Improved my Defense in Class Today

I love it when I learn something new in class. And with this blog, I can hammer it home in my mind.  This morning was a candidate sparring class. Translation: it was a class only for people trying to earn their black belt or a higher rank black belt this year.

Master KC had some sparring drills where one side plays defense and the other side attacks. Pretty standard. The novelty today was that the defensive players were NOT supposed to back up.  They were supposed to either crowd in or crowd in and angle.  This was new to me and very cool. 

Usually, if someone comes at me, I back up. When I'm superquick, I can back up faster than they can advance or even angle out in ways that befuddle my attacker. More often than not, I seem to back up into an optimum spot for people to kick me.  With this moving-in-approach, when the going gets tough, the idea was to move in closer and then angle one way or the other. By staying real close, it's very hard for the other person to get get off a good kick or even, a good jab. When you stay close, you really only need to worry about crosses and hooks. (Our school doesn't allow uppercuts, knees, or elbows so this get-close defense works exceptionally well).

A great class this morning. The second half of class was pure sparring and at full speed, I found that crowding in a viable defense and a useful addition to my arsenal.

The other big focus of class today was footwork. I like it. I could do a lot more footwork drills. Today was simple step and slides forward and back with a little work on angling with footwork.  There's room to work on how, when shelled up and on your heels, to still have good footwork. It's a challenge for me that I find myself flat on my backfoot defending and unable to move since I'm flatfooted and hunkered down on my back leg. I know conceptually what to do and that starts with, don't get into that position. I'm not sure what drill would help me isolate and solve that problem.


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Combat Kenpo - Series One and Two

As 2009 ended and 2010 starts, our curriculum has returned towards traditional kenpo basics.  In addition to a focus on the details for the Appreciation Form, Short One, and Long One (eg the downward Y block starts above the shoulder and the block is outside arm!), we are being introduced to a series of combat kenpo moves, reflecting Kyoshi's and our school's kenpo base.

The Combat Kenpo Form (is that the proper name?) is a three part series of  four attacks and defenses (we've learned two so far) structured around the  four blocks: inward, outward, upward, and downward.

Combat Kenpo - Series One -  One person. 



Combat Kenpo - Series Two -  One person.


Combat Kenpo - Series One - Two People




Combat Kenpo - Series Two - Two People


If anyone feels that this needs editing or refining, I'd be grateful for the guidance.  Note that these demos are very impromptu and not definitive examples of all details.  If anyone  shoots  better video, put it on Youtube and tell me about it. I'll put it up.

Is Anybody Out there? Last thing (and I added this after the post had been up for two days) I was just wondering: is anybody out there? I'm a little thirsty for a comments to know that somebody is reading this...Just in case, I checked the Youtube stats on views of these videos:  There's about 80 total views: 20 views of each video on this page (they've been up two days). This could mean one person watched each video twenty times or eighty people watched one video each. I also looked at the stats on the video that I put up just before this one. The kama set video of Mr Mike that I put up at the end of Oct has 215 views. Since it is only one of three versions of kama set that I've posted, I guess there's my answer. Someone is watching.  Who are you?  Introduce yourself in the comments section. Even anonymously.

A total change of pace - My first car....

I learned to drive in my Dad's car.

This picture is me at age 16 in 1974. The red head next to me is my elder brother.

What was the first or best or worst car you ever drove?

And I'm posting this picture because...well, I like it and I've had a little writers block lately.

The news from the dojo is all good. Candidate class was great today. We worked bo and chuck forms.

Also, we continued to work our basics including an extension of our basics into (for me) a new area: Combat Kenpo.  My next post, hopefully, will have a video of its basics and a description.

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