My week in Martial Arts: April 22nd till April 29th

Ouch
Hi all my week started Saturday, I went to Chosin Kai Karate at Steve Powells Chinatown Martial Arts Academy. We basically did a lot of punching and pad work and it was a great. I really love the reverse punch but there is so much to it, I know a punch is a punch but the mechanics to really get the power is very important.

So much so I was really trying hard to get it right but punching the pad really hard has nothing to do with it as you need your bodyweight behind the power and get the WHOLE technique. Due to the crazy intensity of the punching the skin surrounding three of my knuckles began peeling off. I thought nothing of them at the time.

Sunday

I trained for my run to train for the Great Manchester Run. My good friend Andy Timmins ran with me, as well as running we discussed Martial Arts. We ran in this park called Brookdale in Manchester. We did 0.75 miles circuit about 5 times or so. We also attempted to do the 1 mile circuit but the explanation on the map led us to a track that suddenly disappeared onto a football field so we ran the 0.75 mile circuit some more. It was a good run work out. The skin on my knuckles was now flesh red.

Monday

On this morning when I went to work I noticed my knuckles were scarred. Ouch! I tried to hide them at work somehow but that was pretty hard working on PC’s. I explained to people I was punching a pad. “A pad?” was the usual reply. My response was “Yes”. It’s very interesting that there is such a large pool of Martial Artists at my work place we have one Aikido instructor, a TKD instructor and several TKD guys under him. Would I want to start a work Eskrima class? No not at the moment, my brother and I teach beginners in the Warriors Eskrima Salford branch under Simon Campion and if people are interested they can come to that one. Plus I like to separate my outside activities from my work activities. Later I went to the gym with Lun for a big heavy workout in the gym. Lun decided I should rest my hands (as in punching) and I agreed.

Tuesday

I went to Capoeira, it was extra cool as Chris and LGM Chris also attended and did quite well in their first lesson. (well LGM Chris did a bit before in the past). It’s great that the class has expanded from three regulars to around ten or eleven. Ken was also there and a one or two others who had Capoeira experience else where made it a great varied class.



Wednesday

I punched the pad to test my crazy scared knuckles “Oww” was my reply. Yup my fist was badly stinging so I had to give Steve Powell’s JKD class and Karl Tanswell’s a miss.
So my brother and I went to the gym and went through what we were going to teach on Friday and I did some running.

Thursday rest day,

Friday Warriors Eskrima day.

This time I took the warm up bit and my brother and I taught the beginners. We had a new guy called Paul who trains at Steve’s. It was cool he came as was enthusiastic to learn something different and it was cool he knew variations on things we were doing in class and he had a powerful jab (naturally being from Steve’s).

Gaz was there too and made good progress I partnered him so I could drill the siniwali/heaven six drills with him. There are 8 different combinations in this drill. Last week I taught him the first, today I taught him 3 more, which means he is picking up the art very quickly. Next week I am confident he will get the next 4 to complete the next 8 variations. We also got the guys doing the double handed kob-kob drills and some light stick sparring. John, Ray and Paul were also there. Simon taught me some advanced knife which was cool.

Teaching is fun, the coolest thing is seeing the improvement of people(I know I only been teaching 2 weeks and Gaz has had a few lessons prior) but knowing that you are teaching and seeing how well a student is listening and picking it up (which is totally due to the student’s dedication) is a great feeling.

Anyway thanks for reading and keep training!
Kit!