Art related which meant I couldn’t possibly write this blog on a weekly basis. I would say that my Martial Arts Journey is officially over for now. The last class my brother and I held as instructors of Warriors Eskrima was back in July 2009.

Why did we stop? Well my brother Lun, had to have an operation on his hands but more importantly celebrated the arrival of a beautiful baby girl in November. I got married in August plus having to concentrate on my career as a team leader at a telecoms company I work at. Greater things have taken priority at this moment in our lives. With my brother and sister in law celebrating the birth of their child and Elaine and I getting married it was a great year for the brothers Lok.

I admit it this blog began when I was at my lowest ebb professionally at work and I used to write this every week because along with the Martial Arts I was doing at the time I felt like I was achieving something. However it was something I really enjoyed doing on a weekly basis. Ever since work picked up again I didn’t go back to write the blog every week in fact I thought I would leave it out altogether after the June 2008 blog.

However 2009 wasn't totally Martial Arts free, we attended two seminars that we hosted for Krishna Godhania in which we had a great time stick sparring and learning stick sparring techniques. We also attended a handful of JKD lessons at Steve Powell’s which was also great fun as we learnt different stick techniques. For us though the highlight of last years Martial Art calendar was Dennis Martin’s combatives seminar that was hosted by Greg Hall.

This seminar just put everything I have been training for into perspective. This seminar first made me think “What the hell is he sitting us down for and going off power point slides” and then got me thinking “That was the most intense 3 hours of training I have ever done!”

Based on WW2 combative concepts so you can use something as soon as you get out of the seminar, the two objectives where as follows:

1. Whatever we learn on the course, we should be able to use straight away.

2. Whatever you learn should stick with you for life. These objectives were emphasised throughout the course

You can read on my brothers take on this day here

The whole seminar was amazing and to top it off you fight the bullet man. A six foot man in a bulletman suit which made him around 6ft 5inches. It wasn’t just about fighting him however, after 3 hours of combative training which included 3 sets of ten reps of 10 exercises each and then intense pad work and some grappling, each of us was asked to spar with him individually.

Now here’s the catch as we were all asked individually to spar with the bulletman we didn’t know what we were getting into. I won’t spoil it for you but it’s intense and fun. More can be read on the seminar here Dennis Martin article as his website seems to be down at time of writing.

So no regrets everything that I have done in Martial Arts I am proud of, everything I tried out I have learnt from. I talk fondly of how it helped me out in crappy times and I will always train now and then with Lun. I made lots of friends, met new people, even famous people through Martial Arts. Thanks goes to Mark, Gaz and John who were our last students.

I thank everyone who visited this blog over the last few years and apologise to those who visited for the last year and 8 months expecting an update! Thank you for all your kind comments. The great thing I liked about the blog is the photos that we took. I have deliberately featured two of my favourites on this blog.

So here is the final picture for now. It features the pad we used at Steve Powell’s where it all began in 1983, the sticks I used for Warriors Eskrima which began in 2002,the t-shirt I purchased and wore at the Minnesota Kali group summer camp in 2002 under Rick Faye, the boxing glove I used in the stand up classes at the Karl Tanswell’s straight blast gym in which I trained in from 2005 to 2006 and the berimbau that my Capoeira instructor Danny Henry gave me in which I trained from 2002 to 2006.

Good times, No regrets.

Grading Day

As the alarm went off on June 8th at 6.45am, I was wondering why would I set it that early on a Sunday and then quickly realised it was grading day for our students! I haven’t been updating the blog because mainly I wanted to get this day out of the way. Three weeks ago if you asked me to write my blog I would probably type a simple question mark and not write anything because that was my opinion of one of our students doing the grading.

Fast forward 3 weeks later the guy delivered and had a great grading along with our other student.

And I am really damn happy not only for him but both of our guys because they trained hard for it.

As we made our journey to Warwick, Lun prepped our students Gaz and Mike by giving them a couple of Filipino Martial Arts books to read. Both of the guys were about to do their level 1 grading which is tough in that it would be their first grading in Warriors Eskrima and there was a fair amount to know and do.

Having got to the venue we saw Johnny Cowan’s army of students ready to take the grading, one of those in particular was Keith who was grading for his level 6 which is the level in which you have to pass to become an apprentice instructor. However, Johnny had several other students taking their grading at varying levels.

We didn’t grade in the comfy surroundings of the school hall, but a boxing gym which was once owned by Jackie Turpin. The boxing gym was actually pretty cool and I hope we have future gradings there.
So after greeting Krishna Godhania
and introducing him to our students we were ready to grade.

Johnny was in charge of the grading with Krishna Godhania assessing whilst my brother Lun and I watched. It must have been quite intimidating with 4 people watching you grade but a few of Johnny’s guys have met Lun and I before (and also you may find that I don’t look intimidating at all)
However once we began everyone flowed, I was watching Mark and Gaz and they looked great and most importantly remembered everything. In fact everyone looked fluent, when everyone started their sumbrada drills(which is a stick flow drill) I saw varying degrees of speed but everyone doing it correctly.


Like I said earlier the guys did great and I am really proud that they train at our club. There were no mind blanks, no hesitation. Everything went exactly to plan. By far, the guy who had the toughest grading was Keith(sparring one on one,then two on one then it was three against Keith) he was doing his level 6 and really kicked some ass, well deserved and a great grading.


After the grading Krishna Godhania as always gave us an excellent mini lesson which involved knife defence. Later he told us he was happy with the standard of our students which is awesome! To top it all off we saw a Delorean parked at a service station the way home!(yup I am a Back to the Future fan)

Other than the grading these past few weeks Lun and I have been mainly concentrating on the grading stuff in our lessons. We also went to Steve Powell’s JKD Class a couple of times and some great lessons under Chris Sibbald and we will be coming back at some point. I also like to give a shout out to Lee who hurt his hand and will stop him from training for a while, get well dude.


Anyways this blog post is dedicated to everyone who passed their grading this weekend!