My week in Martial Arts: June 25th till July 1st

First of all I like to say happy Birthday to Lun. Lun has always been there for me and I couldn’t ask for a better bigger brother. He is to me is the greatest big brother on the planet and though it sounds childish and cliqued for a grown man to say that, to me its 100% true. So again happy birthday brother!


My week in Martial Arts was marred by work and tiredness. I couldn’t get to all the desired lessons I wanted to. So I just managed to get to 2 lessons this week. The tiredness factor wasn’t and shouldn’t be a factor but because it’s been so hot here in the UK and as I suffer from hay fever it has got the best of me.
Sunday we watched Fearless the new Jet Li film. Elaine and I went along with Lun and Susan. It was based on Huo Yuan Jia and although it was a glamorised biopic of the famous Chinese Martial Artist, it was also fun and I reckon Jet Li’s best acting role yet. However a poignant thing was said by Jet’s character in the film. When asked which style of Wu Shu was the best, his character said that it doesn’t matter what style of wu shu you do that makes it better than the other it all depends on your dedication and skill of the individual. I hope this answers the question for people who always ask me "Which Martial Art is the best?” It’s like asking “Which subject at school is the best?” There is no best subject but you can have personal preferences as it’s the one you choose to do and you like it better than the others. Right now I would say I am just learning a lot from different styles but like college I will have to drop a few and just specialise in one or two.

So I have made that decision and I am going to leave Capoeira very soon. I have had some great times there and performed with Danny Henry’s Capoeira group on 5 separate occasions in front of audiences in the Greater Manchester area and even filmed a DVD for him. My decision to leave has nothing to do with Danny or the class; the class is friendly and thriving and most importantly it’s a great atmosphere. It’s been fun but I am going to move on and come back ever so often to work out with them and do some filming but I am going to try and get to a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class on Tuesdays. I highly recommend anybody to try Capoeira with Danny Henry as its fun and energetic.

This week my brother and I attended Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast gymon Wednesday and Warriors Eskrima class on Friday. At the straight blast gym Lun and I did defence against the shoot. One would be in a shoot/take down position and the other had to defend against it which we were taught to do. The most interesting part was when we had to switch different partners, from my brother, I switched with this big guy who got a bit over zealous with his takedown and almost crashed me into a barrier! He didn’t mean it, it was his height and strength but that’s were its interesting because we practice our moves against varying opponents.

Friday we went to Warriors Eskrima. It was a great lesson we did some very light contact sparring with our sticks and also smashed sticks into moving focus mitts. We then attempted to simulate some reality training scenarios with the knife. It was very interesting as we attempted to set up several different scenarios and thought about realistically what we do for example we perhaps could throw keys into the assailant’s face or talk to them to buy time before running away. Although it was 5 of us including instructor Simon, Paul and Ray we tried to vary the partners so the assailants were not the same. Afterwards Lun and I did some stick vs empty hand sparring which was fun but Simon brought up something quite interesting. During my turn to be empty handed against the stick I tried to take my brother down, but couldn’t. Simon spoke of that every time we learn something new we try to throw it into the mix when we spar. He said a lot of Martial Artist including himself was guilty of this so it was a quite interesting observation.

Anyway hopefully this week I will be back at Steve Powell’s with Lun ,
Enjoy the pictures and thanks for reading
Kit