12.31.05 - Saturday Training

New Items Today:

1. Guest in class: Jeff
2. Defense from a chair
3. Defense against a knife attack

Reviewed Other Items:

1. Footwork and maneuvering
2. ¼ Speed sparring
3. Blocking
4. Thunder & Lightning

.

Guest in Class Today
We had a guest join us in class today. His name is Jeff and he attends the same church as Bill. Jeff instructs Taekwondo at the church and has quite a group in attendance from what he was describing. He was very polite and fun to have in class. I hope he joins us again.

.

Defense while Seated in a Chair
Sifu had talked about this before but has not reviewed this information in class since I have been attending, so this was the first time I was able to see any of these techniques in action. The concept of the demonstration was to show some possible defenses one might have if they were confronted or attacked while seated in a chair.

One of the first things Sifu mentioned was that, while seated in a chair, you basically have use of all of your ‘weapons’ at once, referring to the arms/hands, feet/legs, and the head. For this demonstration, Bill sat in the chair and Phyl took the role of the attacker. Sifu went through several possible scenarios in which the attacker could be stopped, thrown, flipped, or counter attacked. It was interesting, to say the least, and I hope we do more of this again in the future.

.

Defense Against a Knife Attack
Walt brought in one of his Christmas gifts and let the class play with it. It was a wooden training knife and Sifu took the opportunity to move from chair defense to some general principles of defending yourself against a knife wielding attacker. He made it clear that if you wind up in an altercation involving a knife, you can expect to be cut. Depending on your skill, and the skill of your assailant, you may escape with minor injuries or worse.

The core principle that he focused on was control of the knife at all times. This is done by controlling the hand that is gripping the knife and never losing track of where that blade is at. Sifu showed us several ways of getting to the knife hand and then how to control the attacker, or at least the knife, from that point on.

He mentioned a saying that Vic LeRoux has mentioned in the past. He held out his arm and said: “If you are cut here [wrist] you will bleed out in several seconds. If you are cut here [inside the elbow] you will be bleed out sooner. Cut here [near the arm pit] you will bleed out sooner. Cut here [carotid/jugular at the neck] you will bleed out sooner.” Bill then summarized by stating “if cut on a major blood vessel, the closer to the heart, the more serious the situation” (paraphrasing).

.

¼ Speed Sparring
After doing our warm ups and some basics, we got into some ¼ speed sparring. I tried very hard to stay focused at a ‘true’ quarter speed this time and I think I accomplished this. I wound up sparring with Walt, Phyl and Bill, in that order. I was a little foggy when we started but cleared up as we went along. I have a tendency to do well in responding to attacks when they come in wide or from the sides, but when one of them comes straight in on me, I tend to go into a purely defensive mode. I don’t know why I’m doing this but I’ll be paying closer attention to it in the future.

.

Blocking and Techniques
Upon conclusion of our sparring, we broke off into groups. Sifu took Juan and I aside and went through blocking with us. Bill corrected my hand/arm position while in my neutral bow and I was surprised at myself for slipping. When we got down to the blocks, I did fine. Sifu had Juan and I face each other and perform the blocks. It was interesting to see subtle corrections as we went through a set. I thought this was a great exercise and realized that I could probably do this same thing to some extent in front of a mirror at home. I’ll give that a shot.

Sifu also discussed the importance of the proper deployment of a block. By this I mean that you intercept the strike at the position that provides the optimum effectiveness of the block. In other words, don’t intercept the strike in such a manner that puts you out of proper position. Doing so only weakens your block and could ultimately open you up to an attack that you never intended. As a demonstration, Bill had me throw a straight punch and demonstrated how you could evade such a punch by simply turning the body or moving the head. This was great review for me and I think Juan took a lot out of it too.

We got to techniques and really focused on teaching Juan Thunder & Lightning. He explained that “Thunder” and “Lighting” are sort of code words for the actions being performed in the technique – thunder being a kick and lightning being a punch. (I still haven’t received his secret decoder sheet for all of the moves but he assures me he will email it to me.) Juan did very well and had the gross movements down after just a few minutes. This being his first technique, we also discussed some of the things that make a good “dummy” or training partner, such as:

• Throwing a realistic strike to appropriate targets
• Giving appropriate body reactions when “struck”
• Understanding the technique so you can adjust appropriately as needed

I think Jeff enjoyed the class with us and may be joining us again in the future. He was very energetic and it was fun having him in class. It will be interesting to discuss some of the differences and comparisons he has seen between Taekwondo and Kenpo.