My week in Martial Arts: March 26th to March 31st 06

Hi All

Another week of the Martial Arts although not officially finished as Lun and I go to Steve Powell’s Cho Sin Kai class which will feature some great pad workouts.

Cho Sin Kai was the karate style Steve Powell was teaching before he set up the JKD class (but some of the Cho Sin Kai elements still remain in his JKD class) and it was the first Martial Art my brother and I trained in. I am quite excited as my brother is to attend this special class tomorrow.

Although the excitement was for this class, the focus was on the grading for Warriors Eskrima under our chief instructor Krishna Godhania as this is taking place in just over a week. It’s going to be intense and I hope to get more lessons in and get myself in spar mode for the level 6 apprentice instructor grading.

Simon loaned us his fencing masks last Friday,so my brother and I did some stick sparring in the gym on Sunday. It was intense but we do have to step it up a bit more I think. We also practiced some Cho Sin Kai sparring drills on the focus mitts we were taught at Steve Powells's.

Monday my brother and I went to Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym. Glynn was teaching and we did some stand up grappling and take downs. It was a great class. Andrew Timmins was there and he was very skilful in his defence when I tried to take him down.

Tuesday I went to Capoeira. It was a great lesson, Steve from Eskrima showed up again and although the class was mainly beginners everyone did real well. Again I am chief demo boy for Capoeira..:) but it’s good experience for me if I want to eventually teach in an art.

Wednesday we had an extra grading session in Warriors Eskrima. My brother and I did some free style stick sparring; palakaw (although we couldn’t do any heavy sparring because Lun’s back wasn’t 100%) and Simon and Paul was practicing what they were taught at the Sayoc seminar! Yup my brother and I missed that one as I couldn’t afford it this month and my brother had to spend more time with his wife Susan, but I wish I had tried and found a way of getting there because Simon and Paul and later on Ray was telling me how great it was. Simon told me some very exciting news as well, but it all depends on the grading…watch this space for the news.

Thursday we planned to go to Steve Powell’s but I had to go back home for a certain time that night and Lun couldn’t make it due to work and recovering from his backache. So I trained for the charity run instead and ran on a treadmill for about 24 minutes. I find running on a treadmill boring and prefer the great outdoors but it was raining and windy. I have an online sponsorship form at Great Run but those who don’t wish to donate online and wish to donate can ask me for a sponsorship form, if you live locally to me!

Afterwards I practiced some stick drills and did some light weights.

Friday was Warriors Eskrima day!
As it was the grading will be about sparring we proceeded to beat the living crap out of each other!!! Actually that isn’t true we didn’t do that at all! I did some knife sparring with my brother and we did palakaw. My brother and I were then put in charge of the beginners and we did some stick disarms with one person in the middle who had to disarm oncoming attackers. Again it was cool to teach people.

We then did the stick sparring. It was awesome everyone’s game face was on. As I was filming it and shouting some tips from the outside I didn’t get as many goes as I would like to. However it was great watching the others and there is a Sunday session which my instructor Simon promised me more sparring.

I would like to thank my brother Lun and my sister in law Susan for their kind donations. Chris for his great support on his site for my run and his donation, please visit his site as it’s great with cool pictures and LGM whose comments I really appreciate on my blog and his views on life are very interesting to read on his great blog. Oh and congratulations to my mate Rob Dale who recently got engaged to his girlfriend Lou!It hasn't anything to do with Martial Arts but its great news!

Anyway enjoy the pictures and keep training.

Kit!

My week in Martial Arts: March 19th to March 24th 06

Hi All! Welcome to post number 50!

First of all congratulations to Chris for his sponsored 108 Sun Salutations and thanks for his and for LGM's comments on my previous post.

I also like to thank my family, my brother Lun for taking the time out to hang out with me this week and my parents who always support everything that I do and I love them dearly for their support.

On to what happened this week….

Finish Him!” shouted an idiot in the crowd watching the World Cage Fighting Championship event that I attended on Saturday 18th March. Yes along with my good friend Andy Timmins who trains at Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym and Pern from Warriors Eskrima we attended the first ever cage fighting event at the Manchester Evening Arena. Mike Tyson was to be special referee for one match, pride fighter Alistair Oveereem was fighting, Bas Rutten was the MC and from the boxing world Amir Khan and Joe Egan were among several other boxers sat in the crowd.

The action itself was good (not great but good). But as good as the in cage fighting was it was marred I thought by some of the thugs in the audience. I would say 40% of the audience understood what was going on (we were watching a sport that involved athletes and a certain degree of skill) and 60% were just blood thirsty thugs looking for death and gore (they were watching what some newspapers has portrayed it as and probably what they perceived it as after a few beers). One guy was hilariously booing everything that moved (the fighters, ring girls, announcers, probably even himself), Timmins believed that the only word in his vocabulary was “Booooo” and hence him “Booing” everything.

Moving on to Sunday, Lun and I went to a Sunday sparring session for Warriors Eskrima. It was a good session; we did a lot of drills and sparring of course. It’s good to get as many sessions as possible in before the grading although Lun and I know we have to do more.

As I was off work for a week, I was helping out my parents with a few things and tried to relax. Lun had some days off Wednesday and Thursday so that was cool. I hope I can plan my holidays better in the future, hopefully in the summer I will take my parents somewhere for a good sight seeing walk as they don't get out as much as they use to.

So the days I was training this week were Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. We couldn’t make it to Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym or Steve Powell’s JKD class this week as there were things to sort out at home. Hopefully we will be back for some good sessions next week, as I really enjoyed them both classes in the previous week.

Saying that it wasn’t a bad week in Martial Arts, Tuesday I went for a run for about 2 miles. I then went to Capoeira and we had several newcomers. I was used as demo-boy but I was also supervising some of the new people so that was cool.
“There is an Eskrima class here on Friday you know” I told one of the newcomers Steve, who told me he did a load of other Martial Arts. He told me he knew as he worked/studied in the same building as Simon Campion which was quite a cool coincidence.

Thursday another run this time I targeted to get to a certain distance. The goal is to increase the mileage to .5 or 1 every time I set out. I ran for 3.4 Miles and therefore overshot the goal but was really happy I did it because then I can hopefully progress faster. In fact it got to a point that now I enjoy running. Later that day my brother and I went to the gym and had a quick work out working back, shoulders and arms and some stick sparring.

Friday was an interesting day. We went to Warriors Eskrima it was a good lesson. We had two newcomers one of which was Steve who was at Capoeira. We did some Palakaw (free style stick sparring), stick disarms and locks and then Simon said to me “Do you intend to teach after you graded?”
I said “Sure” So I taught the two new guys 5 of our basic strikes from the Numerada.
Basically I got them to imagine there was person in front of them and use the strike as if they were striking them well I stood in front of them so their strikes don’t go all over the place. I then taught them to disarm and Simon asked to make sure they incorporate some strikes after disarming. I also showed them to keep a guard at all times as well. It was cool to teach and it was a good experience.

Towards the end of the lesson we did some full contact sparring. It was cool as each person sparred with each other for a minute. Before one sparring session Paul advised me to “Just throw in the caveman shots like me”. A caveman shot is basically a big clubbing strike to the head. After seeing him carry on striking at Lun after the minute was up (which to be fair he probably couldn’t hear the minute was up..maybe) on the last sparring session. I kind of thought: “I’ll give you more than a caveman shot!" Of course I snapped on Paul but in a good way as I threw in a lot of strikes and took him down. It’s what Simon wanted to see anyway a bit more aggression. Yup it was all positive that I can spar that way but I need to refine the skills and control it more. At the end of the day no one wants to hurt anyone but for the next 2 weeks I need to have more of an aggressive streak in sparring. I am looking forward to training next week and attending the Cho Sin Kai lessons next Saturday.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the pics!
Kit.

My week in Martial Arts: March 13th to March 17th 06

“We shall go to JKD tonight” Lun said on Monday morning and that we did to kick off a big training week. I would say I am now 100% better so I had a lot of “catch up” to do.
For some reason on Monday I felt like smashing something. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am not aggressive person. Maybe it was that I was psyching myself up because I was feeling better or maybe someone inadvertently said something to piss me off at work, although I think it was the combination of the two. Later that day I was able to let out the aggression.

Anyway my brother and I went to the gym and did a fast workout. After some food we went to Steve Powell’s JKD class. We saw Chris , LGM (also called Chris) and Greg Hall and Rick Lowry there and it was packed class. Chris and LGM spoke to us and we had a good conversation.

“Get the hook and jab pads” Steve told the class. Cool I thought. It was time to let out the aggression and it worked! We did a load of punching combinations and I made sure I was hitting them right. Of course it’s about technique and putting your hip in but if you also put all you emotions into the punches then you add something to it. It was cool to let out some steam. Steve told us the punching techniques, which were alternating jab, hooks, crosses, uppercuts and overhand punches, that were doing was a variation of Eskrima stick drills as we were punching high, low, high etc. It was great training lesson.


Tuesday went to Capoeira. I had a good session very energetic as always. The two new girls Pat and Kim attended although Kim couldn’t participate. Pat was cool because when she first came to the class she couldn’t do many moves especially cartwheels which were important as a defensive escape in the game. But on Tuesday she was doing them easily and a lot of other moves in the game.
Kim was coming along too, but has been hampered by injury although she had done a lot of exercise before and she could do some of the moves easily in the game from what I have seen so far. I think it’s testament to Danny’s teaching but also a testament to these two newcomers for adapting so quickly.
I asked Danny to get me a T-Shirt from Mestre Bamba and got this, Danny was asked to go to Brazil to train and get graded under their system.

Wednesday I went to the gym with Lun and we did quite a good session. We did some weights and then some stick sparring. My brother and I used these soft sticks. First of all we did some simple moves one attacking and one blocking and countering but fast which is what we call “crashing in”. After a few goes it turned into a fully fledged stick spar and we had a great spar! I was knackered from this and from the previous days and because Lun said he couldn’t make it to Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym because of work commitments. I thought about this and because I only slept five hours previous night and was knackered I proceeded to drive home or so I thought.


So on the way back I put on some “relaxing” music but instead of Stevie Wonder the sounds emitting from my car CD player sounded strangely like Pantera (sorry Lgm!) and next I thing I knew I was in Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym and had a great work out. We were taught how to position/move ourselves in the stand up fighting stance and did some hand/head grappling. It was another energetic lesson.

Thursday after 3 days of Martial Arts I decided to stay in bed as I booked a week off but because Rocky 2 was on the previous night and I had a run to do in May I got up and went for a run. I proceeded to run in light snowfall for about a mile. Later on my brother and I went to Steve Powell’s JKD class. My legs were aching a bit as I have not ran for a while but we did some great focus mitt work based on the old Chosin-Kai style. We did some kicking against kicking and using mitts to block instantly and the kicks was aiming right to the face. This was a brilliant and hard work out. Steve Powell mentioned Hwang Jan Lee as we were doing the kicks, from the old school Gung Fu films (bad guy super kicker from Drunken Master and Snakes in the Eagle’s Shadow and countless of others) and mentioned how crap dubbing was in the old school stuff. But its cool he is such a fan of the old school Gung Fu films because they rock and my brother and I always chuckle when he throws in a random reference. Another awesome lesson.


Friday I went for a 2 mile run and then later on Warriors Eskrima with Lun. It was a great lesson! Simon had as work “stations” which comprises of different techniques in different parts of the court. For example one station was footwork, another was crashing in and another was some cardio exercises. We then did some free style palakaw and the higher graded ones including myself took turns in teaching Ray some drills. Although I accidentally taught him the wrong drill at first! Sorry Ray!




We did some disarms and locks. One guy was in the middle while the other guys attacked and the defending guy had to disarm or lock them. We then did some stick sparring which was cool.

So that was my big week in exercise and Martial Arts. I feel so much better for it, although knackered I am feeling great! Thanks for reading and enjoy the pics!

Kit

My week in Martial Arts: March 6th 06 to March 10th 06

Hi All

This week I only managed one lesson which was the Warriors Eskrima lesson on Friday.
However I enjoyed the blogs of my Lun, Chris and LGM Chris to keep me in the Martial Art world..virtually.

I have also noticed Steve Powell has updated his site too and it looks great.

My brother returned from Canada, he showed me some pressure point moves from a lesson he took while in Canada. You can read more by clicking on his link. I showed him some stuff from the Karl Tanswell lessons I learnt last week. It’s cool to have my brother back.

Well on my sick days off, I edited some of my DVD that I am doing for my Warriors Class. It looks rather cool if I say so myself..:-)! Actually I have a lot of footage of the guys sparring semi contact with us wearing fencing masks, a heck of a lot of techniques and other drills involving double stick, single stick and knife. I am considering putting commentary on it.

While watching some of the footage I was also trying to pick out some of my bad techniques during sparring (an advantage of filming) as sometimes you need another perspective on your performance. This is quite beneficial to the Martial Artist but then again if you have good instructors (which I do) then they can offer this perspective. However filming yourself practicing at home is useful when there is no one there to critique you.

It’s cool that one of the instructors responsible for re-kick starting my brother and mine’s Martial Arts interest, Bob Melia has joined the FlowDrills Forum . Anyone can join the FlowDrills Forum , it was created by our instructor Simon Campion and fellow Eskrima Martial Artist Mike and I helped build it. Although the intention to have anyone join and start talking has become a bit of private message board for Warriors Eskrima. However anyone free to come in and make a comment or post a topic. It is good to have someone like Bob Melia.

I recovered from my chest infection on Thursday (although not fully recovered) I returned to work.

On Friday I went to Warriors Eskrima class. my first Martial Art lesson for about a week. Simon laid out some sticks in the shape of a 2 sided triangle…just the diagonal sides if that makes sense! This was to practice foot work. I really do think good stance and footwork is so important in all Martial Arts, to have good technique you need a good strong base first. If I ever do become an instructor, I would emphasis a lot on footwork.

We also did free style stick sparring of palakaw varying the intensity. We practiced the crashing in but aimed shots to the head with the fencing masks and we sparred. I didn’t last too long in my sparring as my cough from my chest infection came back so I filmed the other guys spar instead but I got to teach some basic numerada strikes to a newer student although very briefly though, I also talk about a little history of eskrima sticks, the knowledge of this, courtesy all the great instruction I had over the years from all the instructors mentioned in my Martial Art links.

Again enjoy the pics as always and thanks for reading, its time for me to do some heavy training next week with hopefully a clean bill of health!

Kit

My week in Martial Arts: February 27th 06 to March 3rd 06

Sorry for the lateness of the Feb 27th till Mar 3rd blog entry due to illness I was unable to post on my regular Friday night slot.

My Mum was feeling better than last week, but my Dad wasn’t feeling great, however for a 70 year old man he is incredibly fit and still very strong. He encouraged me to go and workout though, when I phoned back to see how he was, so I did and by the end of the week he seemed to be better but I still need to keep my eyes open.

“Very impressive Kit, he was trying to take you down and you were not having any of it…” Cool words from Karl Tanswell as I was leaving his gym. That was to top off a really good Monday…inspired by the comments on my blog by Lun, Chris and LGM Chris and keeping my own promises I got up at 6.30 am and went for a jog and then followed a home routine of conditioning exercises while watching a Rick Faye training video.

After work I was choosing some pre-training music to get me fired up for training…I don't always employ the use of pre-training music to get me fired up but sometimes it gives me extra incentive. So I chose Pantera, although I am not a big Pantera fan, I do have a couple of friends who really like them. I did happen to have their live CD in my car so I popped it in and the songs “5 minutes alone” and “Cowboys from Hell” really got me going. I do prefer Rage against the Machine but Pantera did it for me. Although during training time I don’t mind if there is or isn’t any music, as regards to listening to metal during training Matt Furey has other views!

At Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym, we did shoots and the defence against the shoot, then defence against the shoot with a sprawl and then a sprawl with a cross face. I partnered up with a guy called Charles who told me he reads the blog which is pretty cool. Charles had pretty good technique on the shoot by the end of the lesson.

Tuesday I went for a run in the morning again. These are very short runs at the moment; the plan was to have short runs on weekdays and long runs on weekends. After work it was Capoeira time, yes again I was used as demo guy. The two girls who have been attending regularly are coming on really well. We did a cartwheel variation on one hand and a whole bunch of other techniques. Danny was excited that he was doing a workshop on Saturday and Sunday with in the Capoeria Mestre Bimba style from Brazil. Mestre Bimba was the creator of the more contemporary martial art style of Capoeira also known as Regional and Mestre Bamba was going to be there representing this school.

Wednesday another run, I was happy I was keeping it up, up to this point. The one thing that makes it great to run early in the morning is that there is no one around. Went to Karl’s later that evening and had another cool class. This time we did some basic punching and kicking techniques and then onto some stand up grappling escaping from a front face headlock and then escaping a waist lock. Another great workout and I also put my name down for Karl’s STAB seminar on Sunday March 5th. STAB stands for Survival Tactics Against the Blade and is based on Karl’s experiences against knife attacks.

Thursday I gave myself a rest.

Friday got up feeling not so great so I didn’t go for a run. I felt slightly queasy at work and didn’t feel 100%. I had a feeling I was coming down with something, by the end of work I was coughing. I thought about not going to the Warriors Eskrima class. But then again I thought about sweating it out and if I stay at home I wouldn’t be much better off.


We did some footwork and some power strikes and some crashing in, it seemed to be working as I was feeling better. However near the end of the lesson I felt very weak and I didn’t participate in the sparring as my energy level was very low. I filmed Ray and Paul spar though and it’s great to make an observation…which was the fact that we needed groin guards as the guys were hitting pretty hard! I asked our instructor Simon if we could have more lessons leading up to the grading as well.

After I got home, now I was coming down with something. I couldn’t write my blog as I was so weak from whatever got me, so I more or less went straight to bed. On Saturday I wrote to Karl to tell him I wouldn’t be able to make his seminar on the Sunday. It was a real bummer as I also wanted to go to the Capoeira workshop on Saturday.

Today I am taking a day off work and I booked to see a doctor in 2 days (yes it’s a 2 day waiting process where I live) hopefully I will be better tomorrow and then I shall be able to cancel the doctor and get back to work In addition I shall be get back to sticking to my new training schedule. On a positive note my brother is back! So that means we will be going to Steve Powell’s JKD class again very soon!

Thanks and enjoy the pics
Kit.

My week in Martial Arts: February 20th 06 to February 24th 06

"The goal of the martial arts is not for the destruction of an opponent, but to be used as a tool for self-growth and self perfection. The practice of a martial art is the practice of love-the love for the preservation of life, the love for the preservation of your body, the love and preservation of your family and friends."

By Dan Inosanto from the book, Absorb What is Useful, Know Now Publishing Co., U.S. (1982)

Those words are very true and it's the kind of path that I hope I am following now.

Indeed this week I have been home in the evenings looking after my Mum. My Mum's health is on the mend but its still inconsistent. Hopefully it will be better this week and I have to be alert and assertive to anything she may need. Lun, thanks for the encouraging words you made in the comments of my last post. Chris and LGM Chris thanks very much for your words too. Hope to see you guys at Steve Powell’s JKD class soon.

I didn't train this week. I read the "Absorb What is Useful" by Dan Inosanto though. It's a very insightful and brilliant book. Within this book you find a reprint of Bruce Lee's 19 page term paper when he was at the University of Washington, theatrical martial arts illustrations,illustrations of classical and non classical techniques and some brilliantly written insight into Jeet Kune Do. I am not sure if this book is in print anymore but this particular copy is very special as it was signed by Dan Inosanto himself to my brother Lun when he went to a seminar in Edinburghburugh almost ten years ago.

After reading about Dan Inosanto and hearing stories from great instructors who trained under him such as Rick Faye and Rick Young, as well as how my brother mentioned how great the seminar was,I would very much like to attend a seminar when he comes to England this year.

I have been lucky enough to attend seminars(in order of meeting them) by Rick Faye, Krishna Godhania ,Samuel Kwok and Carlson Gracie Snr, Larry Hartsell and Rick Young. All have been amazing experiences. My brother has been to more seminars including the one by Dan Inosanto and one by Dan Lee. I will write more in depth about these seminars another time.

It is the love of the art that brought me to these seminars and the amount of Martial Arts I do. I don't do it because "I think wanna crack a few heads" (well living in Manchester UK you need to know to do that anyway!) I do it because of the love of the art as would people would do with their own hobbies and favourite sports.

It was the comments and blogs made by Lun, Chris and Chris LGM that made me think twice as to why I do Martial Arts,it's not the amount of classes I attend, martial arts is a whole way of life and how you can apply it in your daily living.

The grading for Warriors Eskrima is looming. I am going to manage my time next week and train at home and if I can, get some classes in. The picture is the insignia of Warriors Eskrima that I also have as my computer wallpaper at work to keep me motivated!

Thanks for reading
Kit

A lull

Hi All

As this blog is about Martial Arts life and the life of someone who happens to do Martial Arts I thought I write this piece.

Yes I hit a lull, I have not trained in any Martial Arts since Saturday morning(attending the excellent Rick Young seminar at Steve Powell's JKD Chinatown Martial Arts Academy)(Thanks for the additional photo's Steve!) and not exercised since Monday(it was only 25 minutes or so in the gym too). My Mum isn't feeling well, so I have been home most evenings starting from last Friday.

I am taking a day off work tomorrow to take my Mum to see a doctor, family and health is so much more important than work in my opinion. Family first,always first...

Work itself? Demotivating at the moment. Hopefully it will get better and these times of negativity will probably make me a stronger person mentally, so I have heard and read of people in similar situations. But work is also how I make it,so I need to keep fighting my corner and not switch off mentally.

I need to pick myself again,I know some people reading this think "but it was only last Saturday I trained" Well I should be training every day to be honest. My morning routine has stopped. I have broken my own self promise/goal of training every day which is pretty crappy really. I have missed about 5 lessons(potentially 6) in the last 5 days.

But dammit I got a grading in April 9th, I got a charity run in May and I have a new goal which is to attend a Guro Dan Inosanto seminar hopefully this year. Yes I got to train like a maniac for all these things. I need to re-start my own training routine and practice what I know at home. If I am not fit enough to look after my Mum and my Dad for that matter I won't be much use. Time management is key. I shall try and attend Warriors Eskrima on Friday if my Mum is feeling better but as I said family always first.

Lun is working in Canada at the moment please read his blog!

I leave you with a picture of me(pretending to be a tough guy..:)) at Rick Faye's Lake Owen Wisconsin Summer camp almost 4 years ago,one of the catalyst's that began my re-entry into Martial Arts and something to remind myself of a good time in my life.

Keep training all,I am going to restart at home tomorrow!

Feeling motivated after writing
Kit.

Rick Young Seminar

Lun and I attended a Rick Young seminar held at Steve Powell’s today. It was a great seminar! We did knife work, groundwork, dumog (Filipino wrestling and focus mitt drills. Please click here to read more about Rick Young.

Martial Art seminars are a totally different animal to a regular lesson. During the seminar the instructor will ask the audience what they want to do or it might be a totally specific seminar. Afterwards the instructor will cram the desired subject matters into four hours.
Other than the instruction, the instructor (in seminars that I have attended) is much more personable as he would also maybe relate past experiences to the techniques we were doing and have a Q & A session at the end.

My brother and I have been lucky enough to attend seminars by instructors who are amazingly skilled but matching their skill is their humbleness. I believe being humble and kind is an amazing attribute that these instructors have and something I aspire to. Its not all about how good you are and what you are graded at a high level, it’s about what kind of person you are as well.

Again this kindness can be mistaken for weakness and right now I may have painted a soft picture of Rick Young. There is another side though he mentioned the street fights he had relating to the technique we were doing (and not because he was showing off) and how that we need to turn into animals if people try to harm your family. But above all he was a very humble man and thanked us all for coming and seemed genuinely sincere when shaking everyone’s hand at the end.

As a student of Guro Dan Inosanto, he was asked what it was like. Rick told us all about how sincere and humble Dan Inosanto is. He mentioned how amazingly skilled Dan Inosanto and he is a great inspiration. He also mentioned Roger Gracie and how he would ask about his wife and kids even though he had a big fight the following night. This shows that they have such a strong character where they can be powerful yet humble.

There were over 30 people in the club today an awesome turnout. There were some people I didn’t recognise but most of the advanced class people attended. As I mentioned seminars are different animals to lessons, as there is so much information to take in. The best way to remember is to practice straight away and write it down, however we purchased 2 DVD’s of Rick Young’s (which will also help!). Steve Powell also kindly took some pictures for my brother and I to use on our blogs. Thanks Steve! A great day of Martial Arts!

My week in Martial Arts: February 13th 06 to February 17th 06

Hey all

Another busy week of Martial Arts and busy week for me at work…Shall I break the mould and talk about my week at work…Nah!I’ll talk about the Martial Arts! Let’s forward my week to Wednesday, Lun and I just finished Karl’s and we went to Steve Powell’s. We first had to get money from an ATM machine and we bumped into LGM Chris who also needed some money. As we walked down the busy streets of Manchester Piccadilly towards the ATM machine, I noticed this youth begging for money on the streets. The youth however was being very abusive to people as they were walking past and clearly looked like someone who was off his head on drugs.

As the three of us walked past, he shouted “You f**king chin*s” and some other abuse towards us. We just laughed; it was funnier because LGM Chris was with us and as far as I know doesn’t look Chinese. Plus Lun and I have heard that expression used against us so many times before. When we got our money we came back past the abusive begging youth, who did not give us abuse but still begged. We didn’t give him money and didn’t think anything of it during the lesson. If I were younger I would imagine the abusive youth as one of the focus mitts I was hitting, but I didn’t.

There are 2 sides to this coin, one side are people who genuinely need help and the other side are crazy smack head youths who just use the money to fund their own addictions. That day was the bad side of the coin and reminded me a lot of the Chinese take-away/chippy my parent’s owned and where my brother and I helped out in after college or work. We used to get crazy youths all the time and louts my Dad and brother mainly kicked out.

Eventually to quote Bruce Lee's character in Enter the Dragon my brother employed more of the art of fighting without fighting. I remember once how Lun calmly told this asshole who was making trouble that “Its nice to be nice isn’t it?”. This calmed the asshole down in such a state he was feeling sorry for himself. I remember when I was about 22 or something and some kid came in smacking shop door wide open, swearing and shouting. I instantly asked how old he was and he shouted “19 HOW OLD ARE YOU?” I told him 22 and said “It’s good to act your age sometimes isn’t it?” and he quietly agreed and calmed down after that. There are many more stories from the chippy, My brother and I could write a whole book on the Golden Star (the name of our takeaway).

Monday my brother and I went to Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym. We did all kinds of stand up boxing and all kinds of clinch wrestling moves. Wrestling truly uses up a lot of energy, as you are grappling to get into a more dominant position. Karl taught everyone several techniques so that we could start on them straight away in a class. It was a very good class. At the end of the lesson Karl couldn’t stress enough how important these basics were and it was important for us to know.

Tuesday I did Capoeira. The beginners came in again and I was asked to oversee some of them which was cool. Kim and Pat who have been coming for over a month now are coming along fine. The other beginners Maria and Charles have just started and because Maria wasn’t getting a move right I had her practice the Ginga step which is the basic Capoeira stance/movement. Not as punishment but so she could get the basics first.

Wednesday was a cool day, although I was knackered from the night before and really doubted if I can do a lesson at Karl’s let alone Steve’s afterwards. Karl’s class was again taken by a guy called Glynn and Tom who assisted. They were very good instructors, again we did some boxing techniques and some grappling. My energy was slowly coming back but I was still knackered.

After the lesson I was knackered (again). Lun suggested that we could do Steve’s the following day but I couldn’t because I was helping out my mate Paul with some database work.

Steve Powell’s JKD class was packed around 24-25 people maybe more. We did focus mitt work and some trapping techniques. Focus mitt work is so good for fitness and co-ordination. We did several focus mitt combinations, a typical one would be a right round house kick, right cross and left hook and another right round house kick what we might call a four count. Then we would do a left round house kick left hook right cross and then add the previous drill to make a 7 count. We then build from there and add different combo’s its a lot of fun.

I was still tired out though but in the middle of the drills I felt totally comfortable and relaxed but I was training harder. It’s a very strange feeling to describe but the training made me feel good. I think people who do Martial Arts or any exhaustive exercise will understand that there is a “feel good factor” at the end. I have read that these could be endorphins but I think that is still being debated.

Steve Powell showed Lun and I a trapping trick that Bruce Lee used to do to Larry Hartsell. It was very fast and cool. It was overall a great lesson at Steve’s. We also saw Chris , LGM (also called Chris), Greg Hall. and Rick there.

Sorry there are not many pictures for this week (the picture of the eskrima lesson in this post is from a couple of weeks ago), as I couldn’t make Warriors Eskrima on Friday as I had to see my Mum. I shall make it next week as I really need to step my training in Warriors Eskrima and for my run (which I really need to start training for!) Tomorrow though I shall do another update as I am going to a Rick Young seminar with Lun!

Thanks
Kit!

My week in Martial Arts: February 6th 06 to February 10th 06

Hi All

Another week of Martial Arts and another target to work to. The date April 9th, the grading; level 6 Warriors Eskrima which is equivalent to a black belt. Simon has now booked this with our head instructor Pangulong Guro Krishna Godhania If we pass this Lun, Mike and I can become apprentice instructors in this art. So if I pass this, does this mean the journey is over and I can go off and ride into the sunset? Nah, it begins then and to be honest I would like it to be endless.

“How’s your asthma, are going to Karl’s tonight?” I texted my brother on Monday afternoon. “Its not that good but we can do it” Lun wrote back. “Lets go gym instead” I suggested. As the Straight Blast Gym requires constant movement it wasn’t wise for my brother to go if his asthma wasn’t great. So we went to the gym instead and did some weights.

As the gym we use is within Salford University, the gym was packed with students. Unusually busy… probably because the winter exams are over, give it a few weeks and most of them will probably “too busy” to train. Being packed we had to make do with what was available to use, however we did practice our Eskrima which was cool. I also did some running to prepare for the great run

Speaking of my brother check out his blog. Lun wrote about when my parents owned a Chinese Chippy (which is to readers that are not from the UK is a Chinese take out that also sells Fish and Chips). We had our fair share of troublemakers there as our Chippy was in the middle of a bunch of pubs. There were occasions when they come out drunk cause trouble and we used to chuck them out (more so my Dad and brother!).

Tuesday I was the main demo guy for my Capoeira Instructor as we had two new beginners. We did an exercise where Danny and I had to kick at the students and they had to dodge or the term in Capoeira is to escape. The defence portion of Capoeira is a very integral part and it’s important for the new people to learn. The lesson was basic because of the new people but as always the game was intense.

Wednesday we went to the Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym. Karl wasn’t there today. A guy called Glynn (apologies if the name is spelt incorrectly) took the class. I have partnered up with Glynn on several occasions during training when Karl was there and he is a very good Martial Artist. The class was great as we did some boxing sparring and some stand up wrestling techniques.

Later Lun and I took the 5 minute or so walk down to Steve Powell’s JKD class. Before the lesson Lun asked Steve if it was alright to take some pictures, Chris kindly took one of Steve, Lun and I. Unfortunately the camera that my brother recently purchased had a bad habit of blurring a picture even though you know you took a perfectly fine one! Doh !better luck next time!

It was an awesome lesson; we did focus mitt work and hubud. You can literally spend hours on focus mitt drills as there are so many variations. It was great to see Chris , LGM (also called Chris) and Greg Hall. It was jammed packed and Steve Powell was again really funny. He is also very knowledgeable regarding the old school kung fu movies and its stars he mentioned Hwang Jan Lee (the bad guy from Jackie Chan’s Snake in the Eagle Shadow and Drunken Master). Lun asked when Greg’s next DVD was coming out as we thought the first one was cool. We spoke to Chris who is enjoying his freedom (from his job he quit) and LGM who along with Chris recommended me to watch Bill Hicks.

Thursday I had a rest.

Friday was Warriors Eskrima day. Simon purchased some cool fencing masks. The wire mesh of the mask was really hard and if you press down on the mesh it would probably cut you. We used them however for soft stick sparring. Before that though we did some hubud, palakaw and palakaw free style stick sparring and I had to teach a beginner the roof block drill.

The sparring was awesome as we had the added option of bashing each other over the head. As we used soft sticks the masks offered a lot of protection so we can go full force with the sticks. It also gave us a new dimension to our sparring. As Simon pointed out that they were some strikes that we wouldn’t have used if we didn’t have the masks on.






All in all another good week, the only thing I let myself down was the running in the mornings which I will do this coming week.
Enjoy the pictures and thanks for reading.
Kit!!!!!

My week in Martial Arts: January 30th 06 to February 3rd 06

Hi All

Although we had good week in Martial Arts training, my brother and I were sad to hear the passing of Carlson Gracie Sr who was one of the most prominent figures in Jiu Jitsu and the Martial Arts World. My brother Lun and I were lucky enough to attend a joint seminar with Samuel Kwok that he held in Manchester England 2 years ago.

Ironically I recently mentioned in this entry that we purchased the DVD of the seminar. It was a great experience for my brother and I in our first every BJJ class/seminar to be taught by such a prominent figure. He was very enthusiastic about Martial Arts and although he had limited English he was very friendly and funny. With a couple of assistants and a translator he took the time to oversee and give advice to everyone at the seminar while we were practising including my brother and I. The picture above is from my Carlson Gracie Sr T-shirt that I purchased from the seminar. The Jiu Jitsu and the Martial Arts world has lost another great.

This week my brother and I returned to Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym. We did a lot of clinch work and defences against the clinch. The defence was when someone was trying to grab your neck but you shrug them off with your shoulder and swat their arm away. There was more to the clinch work as we worked various entries and used the whizzer, which is a defence arm lock\take down type manoeuvre. It was a very good lesson.(The picture shown is clinch work sparring being used in Warriors Eskrima by our instructor Simon and Ray)

Tuesday was Capoeira day. It was cool, we did cartwheel’s over each other and played the game as well as learning kick sequences. We had a small class again Ken was there and a beginner called Pat who usually trains with Kim who couldn't make it.

I suggested to our instructor we print off some leaflets for the beginners. Like a glossary for some of the Capoeira terms as sometimes it’s difficult to pick up the names of the moves. Well I am going to write it out as he asked me to do it. Me and my big mouth….but I shall enjoy writing it and probably have to do some illustrations for the moves.

Again the conversation of Martial Arts popped up at work. I was explaining why I did Eskrima to my most senior manager. “But why Filipino style?” he asked. I told him it was very effective but I also told him that it the Filipino arts are also used in Jeet Kune Do. It’s very interesting when explaining different Martial Arts to the laymen.

Wednesday we were back at Karl Tanswell’s Straight Blast Gym. It was another great lesson as we did some jab, cross and hook combinations and then some stand up wrestling work. It was great workout again.

Again we couldn’t make it to Steve Powell’s JKD class, I have to redouble my efforts to try and get there next week. I feel disappointed that I couldn’t make it this week. I really to practice my punching and start their Eskrima system but the timing has not been good this past week.

Before I forget as I didn’t mention this last week my work colleague Wellington is part of this club and asked me to plug this British stick fighting club. Both are very interesting sites.

Thursday went to the gym did some benching and worked on upper body, we saw Simon Campion and bench pressed with him. My brother and I also practiced some knife work and did some of the stuff from Karl’s. We also spoke to a Chinese guy called Simon who trains there regularly, he was telling us some cool stories of Masters Chu’s lion dance club and the fact that he and two others including his brother were at one time the only 3 Chinese practicing the Chinese art of Lion dancing at that club. In retrospect I wish my brother and I gave that class a try. I do find it sad that there are not a whole lot of British Born Chinese like me are not into Martial Arts these days, considering we all watched a load of cool Hong Kong actions films as kids. There are a few of them like my brother and I, Ray who goes to Eskrima, Wellington and one of the instructors at Karl Tanswell who my brother and I have yet to talk to but I am sure we will one day. Maybe I am wrong but I don’t see other guys carry on like you see some kids who turn into adults still playing five a side football/soccer.




Friday was Warriors Eskrima day. We did a 15 minute warm up work out and Simon wrote a list of exercises for me to practice so I could do it in the morning. During the work out we did press ups, squats and various other warm ups.
My sit ups were pathetic though as I wasn’t doing them fast enough so I need to work on them. We did some stick disarms, locks roof block drills and then we did some single stick sparring techniques. We also did some clinch work and my brother and I knife sparred.

All in all a varied week of training, next week will be one heck of a training week for me as I prepare for the Manchester great run in May I am going to incorporate running training into my work out. Again enjoy the pictures.
Thanks
Kit