My week in Martial Arts: May 22nd till May 26th

Hi All

After the run on Sunday I decided to take it easy as this week has been just capoeira and eskrima. We are hoping to return to both Steve Powell’s JKD Class and Karl Tanswell next week. Again for those who did not catch my last post about the great Manchester run please click here to read it.

Capoeira was great; I am now using the old Capoeira trickery against people whilst playing the game. For example stopping and distracting them to look somewhere else. My legs were still sore from the running but Capoeira actually loosened them up.

Lun and I planned to go to Steve’s and Karl’s on Wednesday but we decided to go to the gym and going through a few things we were going to teach on Fridays.

We decided to go through together what we need to do rather than randomly teach and take control of the class more. As there is an average of 2 people are classes are informal and we allow them to ask loads of different questions to get their input and we also partner the respective students.

However we are changing the way we teach so if there was say 4 or more people it will be more structured. We envisioned it to be more structured and have the students learn what they were doing rather than pausing and asking a question every 2 minutes.

The class obviously is still Warriors Eskrima. But we will be drilling them about keeping things moving/alive and making sure that the person blocking does not still after a block or disarms. For example if an attacker attacks you with a weapon after blocking the defender should counter attack and not just stand there. Even though the basic blocking and disarming just requires blocking and disarming.

I also want to do a jab/cross as much as possible at the end of the empty hand drills or kicking drills. Like a retreating punch combination just in case you miss first time or there are 2 attackers and one decides to rush you after you kicked his mate away. Sometimes it’s hard to drill scenarios like this but as I said in my weekly update I think it’s important to try and progress in an Art and make it adapt to our environments.


Friday came, it was Warriors Eskrima time, Gary attended and William came back. We had a great lesson. First of all Simon taught us some traditional Warriors stuff and we did some stick drills. We then split the class and Lun and I taught William and Gary. It was great Lun taught them the first four amara strikes. Amara are a series of strikes with sticks that helps with co-ordination and line familiarisation. Instead of doing it a few times in a stationary position, Lun had a formula that required the guys to do the amara normally and then in a lunge position.

We then taught them disarms but told them to throw in strikes after disarming their opponent. We linked this with amara as we told them to throw in amara strikes after disarming. We then went through some stick and dagger drills and then we went through the heaven six. Both guys did very well.


Finally we did one in the middle continuous disarms and did some stick sparring. A very enjoyable class indeed and the first class that I think really worked as Lun and I as teachers (with more than one student). I think Gary will be ready for his grading soon. But the main thing was that our game plan for making the class more structured paid off. We also hope to get down to Krishna Godhania as well to get additional skills and teaching tips.


Anyway thanks to the comments of LGM and
Chris , who is definitely doing a demo at the Holmes Place in Didsbury, Manchester on Sunday Morning. He was ill last week so he couldn’t do it. Also special shout out to my mate Colin Wong who is doing a charity skydive in aid of speed of sight this Bank Holiday Monday. Good Luck Colin



Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures!