Last one for the year!

My month and a bit in Martial Arts!

Hi everyone sorry I haven’t posted in over a month. So what took me so long? Well my last post was intended to be the last, leaving it with the Dan Inosanto seminar would have been an apt conclusion through my journey in Martial Arts. After all he encompasses all the arts I am doing and pretty much carried on a legacy of training in different Martial Arts by Bruce Lee.

But I thought to myself I can’t just “end” like this, this isn’t a novel or a 2 hour film, it’s my life I am chronicling and it doesn’t just end. So what’s been going on? Well for the last 4 weeks I have been teaching in the Warriors Class, training with Lun, Simon
has also taught us some cool basic Sayoc knife drills.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
How about the classes I attend I hear you ask? Well it was a matter of saving up for Christmas. I want to restart everything after Christmas but as I am saving up, Lun and I have been training a lot of stuff that we picked up from the years on our own.

If you miss of few Martial Art lessons you become lethargic and stiff and it could take you a while to get back into it. That’s why Lun and I have just been training as if we are in a lesson, making sure that we always get a great work out each time. You know when you had a great work out when you have sweated buckets and you feel great at the end.

We train the techniques we know and then our main bit of training consists of three sets of 20 reps of focus mitt drills before doing some weights at the gym. These are all the drills we picked up over the years mainly from Steve Powell’s JKD and the 20 reps idea came with Rick Faye’s 2002 Wisconsin camp. We have been motivating each other when training and it has worked very well. Do we need to go back to all our lessons after devising our own? The answer is yes to learn more techniques and train with different people. Over the past year I have been picked up great techniques and experiences from Steve Powell, Pangulong Guro Krishna and Karl Tanswell more than enough for Lun and I to train adequately on our own but we also need that class environment to guide us and help us train in something new, such as Simon teaching us the Sayoc Knife techniques which was something new.

TEACHING
Teaching has been great; however we have to balance the teaching and the training. The great thing about teaching beginners is that you are teaching them to have a strong base and therefore it gives you time to try and develop an even stronger base for yourself as it’s something you have to show and show well to the beginner, for E.G a basic guard or basic movement.

GO FOR THE KNEECAPS INIT?
My work place is littered with cool Martial Artists, from Aikido to Western Boxing to Tae Kwon Do and JKD. As it is necessary to sometimes carry out work in one particular room which seats about 6 people where various departments would work, it is easy to overhear conversations. For some reason two guys started talking about fighting, instantly you could tell who had the Martial Arts training and who didn't. I will transcript their conversation under Pepsi Challenge 1 and Pepsi Challenge 2 as a tribute to those Pepsi Challenge adverts(if only product placement existed in blogging!)
Pepsi Challenge 1: “Well you know if it came down to it man, I would go for the kneecaps first in-it?”
Pepsi Challenge 2: “Well you would actually try to find a way out first, if you really were in a situation”
And the winner is....
Pepsi Challenge 2, who was cool guy and talked to me after about JKD afterwards, Pepsi Challenge 1 continues to go for the kneecaps apparently.

GREAT CHRISTMAS
I have had a truly eventful Christmas, I spent two days in Dublin with my girlfriend (sorry for not looking you up John who writes the Running Uphill blog, but there was a lot to see in your cool city and I am sure to visit again soon) spent Christmas Eve with my family and then Christmas day with Elaine and her family, its been a very family orientated nice Christmas.

BUT BEFORE I GO..AN EXPLAINATION FOR THE PICTURE.
The picture is of a shattered Eskrima stick that my fellow eskrimadors blitzed when it was about to fall apart, there is no real symbolism to it, I just thought it looked cool. I wish everyone a great New Year and keep training as I am going to update this blog weekly again and start the New Year in my next post with a crazy picture filled special post!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Kit