As I posted in my blog earlier this week, I have received permission to test for my white belt. In anticipation of my testing day, which is tomorrow, I went with Chad to his lesson last night to get in a little more practice. Master Eric was in the middle of class when we arrived, so we put our stuff away and I went to play with Spike for a bit.
At 7:30 we bowed in, and waited for Master Eric, who was still a little busy, to begin our lesson. After a few minutes it kinda dawned on me that I am almost a white belt. I know the basic warm up sequence by now, and seeing as between Chad and I, I technically have seniority, it becomes my responsibility to lead warmups in the absence of an instructor. We did:
* 100 half-jumping jacks
* wrist stretches
* side stretches
* back stretches
* neck stretches
* arm circles
Then we moved into technique review.
We reviewed:
*Wrist grabs (cross hand and same side)
* Wrist locks (center, and s lock)
* Brush trap strike
* Knife hand, ridge hand, punches, palm strikes, and elbow strikes
At this point, we had reached the end of what Chad had been formally taught and I went to Master Eric for guidance. He said I had done very well, and when I asked how to proceed, he actually asked for my input. I suggested moving to working on choke escapes, both from the front choke and the rear naked choke. Surprisingly, Master Eric suggested I begin teaching just that, and I did. When Master Eric came over to see our work, he suggested a few other techniques.
For the two handed front choke, he suggested sweeping over with one arm to the open side, without necessarily grabbing and peeling, as just the momentum of me moving my body and dropping the shoulder will force them off. He also had us striking vulnerable points to cause them to release, or sweeping off and then going to an arm bar. Using brush trap strike on one of the arms as it came toward us proved successful too.
For the rear naked choke, Master Eric had us extend our awareness, so that when we saw the arm start coming around our neck, we could throw up the arm on the elbow side of the choke to prevent it from fully constricting our airway. If they do get in too quickly for that, and they are clamped too tightly to use the standard peeling off maneuver, wrap both arms vertically around the arm, and pull down to create an airway, then peel off.
The choke work led into practicing striking at an opponent who is behind me and not directly visible. We practiced striking over the shoulder. Both with a backfist, and a new strike called the Ox Jaw strike, where the striking surface is the back of your wrist when the wrist is curled in toward the elbow. Elbow strikes were also covered.
We spent some time going over vulnerable striking points that can help put your opponent at a disadvantage.
* Eyes
*Nose
* Infra Orbital Nerve
*Ear
*Brachial plexus
* Solar Plexus
We defined the three areas of space, moving outward from the closest, which is directly around our chairs and bodies, is Personal Space. Next outward is known as kicking range, and is Public Space. Anything further doesn't lend itself to anything other than verbal confrontation, and does not require the use of our martial arts skills.
The last thing we did before calling it quits was to discuss what to do if our opponent has a weapon and we don't. In the case of an automatic gun, we need to distract, and then grab the gun itself to stop the loading mechanism from functioning. From there we can turn the attacker's wrist over and use the pressure point on the underside to disarm. A knife is different, because in order to prevent it from being used you must disable the hand that controls it as it has no automatic mechanism. From there, the process is the same.
Then it was time to finish the lesson, and Master Eric also gave Chad permission to test. Given how well last night went, I know we are ready. I will update tomorrow with how my actual test went.
Later,
Misha
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