My week in Martial Arts: Oct 2nd to October 7th

Hi all!

Another busy week for me in the World of Martial Arts but also work, which meant I couldn't write that article I wanted to post but hopefully will write it this week. I may have to revert to writing on a more regular basis,as I feel summing up everything in a week might prove a bit difficult in the long term. As its not only the Martial Art lessons I attend that encompass my Martial Art related week but also the "little things" like discussing Martial Arts with people at work and even watching Martial Art films! These "little things" will be included in my blog as soon as possible.

This week started off differently as I was the last minute replacement for Simon's (My Eskrima instructor) brother Rob for a private lesson with Guro Krishna Godhania in Warwick. The night before I made sure I got some good sleep. I wasn't feeling well the night before but was determined to get fit for tomorrow as a cold tried to set into my system. Waking up feeling groggy from the medicine I took the previous night I didn't know if I could make it. But getting some good sleep and the journey towards Warwick made me feel better.

I can't tell you in detail what the private lesson entailed, however we did knife work and other cool stuff, it was very enjoyable and very relaxed. The lesson was 2 hours + of great technique training. I also bought some Filipino music to use on my training DVD's/VCD'S and safety goggles for Lun. Oh and my cold completely cleared.


Guro Krishna Godhania pictured here with myself

The next day I took two lessons in one day with Lun, as he won't be taking any Martial Art lessons for the time being as his wife my Sister in law, Sue was to enter the hospital for an operation. Sue has since had the operation and I hope she gets well and recovers soon! We did Karl Tanswell's stand up lesson and Steve Powell's JKD.

At Karl’s its all about the ALIVE approach to training. One of the aspects of ALIVE training means constant movement and no standing still while drilling moves. This gives us a great physical workout. My brother and I were caught moving in small steps while throwing our punches at each other by Karl, but he kindly explained that the philosophy of the gym was to keep constant movement.

We went to Steve Powell’s straight after a great work out at Karl’s. At first we felt like going home and training another day, as we were both tired from Karl’s and had long days at work. However in the end we felt that we were here (as both clubs are relatively close) and it is just an excuse not to go. Believe me I have made silly excuses not to go to Martial Arts in the past and always ended up with a guilty feeling.


Below Lun holding the pad we use.


Steve Powell's was great, unfortunately Steve wasn't teaching the class, so Rick Lawrie took over the class. Not been taught by Rick before, my brother and I didn't know what to expect. The class though was awesome; we simulated attacking multiple opponents as we trained in threes. This meant two people had to hold pads/kick shields and one attacked. It was great fun and I had two good partners training with me, as we encouraged each other and gave each other tips.

The next day was Capoeira, after some high impact Martial Arts the previous day it was good to practice in such a contrasting style. We practiced handstand variations and sequences with sweeps and kicks and of course the game. The instructor Danny Henry is working on a document outlining his style of Capoeira, he gave the document to me to format and edit. Having read it I feel lucky that I have an instructor that is so motivated.

On Wednesday I went to the gym to catch up with some weight training, my Eskrima instructor Simon was there, so I tried out his training routine. Simon concentrates on the more cardio aspects of weight training, it was quite varied and cool. However by the end of it I was tired!


Thursday was a rest day,on Friday it was Eskrima day. We went over what we did at Krishna's lesson and also concentrated a lot on grappling. We also did two on one scenario’s, with one person with a real stick against two with soft sticks and that person had to disarm his attackers. Soft sticks are typically made of light sticks with padding around it.

However I had a feeling that one of the soft sticks we were using was broken inside as we could hear rattling inside. When it was my turn to disarm my attackers, one of the guys, Mike, gave me a strike which I blocked but the casing at the end of the soft stick popped open and part of a snapped stick popped out almost catching me! The snapped stick resembled a stake. It would make a really cool weapon but I was lucky it didn't impale me like a vampire!


Mike the vampire slayer!

Of course Simon ended the lesson with conditioning exercises ending another interesting week of Martial Arts.

Thanks for reading
Kit!<