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

I managed to do three classes with my brother this week.
Due to work commitments I couldn't make Capoeira which was a shame. I made up for it the next night though starting at 7pm at the Straight Blast Gym with Karl Tanswell.

"No,now you're fighting yourself" explained Karl Tanswell as I was trying to counter the neck tie clinch position. For people not familiar with the clinch it is when your opponent holds you tight in to the body with both of their hands tight round the neck. All I had to do was adjust my body to dropping my shoulder and so I can counter the position but I was too stiff and couldn't adjust my body properly which is why Karl told me I was "fighting" myself.

I found that when relaxed the body responds better than being tense in Martial Arts and because clinch fighting is new to me I didn't realise my body was tense. I finally got the counter though and the rest of the session was stand up sparring techniques consisting of several drills at Karl Tanswell's gym. These drills included intense punching and defending with gloves between sparring partners. It was a great workout and I learnt that I need to relax the body a bit more. It was an hour long workout and the constant movement really works you.

Later that night we went to Steve Powells Jeet Kune Do gym,its a different kind of training to Karl’s. A lot of pad work is involved in Steve Powel’s,we were practicing punching techniques on pads and then practicing them in application. Again a high intensity work out from 8.30 to 10pm

The next day at work I felt great, I feel more energetic after a good workout and feel somewhat lethargic if I don't work out the night before.

Friday is Eskrima day, we did practiced sparring techniques with the stick and did some 4 on 1 disarm training, whereby one person would be in the middle four attackers would attack the person. The person in the middle must disarm each of the attackers. We also did some sparring techniques and sparring itself.


I gave a VCD I compiled of last weeks class(as I was filming last week) to each of the students,the instructor had already seen it and enjoyed it. The VCD was called class review and it had techniques and sparring.


Video analysis of your own techniques is great, I recommend anyone who does Martial Arts to film themselves as sometimes you need to see where you may have gone wrong or what you might improve upon.

Thanks Kit