Hi All
2007 began with a boom literally. January 8th Lun and I went to Steve Powell’s JKD class and we did an awesome drill with Rick Larwie who took the class for the night. This was my first class at Steve Powell’s for a long time and what a class. The theme was aggression and the first drill was basically your training partner would get the pad/kick shield while you have your back towards him or her totally relaxed. Then your training partner will shout out the worse thing he can think of and barge right into you at a pace to piss you off you then turn around and “boom” hit the pad. That set the tone for several drills that we did.
I have said in the past I respect all martial arts and all aspects of it from the sport to the culture to philosophy, but when it comes down to it I do like to train for the aggression, for something that would aid me in the streets. Its not that I constantly talk of “ripping someone’s head off (and some people would hilariously add.. ) and spitting down their throat", but its good to know you have access that kind of training. As an old friend said a while ago.. “I hear some people do Martial Arts do “keep fit” that’s bullshit man, I do it for fighting!!!” Although I practice it to keep fit as well as also do it for situations that may arise. This is why Rick’s lesson was great as it was about applying certain techniques to situations.
On Wednesday Jan 10th I was shown some cool knife stuff. I enjoyed it but my opinion of knife fighting etc because my family and I were subject to a screwdriver attack over 10 years ago which I explained in an earlier post I am still a bit sensitive. All I can say is that I am more interested in the knife defence stuff rather than using the knife.
Friday 12th Jan, I didn’t go to Eskrima as work got in the way, it was a problem at 5 o’clock on a Friday. So I drove around a bit near my old high school and places where my old childhood friends used to live. Ironically I bumped into one of them, Barkery who was featured in a photo with me in an earlier post of us doing karate as kids. He is a great guy and genuine friend (well he was driving behind me trying to flag me down for ages!). He also read this blog so I like to say hello to him.
In the UK there has been a lot of talk about racism and ignorance stemming from a show that I absolutely hate with a vengeance but I thought it was worth having my take on racism. No one will understand racism or properly judge it unless directly experienced by them or knows someone close or a loved one who has experienced it. I scoff at people who haven’t been racially abused who try to tell me what racism is. I know what it is and it’s complicated. Being of Chinese descent I had some great illogical ignorant comments directed at us in the past such as “Go back to your own country!” and “English Chips!” as a bunch of English people(they may have not been) walked past our old Chip Shop. However ignorance is bliss as once a bunch of racist drunks came to our Chip Shop, shouting all kinds of crap, my dad got pissed off broke out the nunchucks and started waving them around in any shape or form possible i.e aimlessly as he really didn’t know how to use them, all the drunks ran off in fear of their lives with my triumphant Dad laughing at their sorry asses! However once a drunk pisshead came in to our Chippy, looking a total nobhead and slamming the door really hard, regular and racial expletive shooting from his mouth…instead of getting what he wanted he was greeted with Lun doing a perfect Nuchucka form in front of his nose and ended with the famous Enter the Dragon poster pose from Bruce Lee…the drunk must have shat his pants. In actual fact he left with a whimper.
Jam 14th we did some weights in the gym and Friday 19th we taught Richard in Eskrima. We now have a target to achieve as grading is coming up soon. It was good to teach again as I said in an earlier post practising the basics over and over again is such good practice not only for the student but for the instructor.
This was further backed up by Karl a Wing Chun Instructor from Glastonbury who I met with in Bath this past Saturday when Elaine and I met up with Elaine’s Sister Louisa and her boyfriend also called Karl (also Martial Artist) in Bath. Karl the Instructor is Louisa’s Sifu and was being helped by Louisa and Karl to find a venue in Bath. Elaine and I met up with them and Sifu Karl(as I will call him to avoid confusion) and I started talking. He was such a great guy and talked about similar stuff that he did in Wing Chun such as empty hand translations etc. He made reference to the Jet Li film Fearless, for those who haven’t seen Fearless, basically Jet Li is a badass cocky instructor who picks fights with people in the first half and then turns into someone who mellows out in the second half. He said the film reminded him of himself when he started out, cocky at first and then humble in later years which was interesting observation. Maybe something I have to watch out for in myself and fellow apprentice instructors.
Anyways enjoy my pics and thanks for reading!