My week in Martial Arts: December 5th to December 9th

Hi All

First of all a special shout out to my brother Lun who is currently working in California. Lun, I hope you will be back soon! I miss my brother!
Well another week of Martial Arts but only two lessons, however both of them were great. Pictured is Rick Faye’s Sunday Seminar Series Knife Training and Defence DVD that my brother ordered and arrived earlier this week.

Rick Faye is simply an awesome instructor and this seminar DVD is like being inside one of his classes and is very enjoyable indeed and very helpful. I am not sure if it is suited for beginners but if someone was unsure joining a Martial Arts class of fear of intimidation and atmosphere (much like some people I know who are afraid to join their local gyms for the same silly reasons) should watch a copy of this.

Speaking of the gym that’s where I went on Monday as I have not done a gym workout for a while. I needed to pick some weights up again and will try and find a more regular slot in the New Year to fit my schedule.

“Danny I can’t make it to Capoeira, my car broke down” I couldn’t believe it but my car broke down for the 2nd time in the space of three weeks. In addition it was exactly in the same spot outside near where I work and at the same time. So I was frustrated I missed the Capoeira class.

Wednesday I received an email from a friend of mine Paul Ratcliff I know he reads the blog and that’s why I mentioned him by name. Another Martial Art enthusiast he is a black belt in Karate, trained in JKD and was an integral part of our Capoeira. Unfortunately he can’t make lessons due to his work commitments but I hope he does return to Martial Arts as he is very dedicated.

Later that day I went to Karl Tanswell’s class . Again we broke down a stand up move into groundwork ending with grabbing the opponent’s legs to crash into the ground. Simply awesome. When I say break down the move I mean we practice the a few moves and then add some more moves and then finally or link it together.

Due to a visit to the dentist recently I decided to purchase a mouth guard. I brought two one for Lun and one for myself. Like Karl said “You don’t want your teeth knocked out don't you?”

Friday I received an email from another good friend of mine Gareth Gray who was feeling down as he just quit smoking. I immediately sent him an article I came across on Rick Faye’s site The article spoke of Sarah Kennedy an instructor now at the Minnesota Kali Group who initially used Martial Arts to deal with her depression. It’s very inspiring read for anyone feeling down. It also worked for my friend Gareth who emailed back telling me it was inspiring.


Later that night it was Warriors Eskrima time!We did a lot of conditioning work, which included step ups, sit up’s, leg raises, back raises, shadow boxing, stick conditioning and press ups. We then did some work on parrying punches and then we did some close quarter sparring stuff changing the scenario so we only had a little space to fight.


In addition we did knife vs empty hand sparring and stick vs empty hand sparring.
“I could see how training at Karl’s has improved your stance” Simon said during an empty hand sparring session. That was cool that I was incorporating other skills from different lessons and making it second nature, however when I slipped a punch I should have kept my guard up which Simon also spotted! We did some grappling work at the end of the lesson, I really need to work on my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (so far my brother and I have only attended one lesson at Karl’s due to scheduling conflicts)

Anyway that’s it for this week, as always enjoy the pictures and next week as I am off work until after Christmas in that time I hope to do more regular updates!

Kit