My week in Martial Arts: Sept 19th to Sept 24th

"If we don't go tonight then I won't get to train for at least two weeks"Lun explained when we just finished a session in the gym.
Mondays is usually our heavy set in the gym day but as my brother had to go London with work this week we went to Karl Tanswell gym on Monday.
"Lead with your hip" we were practicing punching combinations and I wasn't leading with my hip while throwing my punches. Jab,hook,cross in different variations moving dynamically around the gym.

We ended the night with sparring, this was of course is a beginners class at Karl’s as my brother and I only recently started. "Switch bodies!” is the command whereby we have to change partners to spar. This was sparring punches towards the head with gloves and head guards. I haven't sparred like that in a while (only sparring with soft sticks and only the occasional head guard was required) My opponent could have taken my head off several times during the sparring but pulled his crosses and had great control, when I had him in the same predicament I did the same, as Rage Against The Machine's "Killing in the name" blazed through the background you think that the both of us would go all out guns a blazing but while we were intense in movement we were relaxed in control. In fact the whole use of music at Karl’s is great, a few jazzy numbers while doing our drills and then when it got more intense the music was cranked up to Rage Against the Machine. One of my favourite bands

"Tell Danny I can't book the court because its freshers week" said Simon my Eskrima instructor and fellow Capoeira player. Freshers week is the first week of University in the UK and therefore all of the squash courts have been booked by students. We practice Capoeira in these squash courts every Tuesday with our instructor Danny Henry. That’s the third week in a row that I have missed it

Wednesday I went to Karl Tanswell's without my brother who was in London. I saw a good friend of mine, Andrew Timmins (better known as Timmins) participate the Vale Tudo class before my class, it looked intense and very athletic.

It was mainly Thai pad drills tonight jab, hook, knee we then did a take down I haven't done before. I had a good partner who was guiding me how to to do it right.
The one thing I got to learn when sparring/partnering with someone new is to learn to relax sometimes I can be to tense/stiff and on more than one occasion I have been told to relax by training partners. I found relaxing the muscles benefited me more as it helps me with my form.)

Friday was Eskrima day. It was a jam packed lesson. In the early days Eskrima for us was based more on technique but now its all out sparring and very aerobic which is great. We did four on one disarms where one of us had to go in the middle while the others attacked.


Stick sparring into stick grappling and what I call the stick assault course where three to four of us are lined up with sticks while the remaining students had to get pass us.
As regards to stick grappling again when I feel relaxed I find I can get out of moves when I am in trouble,when I am tense I struggle against myself.
I filmed the whole thing and will compile another VCD for them.



Please check my new blog links below, in particular my brother’s great Blog which contains a history of what he practiced and A Martial Adventure in Suburbia a really good blog about a Martial Artist trying to balance between the training and home life!



I shall be writing another article soon but please check the blogsite next week for the regular journal. Oh and enjoy the pictures! I shall be posting more pictures soon and hopefully some classy black and white shots my sister in law was taking of us today!

Thanks again for reading Kit