Evolutionary Self-Protection

This is a belated post, I do apologise. PHDefence training logs likely will be often as training is 19:00-21:00, I always remain available for questions and general chat afterwards and the venue for them is a chapel so there’s a load of chairs to put back in rows afterwards in the hall they use. As a result, by the time I get home all I want to do is eat, sleep and watch Coronation Street! Yes, a self-protection instructor watches Coronation Street with his dinner. Shush!

In this first training log for PHDefence of 2013 (I still keep typing ‘2012’ first), I’ll just take a moment to explain what PHDefence is and what my relationship with it is. PHDefence is a local martial arts class, based in Stockton Brook at the moment though it’s been all over the place through the years. It’s owned and was founded by Shifu Paul Horrobin, who created a hybridised martial art mostly based on concepts from Wing Chun (yǒngchūn ~ 咏春 ~ ‘Spring Chant’), Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do (zhènfān jiéquándào ~ 振藩截拳道 ~ ‘Jun Fan’s “Way of the Intercepting Fist”’) and Shaolin Kung Fu (shàolín gōng fū ~ 少林功夫 ~ ‘Young Forest Kung Fu’) among others. The basic premise of what they do there is the attempt to take traditional martial arts concepts and make them practical while retaining their martial-arts focus. I just want to make clear here that they are not a self-defence or self-protection class, and that while I am a self-protection instructor while I’m teaching there I’m also a martial arts instructor. I alternate between teaching and training there every other week, with Paul teaching every other lesson. While on occasion I mix in odd concepts and training ideas from the CSPS, this is not a CSPS class. The reason I take such steps to make this clear is that I would hate for someone to read a PHDefence training log and think I was equating the martial arts training described to practical self-protection training, which it is not. Worse, I would hate for someone to read it and think that the training described was self-protective in nature.

Now that the perfunctory disclaimer’s over, I can get on with the actual point of the post! I won’t do that every time, don’t worry – I’ll just point people here if there’s confusion.

So on Friday night it was PHDefence’s first session back after Christmas, and they’re all working towards their next gradings. At the moment they have someone on the first grading (Red), two on the seventh grading (Brown) and one on the sixth (Blue) who are all now ready to work on the concepts for their next grading. It’s quite an exciting time for PHDefence at the moment!

We started off with some simple combat-oriented fitness drills: 30-second rounds of simple wind sprints, then the same in pairs with student-chosen combinations at the end on focus mitts. After that we dropped the focus mitts and picked up some kickshields for the same again with kicking combinations at the ends of the sprints, again student-chosen. After those we went through some rounds of communally-chosen exercises where each student had a turn choosing an exercise to add to the session. This proactive approach allows the students to work out what works best and elect movements that flow concomitantly themselves, which adds greatly to the quality of their martial decision making.

Following from this initial section we went through some rounds of chisao (chīshǒu ~ 黐手 ~ ‘sticking hands’) for close-in sensitivity training, before widening out the range to a Systema-style slow spar. Then at random timings I handed one partner a stick which had the effect of both increasing and decreasing the range of the partner work at different times.

Afterwards, a section of choice modules was enjoyed where each student chose a drill for everyone to do. This ranged from kicking padwork drills to bouts of Jujutsu-style back-to-back groundfighting. Everyone’s choices came together very well to make a most enjoyable session.

At the end there was a module of basic aerial coordination drills for the higher grades as a preliminary to spinning and aerial kicks, and for the lower grades a few rounds of different padwork drills from sitting on a chair. To wrap up on a high note, a very enjoyable padwork drill using the shields for lower-body and then upper-body striking inspired by some videos I’ll be reviewing shortly from the British Combat Association – those reviews are going out every Tuesday morning so make sure to keep your eyes open!

It was awesome to see you all again.

Until next time,
FCIns. Josh Nixon, CSPS