Eskrima and ASP baton

My alarm went off at 4 am... I jumped out of bed and grabbed my energy drink form the fridge. The chilled carbohydrates coursed through my thought and left a warm feeling in my stomach as I eased back into the blankets. I fell asleep again for an hour or so before I started my morning routine. I have found that routine is the best thing to focus my mind before training. I picked up my fried before setting off for Emarentia dam.

As we arrived I took note of a large growing black mass of students in one corner of the parking lot. The Bloemfontein study group were there in full force and so were the usual suspects. My dad arrived to and started taking photos while we warmed up. We split into two groups and one half went to do ASP baton while we remained behind for Eskrima training.

We started off slowly with basic strikes and then moved on to blocks. We built up the count of continues strikes till we got up to 12 and trained both left and right arms. Footwork is very important in Eskrima and some found it easier than others. In the end we squared of against our partners and proceeded with the simple two stick drill. The drill isn’t simple at all and most of us struggled to get it going and keep it going. The sticks eventually started falling into place and it actually looks very impressive to see two opponents do the drill for a minute or two. We broke for lunch but not before I trained with a couple of other partners to get use to the drill. The footwork is important as well as getting the sticks in the correct positions after each strike.

After lunch we went over to the ASP baton training. Some said it got pretty boring after a while, but I refused to be intimidated and forced myself to keep an open mind. It wasn’t as elaborate as the Eskrima training, but let me tell you, the ASP is a dangerous weapon. The presenter is a body guard and he had a couple of stories about how he used the ASP in real live situations.

There are three basic opening movements with the ASP, downwards, upwards and forwards and each one has its advantages and disadvantages. The baton is used in pretty much the same manor that the 4^th kyu Jo is used and locks and breaks comes naturally with this weapon that can be used in both a lethal and nonlethal manner.

The Course was a huge success in my mind and all of us enjoyed it immensely. Thank you to Shidoshi Lee for organising the event, thank you Andre for teaching us Eskrima and thank you Chris for teaching us about the ASP baton.

Embrace the shadows.