Yes - I got beaten up for money yesterday.
Thats a joke. Somewhat.
Yesterday I taught an introduction to Self Defence to a group of Girl Guides. There were two session of approximately forty minutes, with 16 Guides in each session. The number of students was pretty big for the topic, but that aside I managed to cover some of the essentials, and to dispel a few commonly held misconceptions. Hopefully they had a little fun too.
Forty minutes is not much time to go over the soft skills AND to provide some fun, physical practice. The danger is that you might resort to demonstrating crowd-pleasing (but ultimately useless) strikes or escapes purely to keep their interest levels up. I erred on the side of caution and perhaps the session came off as a bit dry and dull - but I'd prefer that than to be remembered for something that didn't work when the chips were down.
3 May 2010
Koryu Uchinadi - a study session
Last Sunday I attended the Koryu-Uchinadi study group session, instructed by Ben Ryder - assisted by Stuart Sadler. Lee Richardson of Halifax Jissen Karatedo hosted the training. Here's a quick (!) run-down of what we covered.
We began with a tegumi flow drill which doubled as a good warm-up. This drill includes commonly used strikes e.g. straight and hooking punches, uppercuts, knees, plus parries and traps.
The tegumi drill also serves as a great springboard from which to practice other techniques such as joint locks, take downs and clinches and indeed this was the main focus of the study session.
From each of the basic strikes we then practiced counters that flow through into effective clinches leading to takedowns then ground-based submission or control and restraint techniques.
On numerous occasions, Ben pointed out where the various postures seen in each grappling technique could be found within traditional kata such as Naihanchi/Tekki, Empi, Niseishi/Nijushiho, Gojushiho, Passai/Bassai Dai, Jitte, Nipaipo etc.
After a short break (during which I tried to mentally catalogue all that I’d learned in the previous couple of hours!), we then learned escapes and counters to the grappling clinches we’d learned earlier. All the while we practiced these clinches and their escapes from a pre-emptive strike or habitual act of violence at realistic range.
There then followed logically sequenced ne-waza (groundwork) techniques including upper-four-quarters with knee strikes, scarf-hold with associated jointlocks and strangulation methods, the mount, and the guard and escapes from all these.
The final forty minutes or so were spent consolidating this vast amount of material in a two person drill which can be practiced with varying levels of compliance to allow testing of the techniques with increasing realism.
I thoroughly enjoyed the training and learned a great deal. Thanks again to Ben, and Stuart (yeah, cheers Stuart, my thighs are still knackered from the demonstrated method of releasing a bearhug! *grin*) and to Lee for organising everything.
Look out for the next session - this one was a bargain at only £10 for four hours training!
We began with a tegumi flow drill which doubled as a good warm-up. This drill includes commonly used strikes e.g. straight and hooking punches, uppercuts, knees, plus parries and traps.
The tegumi drill also serves as a great springboard from which to practice other techniques such as joint locks, take downs and clinches and indeed this was the main focus of the study session.
From each of the basic strikes we then practiced counters that flow through into effective clinches leading to takedowns then ground-based submission or control and restraint techniques.
On numerous occasions, Ben pointed out where the various postures seen in each grappling technique could be found within traditional kata such as Naihanchi/Tekki, Empi, Niseishi/Nijushiho, Gojushiho, Passai/Bassai Dai, Jitte, Nipaipo etc.
After a short break (during which I tried to mentally catalogue all that I’d learned in the previous couple of hours!), we then learned escapes and counters to the grappling clinches we’d learned earlier. All the while we practiced these clinches and their escapes from a pre-emptive strike or habitual act of violence at realistic range.
There then followed logically sequenced ne-waza (groundwork) techniques including upper-four-quarters with knee strikes, scarf-hold with associated jointlocks and strangulation methods, the mount, and the guard and escapes from all these.
The final forty minutes or so were spent consolidating this vast amount of material in a two person drill which can be practiced with varying levels of compliance to allow testing of the techniques with increasing realism.
I thoroughly enjoyed the training and learned a great deal. Thanks again to Ben, and Stuart (yeah, cheers Stuart, my thighs are still knackered from the demonstrated method of releasing a bearhug! *grin*) and to Lee for organising everything.
Look out for the next session - this one was a bargain at only £10 for four hours training!
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