Evolutionary Self-Protection

This week’s session was our first to be held at Endon Village Hall now that we’ve moved there from our old venue in Stockton Brook. We’ll all miss the old place – it was the focal point of the local community in many ways, and many of us have trained there for years – but we were all looking forward to training in Endon.

The new venue is excellent: a bigger hall, convenient location and overall a really great place to train.

As always, it was a pleasure to see you all again and the quality of the training was truly excellent. The skill, progress and raw natural ability I see every week is truly incredible. Very well done to everyone. Awesome effort and fantastic atmosphere.

Last week, we worked on ‘the fence’ and used it as a framework to explore footwork, positioning and posture, as well as distance management, communicative strategies, striking and surviving an armed assault.

This week, we progressed from the basic skills we looked at last time and used them in some interesting and effective ways.

• Warmup and exercise: most of this week’s exercise was focussed on quadrupedal movement – various methods of crawling, etc on the floor – and using those movements as incredibly useful (and fun!) exercises. We looked at Kong bounds and sideways Chimpanzee crawls in particular, as well as some rolling.
• Fence – but what then?
  • That was the focus this time: once we’ve managed the distance, what then?
  • We looked at two basic skills and two ways in which they can be used:
    • Parrying: redirecting a movement without directly opposing its force.
      • Using our hands and forearms to parry straight punches to the face.
    • Blocking: directly opposing a movement forcefully, preventing it from continuing.
      • Using our forearms and elbows to block hook punches, slaps, etc to the side of the head.
      • Finding beneficial targets and ‘attacking the attack’: stepping into the movement, intercepting it and applying an elbow to the pectoral (or shoulder) and a forearm to the bicep.
  • Economy of motion: using the fence as a starting point, the hands don’t have to move very far in order to successfully intercept an attack.
• We looked at using the drop-step as a short, explosive movement that is useful both in intercepting an attack and in getting more mass behind a strike.
  • We also looked at pre-emptive striking (and the legality of it) and discussed some issues of the force continuum that must be considered.
• Striking with the Knuckles:
  • Jab (your lead hand), cross (your rear hand) and hook punches.
  • Power generation:
    • The drop step
    • The preceding drop step (elastic recoil)
    • Rotational movements (incorporating elastic recoil)
    • Maintaining relaxation and mobility in the shoulders while striking
  • A progressive intensity striking drill to ensure straight, strong wrists.
• Padwork with a ‘live’ partner:
  • Person A does pushups while Person B (wearing focus mitts) inconveniences them!
    • Distracting and annoying slaps, kicks, added resistance by pressing on Person A’s back, etc.
  • On command, Person A aggressively climbs their way up Person B while Person B tries to tread on them and kick them! This is more fun and less dangerous than it sounds, trust me…
  • Person A, standing, maintains control of Person B and moves Person B into position and strikes the pads that Person B presents at random timings and angles.
  • The pushups resume, and the drill continues…
  • This is a very enjoyable and yet exhausting drill where we accomplish a lot of things: we get very tired very quickly and do so in a situation of resistance: our partner is trying to make it difficult for us emotionally as well as physically so we learn to keep our focus on what we’re doing and avoid distractions. We learn how to get up from the floor in a dangerous situation safely and efficiently, we learn how to maintain control of an aggressive partner and we practice our striking too. We learn how to go from doing something else (in a position of disadvantage – lying down on the floor) to quickly and decisively acting on a stimulus beyond our control: the instructor shouting ‘GO!’ and our partner suddenly trying to tread on us and kick us while we get up.
• We also looked at some of the methods employed last week and the week before against an assault with a stick, and finished off with some percussive massage – Russian style. More than just being very relaxing and beneficial for stretching out and loosening off any tension we’ve built up in training, we learn a lot about striking someone and dealing with incoming strikes too, as well as breathwork and awareness of tension and relaxation. Very useful work.

Many thanks to all who came, it was a pleasure as always, and see you all next time!

-Josh Nixon

All the details of this class are on the Public Classes page up at the top. Your first session is FREE and all are welcome to come along and take part. Every session is beginner-friendly.