My week in Martial Arts: February 27th 06 to March 3rd 06

Sorry for the lateness of the Feb 27th till Mar 3rd blog entry due to illness I was unable to post on my regular Friday night slot.

My Mum was feeling better than last week, but my Dad wasn’t feeling great, however for a 70 year old man he is incredibly fit and still very strong. He encouraged me to go and workout though, when I phoned back to see how he was, so I did and by the end of the week he seemed to be better but I still need to keep my eyes open.

“Very impressive Kit, he was trying to take you down and you were not having any of it…” Cool words from Karl Tanswell as I was leaving his gym. That was to top off a really good Monday…inspired by the comments on my blog by Lun, Chris and LGM Chris and keeping my own promises I got up at 6.30 am and went for a jog and then followed a home routine of conditioning exercises while watching a Rick Faye training video.

After work I was choosing some pre-training music to get me fired up for training…I don't always employ the use of pre-training music to get me fired up but sometimes it gives me extra incentive. So I chose Pantera, although I am not a big Pantera fan, I do have a couple of friends who really like them. I did happen to have their live CD in my car so I popped it in and the songs “5 minutes alone” and “Cowboys from Hell” really got me going. I do prefer Rage against the Machine but Pantera did it for me. Although during training time I don’t mind if there is or isn’t any music, as regards to listening to metal during training Matt Furey has other views!

At Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym, we did shoots and the defence against the shoot, then defence against the shoot with a sprawl and then a sprawl with a cross face. I partnered up with a guy called Charles who told me he reads the blog which is pretty cool. Charles had pretty good technique on the shoot by the end of the lesson.

Tuesday I went for a run in the morning again. These are very short runs at the moment; the plan was to have short runs on weekdays and long runs on weekends. After work it was Capoeira time, yes again I was used as demo guy. The two girls who have been attending regularly are coming on really well. We did a cartwheel variation on one hand and a whole bunch of other techniques. Danny was excited that he was doing a workshop on Saturday and Sunday with in the Capoeria Mestre Bimba style from Brazil. Mestre Bimba was the creator of the more contemporary martial art style of Capoeira also known as Regional and Mestre Bamba was going to be there representing this school.

Wednesday another run, I was happy I was keeping it up, up to this point. The one thing that makes it great to run early in the morning is that there is no one around. Went to Karl’s later that evening and had another cool class. This time we did some basic punching and kicking techniques and then onto some stand up grappling escaping from a front face headlock and then escaping a waist lock. Another great workout and I also put my name down for Karl’s STAB seminar on Sunday March 5th. STAB stands for Survival Tactics Against the Blade and is based on Karl’s experiences against knife attacks.

Thursday I gave myself a rest.

Friday got up feeling not so great so I didn’t go for a run. I felt slightly queasy at work and didn’t feel 100%. I had a feeling I was coming down with something, by the end of work I was coughing. I thought about not going to the Warriors Eskrima class. But then again I thought about sweating it out and if I stay at home I wouldn’t be much better off.


We did some footwork and some power strikes and some crashing in, it seemed to be working as I was feeling better. However near the end of the lesson I felt very weak and I didn’t participate in the sparring as my energy level was very low. I filmed Ray and Paul spar though and it’s great to make an observation…which was the fact that we needed groin guards as the guys were hitting pretty hard! I asked our instructor Simon if we could have more lessons leading up to the grading as well.

After I got home, now I was coming down with something. I couldn’t write my blog as I was so weak from whatever got me, so I more or less went straight to bed. On Saturday I wrote to Karl to tell him I wouldn’t be able to make his seminar on the Sunday. It was a real bummer as I also wanted to go to the Capoeira workshop on Saturday.

Today I am taking a day off work and I booked to see a doctor in 2 days (yes it’s a 2 day waiting process where I live) hopefully I will be better tomorrow and then I shall be able to cancel the doctor and get back to work In addition I shall be get back to sticking to my new training schedule. On a positive note my brother is back! So that means we will be going to Steve Powell’s JKD class again very soon!

Thanks and enjoy the pics
Kit.