Busy week...

Been very busy these past several days both at work and at home, hence this late post.  School holidays have always been a busy time in my line of work and I have a couple of much-delayed tasks at home that needed to get done.

Decided to install a different car stereo in my car over the weekend. What I thought to be a 30-minute job turned out to be two hours! This particular car entailed removing the WHOLE dashboard front just to change the stereo.  Well, after two hours and bloody fingers and arms, I managed to do what I set out to do. Have also managed to leave 2 screws and a fridge magnet (used to try and pick up THE two screws) rattling inside the dashboard.  And then I found out that I couldn’t get a radio signal because I forgot to plug the antenna. Oh well...

Last week, Kevi n drilled the S mount and how to get an arm bar from it. Also further drilling on double leg takedowns and sweeping.  This takedown variation requires the front/lead leg to come in deep between your partner’s legs for the takedown sweep.  Same procedure as before, i.e., grabbing the back of the legs and driving forward. This is good because I wasn’t able to attend the previous week when Kevin first taught it.

Thursday, Dante took the class, and as par normal in his class, we spent some time in learning judo takedowns. He taught the concept of “Judo eyes”, wherein you keep your eyes on your partner’s base of throat as you manoeuvre for a better position/set up for takedown. This way, your partner will not be aware of your intentions and keeping  your eyes focused on this location allows you to see your partner’s movements (limbs, body) as a whole.

We also did arm bar drills, which is always good. Drilling makes the techniques more familiar to your musculoskeletal and cognitive system.

At the end of the class, I found myself stuck in the parking lot again. The Croydon Martial Arts Academy is housed in a building that is shared by the supermarket chain, Lidl. The academy is upstairs and Lidl is downstairs, and uses the parking area as a loading bay for deliveries, which happens every Wednesdays and Thursdays (probably everyday but I only use the parking  lot on these days when I go to class) AT AROUND  9 pm. Elliot tells me that he found about this the hard way and decided then to shell out £2.50 to park on the road. I’m too stingy for that so I pay the price – every single time...

I guess as a consolation, some of the other guys and Dante were stuck, as well, and we just chatted away until the delivery guys finished their business.  Good conversation we had, though, with topics ranging from Kevin being likened to a modern-day Bruce Lee by Dante himself,  about resilience, and to how martial arts in general is perceived by different people.  Guy asks about spirituality in martial arts and Dante replied, “There is no spirituality in smashing someone’s face in. That is brutality. Spirituality comes from the years of doing martial arts but choosing not to use those knowledge and skills you have learned unless you truly have to.”

As a bonus, Dante demonstrated some Temeki  Aikido techniques that would be handy against someone with a knife. I found this interesting as a lot of these moves are similar to Escrima, which I have done in the past.