Clubb Chimera

04.11.11 The basic junior course in self-protection came to an end today. After six weeks of intensive sessions the under 16s of Telford’s Kyushinka Martial Arts undertook their confirmation session/test. The course was designed to teach relavant personal security and high percentage combatives to youngsters and today’s session was designed to observe how much information had been retained. Having a highly individualistic approach to teaching Clubb Chimera Martial Arts is not concerned with perfect form or technique, rather evidence that […]

Image via Wikipedia Tonight we looked at sensitivity, initiation and responsiveness at stand-up and clinch range. We began with some pummeling than some light clinch sparring, bringing knees. Attention was then taken to hand striking. This involved a drill to encourage punching at close quarters. In principle the drill is not that dissimilar to wing chun’s chi sau.   We then began drilling reversals from the wall and also a self-defence application involving an eye gouge/headbutt combination. Taking the reversal […]

24.10.11. So, the grading is over and it is half-term. Time to look at what needs to be improved and where to new to begin. I put it around the group to pick some subjects. Both self-defence and MMA were requested. A senior student wanted more practice on knife defence and other students wanted to look at takedowns and submissions. So, I came up with a happy combination of all of these. When it comes to teaching defence against weapons […]

Image via Wikipedia Vagabond Warriors was another enjoyable session – full of hard work and a good energy. We began with an introduction to CCMA and Vagabond Warriors concepts, discussing the CSI (Clarification, Scepticism and Individuality) approach to training. Then we looked at both partner and solo warm-up exercises. For partner work we began with fence sensitivity drills – developing tacticle responses and target familiarization. This moved onto body barges to get the feel of hitting another human without the […]

Tonight saw a couple of firsts in CCMA's grading history. For the first time the grading was held straight after a regular class. This was due to October being a very busy month and our usual monthly hall booking being taken up the "Vagabond Warriors" seminar, a service that is growing all the time. The arrange ment worked out okay, as students had a whole hour to go over areas they weren't confident on. The next of these firsts was […]

Image via Wikipedia 10.10.11: This is the penultimate lesson before the grading. Next week’s lesson will be immediately followed by a grading, so in a way this is the last real lesson. It’s an opportunity to have a final check on who is eligible to grade and where small areas can be corrected. We began with some new specific warm-up exercises mixed in with the usual movements, several taken from western boxing, and then they were free to do their […]

Image by emilong via Flickr 04.10.11. Due to illness I was very grateful that Aaron O’Leary was able to cover my class last week. Aaron has a good background in boxing, Brazilian jiu jitsu and has attended various combatives seminars with me. The feedback I received from all my students was very positive and I looked forward to seeing what they had recalled from his special lesson on groundwork.   However, tonight it was important to review self-defence in order […]

Image by shakirfm via Flickr 30.09.11: Today was the the penultimate lesson of my children's self-defence course for Telford. The focus of this session was to up the pressure and to see students responded to a less than ideal training environment. Usually for various reasons a training area is kept clear, clean and open. However, this is obviously not the case for a likely self-defence situation. One key thing students need to understand is that fights travel and they will […]