My week in Martial Arts: November 21st to November 25th

Hi All

Monday morning, I was about to travel into work, car breaks down luckily in the garage. Thursday night about to leave work for home, car breaks down yet again, who says lighting doesn’t strike twice! Apologies again as I did not have chance to update my blog during the week. The silliness of my car breaking down twice prevented me from doing mini updates I planned, doh!

Having said that, it was another good week of training, despite the cold weather. Tuesday I went to Capoeira , we had two new people joined and I helped Danny Henry train them. Well when I say helped out I mean Danny taught them and used me as his demonstration partner! It was good though as we teamed up with the beginners and therefore it gave me a chance to help them with their technique.

“Your stand up is improving, both of you” Karl said as Lun and I walked into the changing rooms after a good training session… “You look knackered but it’s coming along” he added. Yup Wednesday was Karl Tanswell’s class . We did some sparring near the beginning of the class I was being boxed out by my taller opponent, but my foot work was good, however I gotta keep that guard up against taller guys as they have longer reach. Although it was good to get a compliment at the end of the lesson as maybe my technique improved as we went along. For the rest of the lesson we broke down several moves and put them altogether at the end of the lesson and then we drilled it by some more sparring. It’s a great way of learning.

Going back to being boxed out, I still maintain it’s good to train and spar with different training partners. Naturally people enjoy sparring or partnering their closest friend or in my case my brother. However it is beneficial for everyone to swap around as if I didn’t swap partners I wouldn’t realise I needed to fight differently against a taller opponent.

As I write this Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury (or the Chinese Connection or Ching Mo Mun) depending on where you are from is on Television here in the UK. This is simply an awesome Kung Fu film remade countless of times on Hong Kong Television and was remade as Fist of Legend with Jet Li which I also enjoyed. Unfortunately they are showing the dubbed version of this great movie. Although I prefer films shown in their natural state, I understand the fact that a few of my friends enjoy dubbed movies as they feel that subtitles get in the way, but dubbed movies especially from late 60’s and 70’s sound terrible! They dub the actors with a weird generic accent that isn’t exactly American one or English. It’s a bizarre combination of English, American and Australian accents. Having said that I am still going to watch it, as Bruce Lee doesn’t really talk when he is kicking ass and its great Friday night viewing!

Anyway back to the week of training! My brother and I couldn’t make it to Steve Powell’s JKD class although I read on fellow student Chris's blog that Steve Powell is back teaching, which is great news. Speaking of blog’s my brother Lun has updated his please take a look as there are some cool pictures on there.

“Yeah I thought we have bit of a change tonight” Simon our Eskrima Instructor told me during Friday’s Warriors Eskrima. class, this time I remembered to bring my Digital Video Camera. It was more of a technique night tonight which was cool. We did some empty hand work which consisted of counters and takedowns and some stick take down techniques.

Usually our lessons are quite intensive as in sparring and smacking our sticks on hand guards which is why Simon spoke of the change tonight. In addition we did close contact controlled free style sparring called Palakaw (note to self must write a Martial Art glossary!) and did counters to the 12 knife attack in our system. We also had a new guy join us which was cool. All in all a good night of training and a very enjoyable week in Martial Arts overall.

I have several articles lined up that I will hopefully get to write! Enjoy the pictures and thanks for reading.
Kit!

My week in Martial Arts: November 14th to November 18th

Hi All

Sorry I had no mini updates this week, I have been quite busy most of the week and was unable to do so. However I have had a loaded week of Martial Arts so plenty to report this week as I managed to get to Capoeira class, Karl Tanswell’s class ,
Steve Powell’s JKD class with Greg Hall and Warriors Eskrima.

First and foremost I like to pay tribute to Eddie Guerrero a professional wrestler who tragically passed away on Sunday 13th November. He was only 38 and in the prime of his career. A great entertainer and performer, Rest In Peace Eddie Guerrero, you will be missed.

Sunday, my brother and I went to the gym. We did some bench press worked on arms and shoulders. It’s good to do some gym work to kick off the week. We also practiced some Eskrima stick and knife work.

Tuesday I practiced Capoeira, it was a very eventful lesson. Sadly my Eskrima instructor Simon has now left the Capoeira class to concentrate more on Eskrima which is understandable. He turned up to tell Danny in person which was a classy thing to do rather than not show up anymore or tell home over the phone. The class was cool as it was the welcome return for Capoeira player called Bex and we had a new student join us.

Wednesday Lun and I attended Karl Tanswell’s Straight blast gym. Several commands were shouted at ringside by Karl as he was preparing one of his fighters for an up coming MMA event. It was quite an eye opener as we were waiting for our class Karl was preparing several fighters in a fight simulation in the gym’s ring.

The class itself was stand up wrestling. We trained several techniques from a stand up position. At the end of the session we had to outsmart each other at the end by applying all the techniques we learnt. Another great lesson from Karl, it’s cool because it’s all new to Lun and I as we have never trained the way they have before.

We then made the short trip down to Steve Powell’s JKD gym. Greg Hall was taking the class and it was the first time my brother and I have actually trained under him. It was cool that he had told me he also had a look at this blog. Greg’s class was really cool, a mixture of pad work and some grappling. The grappling was Catch as Catch Can style which is very old school grappling but very effective. There was a heck of a lot of new faces in the class as well, so Greg broke down several techniques. This breaking down was good for my brother and I as sometimes I think we need a recap on certain techniques. “Write that I am the best teacher!” laughed Greg after I told him I will write about the class as my brother and I left the gym into the cold winter night. After 2 and a half hours of Martial Arts on Wednesday I was knackered but happy I did both lessons.

Friday was back to Eskrima. We did stick, knife and some empty hand work. It was another fun lesson but a touch anti climatic as my brother and I didn’t seem as focused as we usually were. I also forgot to charge up my digital video camera and therefore I took this week’s photos with my phone.

Well that’s it for this week; hopefully I will get to do some updates during the week and an article.
Take care and keep training
Kit

My week in Martial Arts: November 7th to November 11th

“Its cold tonight” said Lun as we made our way to Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym Wednesday night. The winter was finally kicked in after a couple of weeks of suspiciously mild to warm weather. We got there about 6-ish watching the Vale Tudo class prior to ours. Most of the guys and girls there fight at MMA events and they were training hard. It was impressive to see about half the Vale Tudo class stay for our session.

One of the major components of the Straight Blast Gym training is constant movement or aliveness training. This means when one throws punches at the other in a drill for the other to dodge, they are both constantly moving. As a consequence with constant movement, conditioning and fitness increases. My brother and I were escaping a one handed clinch (one hand wrapped around the opponent’s neck as if to hook them in)
We learnt an escape and arm lock and then variations of the arm lock that turned into chokes and sweeps. It was a good session.

Thursday I worked on a general Martial Arts website that my Eskrima Instructor Simon, Mike who also attends our Eskrima class and myself are working on. So far the website had a page for our style of Eskrima and Danny Henry’s Capoeira class. To be honest Simon and Mike have done most of the work although I wrote the content for the Capoeira section. Check out the website yourself www.flowdrills.com it’s by no means finished but it will be good to get some feedback.


Friday was Eskrima day again, before we get to that if you’re wondering what happened Monday and Tuesday well I didn’t do anything due to other commitments. More and more circuit training is happening in our classes and more aliveness training. This compliments our Straight Blast Gym training well, however the real reason why we are doing more and more conditioning training is that the grading for our level 6 is going to be very tough with almost non stop stick sparring and grappling.

We also incorporated focus mitt work and some empty hand sparring. We also did some close contact controlled free style sparring called Palakaw. “Give each other some space to strike” Simon instructed. This is required at level 6 and a chance to display our Eskrima skills close contact, in contrast our other sparring method is sparring full force with padded sticks.

Although only two classes this week, I felt that it was two good training sessions. I will try and make all lessons next week as my brother might have to fly out soon for work.






Keep training!

Kit

Wednesday 9th 2005 Quick Update: Straight Blast Gym

Hi Everyone!

I would have posted an update yesterday but as I had to take my colleague friend home as his car was getting serviced and therefore I couldn't make Capoeira. In fact on Monday and Tuesday I didn’t go to any Martial Arts(more about this in the Friday/Saturday Update). I did watch parts of a DVD called Focus Mitt Training by Tim Mousel which is really good so far.

Today however my brother and I made the trip to Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym, it was a great workout and we were given some words of encouragement about our stand up fighting from Karl. I felt my own movements were a bit lousy at first but as the class progressed I felt I moved better. In fact the straight blast gym is all above constant movement,check out the Straight Blast Gym website for more details or click on Karl Tanswell's link. Lun and I both enjoyed the session very much.

More about the class on my main update, in the mean time I leave you with a picture of our free sparring headguard that my brother purchased a year or so ago. These are used in Wing Chun and various other styles. We are required to wear headguards in Karl’s class in some sparring sessions but we have yet to use one with the mask guard as shown in the picture.

I shall post another update on Friday night/Saturday morning!
Thanks
Kit

My week in Martial Arts: October 31st to November 4th

I find my line of work in programming very physically undemanding job. I hardly need to stand up or walk around. My job usually requires me to be in front of a PC around 85-90% of the time. Having said that people with jobs where they require sitting in front of a PC all day should feel they want to do some form of physical after work, in my case it’s the Martial Arts.

In fact I know people who throw themselves into Martial Arts when they feel down about something. A friend of mine, Ken Pudsey was talking at length to me on MSN about setting up a class where people can come and train and trade ideas. As he is going through difficult times I was not sure if he was speaking about this idea in the heat of the moment or was deadly serious. However I take his word for it as he had a lot of cool ideas and I hope to talk to him again about it.

Monday we did a class at Karl’s, it was great as it was my brother’s first class in a while. We did stand up wrestling clinch work which required us to wrap our hands round each other’s neck while jostling for position. It’s hard to explain in words and best show illustrated and I shall show an example in a future blog. It was exhausting work as we were swapping different partners. Monday was also the debut of my wrestling shoes (pictured above).

Tuesday I went to Capoeira as mentioned in my Tuesday update. It was a very another high intensity lesson. One of the guys though accidentally sprained his wrist as he landed awkwardly while executing a cartwheel during the game (Capoeria Freestyle sparring). I am lucky not to get an injury from Capoeira yet, fingers crossed. Later I gave the guy a lift into town. We talked about the class, I said that the freestyle game at the end was the best thing about Capoeira, but referring to his wrist he told me in his broken English as he was from Spain “Maybe a little too free you know” However that didn’t deter him as he told me he was still enthusiastic about coming back next week.

Wednesday, it was back at Karl’s. Karl was actually away this week so this guy called Tom was taking the lessons. We did the follow up class to Monday’s class. I noticed that the class apart from my brother were all veterans. I recognised a lot of them through a tournament I was watched at a big Martial Arts expo called SENI earlier this year. So it was an honour to partner up with these great guys.

The big surprise however was the presence of Greg Hall. He is also a Martial Arts Instructor and has trained under Steve Powell. A couple of years back he hosted a seminar with Larry Hartsell, one of Bruce Lee’s students that my brother along with two friends and I attended.

Greg is very humble guy and always has time to talk to my brother and me. It was an honour to partner up with him, as we had to stand up grapple each other but lead with our heads, as we jostled for position, I was thinking how many people has he knocked out with his head (as he worked the doors of several clubs in Manchester as a doorman/bouncer). He later told us Steve Powell was ill at the moment, so my brother and I wish Steve Powell a speedy recovery and to get well soon.


Thursday had a rest. Friday was Eskrima day, we did some Kung Fu warm ups at the beginning of the class. One was the “DA Sam Sing” it consists of smashing our forearms into our partner’s forearms three consecutive times each repeatedly. This was to condition the forearms. We didn’t do Kung Fu warm ups for the sake of it, Simon has been practicing Chu Gar Kung Fu for many years in Manchester and conditioning of the forearms in Eskrima makes a lot of sense.

We did some conditioning work through out and I brought the big pad we use and Steve Powell’s. We also did stick disarms and knife disarms. In sparring I was able to use some grappling I learned at Karl’s (when we stick spar it sometimes breaks down into grappling). It was good to use methods I picked up in another class to compliment this class. Overall it was an excellent varied lesson.

Well another proactive week and a welcome return for my brother Lun who managed to do three lessons.




Thanks for reading
Kit

Quick Update!

Hi All
Another really quick update,I have re-formatted the blog by splitting my favourite blog links(if you scroll down you can see the links on the left)and added another instructor, Greg Hall to instructors and schools who I shall talk about in more detail tonight. I have also got rid of the descriptions of some of the blogs I link to as I plan to link many more blogs.

Please see my weapons mini update I posted last night if you haven't already!

I shall write a full weekly update tonight
Keep Training!
Kit

Thursday 3rd November 2005: Weapons!

Hi All
Another quick update,yesterday my brother and I trained at Karls. It was another great lesson and I shall report more on the lesson Friday/Saturday.
I thought I just devote this entry as a photo showcase for the weapons I use for practicing Eskrima.

Light Rattan Sticks: I used these in the grading when showing several strikes and use them for light drills.
Heavy Rattan Sticks: I use these to practice strikes and get myself ready for gradings,I also use these for heavier drills. There are heavier sticks than these which I am going to buy in the near future.

These are our practice knives/blades. As you can see one resembles a chair leg! I find the wooden one however more dangerous,the other blade I feel is slightly safer and resembles more of a real blade but as you can see its blunt so its very safe!

These soft sticks belong to my friend Paul,we use these in the class for sparring,if swung with force they can hurt but still great to train with.

Thanks for viewing
Please revisit on Saturday!
Kit

Tuesday 1st Nov 2005 Quick Update: Capoeira!

Another quick update!Yesterday my brother and I went to Karl Tanswell's gym and had a great work out. It was cool because it was my brother's first lesson in a while and we got to know a few more people at the gym. Later we were talking to one of the guys in the changing rooms and we asked if he fought in any competitions, he said yes and asked if we will ever compete. That never crossed my mind as we joined the gym for fitness, self defence and numerous other reasons but never really to compete in competitions. I am not ruling it our completely though and I guess I would say "never say never".



Today I went to Capoeira, it was another exhausting but great lesson. Again I took pictures with my camera phone but Lun was also present so he took some pictures for me as well!

I also did a promotional poster (see below!)for the class, actually it was based on a DVD cover that Simon made for a DVD we shot for Danny Henry earlier this year. I re-arranged the cover it so the wording could be added and turned it into a poster. We put the poster up today.



Keep Training!
Kit!