Weightless Tuesday

As I left home I was dragging my feet a little bit. At the office I moved down to the fourth floor from the tenth floor and I immediately swapped the lift for the stairs. In the past continued stair climbing yielded very positive results and I was keen to again become the stair master and this was the perfect opportunity, except I was tired in class. No pain, no gain. I smiled and grid my teeth as always.

We did the plank as always and then some stretches. We did some bag work after which we did something we haven’t done for a long time. We made two rows with bags on each side. Then each student would pass through the gauntlet striking or kicking each bag. I remembered the last time I did the gauntlet I sprained my thumb so I was more careful and mindful as I went through. I then watched the other students go through the gauntlet. Most of the junior students were attacking the bags with such ferocity and some moves seemed risky even.

We then broke up into our syllabus groups and me and my partner decided to focus on gun work. The gun retention techniques are 6^th kyu requirements and I was happy to revise my moves for the upcoming grading. The main idea behind gun retention is that the gun needs to be against the body. If the attacker is a meter or two away, they won’t work. This being said the next thing is that your hands needs to be as close to the weapon as possible and you need to distract the attacker both verbally and visually, maybe pointing to your wallet and pleading for your life. When you decide to go for the grab, a wind (forward) movement will bring you next to the opponent with your hands in the same position as his. We refer to this as mirroring. Once in this position, you can step back and twist the gun either out of his hands or move past him with a wrist lock to taking him to ground.

The important thing once you have the weapon under control is to keep pointing it at the ground and away from your body.

We closed the class with Kata dante and we parted ways.

Embrace the shadows.