07.29.06 - Saturday Practice

New Items Today:

1. Marty Lead Entire Class
2. Stretching & Warm-ups
3. Technique Line (by strike)
4. Chokes
5. Takedowns
6. Semi-Circle Drills

Reviewed Other Items:

1. Kicks: Ball & Roundhouse
2. Ground Fighting

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Warm-ups
Warming up today was definitely different than our normal. We did some interesting “partner assisted” stretching but it wasn’t the type that I have been warned to avoid. This employed isometric resistance techniques that really seamed to work well. For example, I partnered with Alex and started on my back. I lifted one leg and placed it on his shoulder as he kneeled in front of me. He lifted my leg toward the ceiling until there was sufficient resistance that I told him to stop. At this point, he simply stopped moving my leg upward and I used my own leg strength to press down onto his shoulder. After several seconds of this, I relaxed my leg muscles and then allowed Alex to slowly lift my leg again. To my surprise, my leg actually moved up again several inches before I felt the similar tension in which I stopped him before. The exercise is repeated a total of three times and then we switched legs. Then it was Alex’s turn and he had similar results.

Another interesting thing we did today reminded me of a picnic in the park… sort of. We paired up and did the wheel borrow to the end of the mat and back. Interesting. I do plenty of push-ups but this works all of the muscles in the upper body differently. I was surprised at how much this challenged me. After the wheel borrow exercise we kept the same pairs and did ‘piggy-back’ drills, where we carried our partner to the other end of the mat and back on our backs. In both cases I had paired up with Walt and he is in pretty good shape. I’m pretty sure I was taxed much more than he was.

We did some kicking exercises that were different than what we have done before. We did some front roundhouse kicks without the foot replacement. Most of us were off balance at first until we got our footing. Using the focus mitts, we did some ball kicks , and then did some ball kicks that transitioned into roundhouse kicks, again with the pads.

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Technique Line
Marty had us line up for a technique line next. I have run technique lines several times before but we did a variant this time that was different for me. Instead of running the same technique over and over again, the ‘attackers’ threw the same strikes and we defended based on the techniques we have learned for that given strike. Obviously the 3 Musketeers knew more than the rest of us but it was still an eye opener as I hadn’t really thought about my Kenpo skills in this way before. Up until now it has been more repetition in order to get the moves right as opposed to spontaneity for a given strike. By the way, the two defenses we did were “inside a right” and “outside a right”.

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Ground Fighting
Next was some ground fighting, an area that Marty really enjoys. We discussed and learned various types of chokes: front choke standing, front choke from the guard position, and the rear naked choke. We also talked about ‘closing the gap’ using some new techniques as well as some techniques from IKCA Kenpo.

Takedowns were another topic we worked on today. We covered several takedowns from a clinched position including the hip toss, a “sit out” type from the side/rear (for when an opponent resists the hip toss), and a ‘leg sweep’ for when the opponent has a wide, solid base. Following the takedowns, we went over some drills starting from a stand up position transitioning into a takedown where we then went through the movements of “ground and pound” utilizing focus mitts on the ground as targets before maneuvering into a choke. Finally we discussed and practiced moving into a front choke when your opponent blocks a Kimura.

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Semi-Circle Drills
The last thing we did in class was a sort of semi-circle drill. I had seen this done out in California when we went to the West Coast Kenpo Confederation last year but I had never participated in one. The drill is designed to increase spontaneity of response as well as giving the defender the option of response based on angle of attack. It is really an interesting drill.

The set up is simple; the person defending winds up in the ‘center’ of the semi-circle and 5 people position themselves around him to create the semi-circle itself. One person, in this case, Marty, stands behind the defending person and points silently to one of the people in the circle. Since the defender can’t see who is being pointed to, he doesn’t know where the next attack will come from.

In our case, we started out by simply blocking right punches from the attackers as they came in. After everyone had a chance, Marty had us follow up the block with a strike or short combination of our choice.

This proved to be a very interesting exercise for me. I just let things happen without giving too much thought to them just to see what would flow. I found that frontal attackers were blocked and then followed up with a ball kick and/or a lunge punch. In one case, it seemed prudent to basically do Returning Serpent, and I did. It was the side attacks that surprised me a little bit. From the right side, I just did a right inward block and contoured back up the arm with a straight elbow. Where the heck did that come from?! From the left I did a left inward block, followed immediately with a left back-fist and right lunge punch.

I think what I sort of discovered here is that I am on the cusp of beginning to realize spontaneity with my Kenpo… and I like it. I am looking forward to bringing these new skills into my own personal arsenal for use when best suited. At this point I haven’t really felt this in my sparring yet and I would have expected it to come out there first. Interesting. I think I just need to stop analyzing and start practicing more and hopefully it will come of its own accord.