Manhattan DBMA- Central Park, NYC 9/17/03
We started class with a variation of the Prison Riot Drill- I had everyone do Carenza double stick. During the Carenza, I moved with them and encouraged the use of Lameco 5 combinations, Inosanto Running Drills, Snaggletooth structure and whatever else they had been training in the class recently.
My objective of the night was to work Single Stick striking combinations in preparation for the Atienza Blade Simulator this weekend and for the November Gathering (both Amal and I are planning on fighting). To get everyone into the proper mindset, we next worked Lameco 5, righty and lefty. Remember, on this one, "if your feet stop.... your heart stops!" (Guro Crafty)
The next step was to work several combinations. It's good to use Actionflex for this so you can actually hit the Metrinome. This was some material that Raw Dog showed me recently. He said he trained this material almost exclusively before his first full contact stickfights. I'd tell you what the combinations are, but then there would be no surprises come November!
Next we did two combinations that entered directly from the intercept for Inosanto/ Lacoste Angles 1 & 2. And lastly, I had them make up a combination of their own. After that was Actionflex application. Here I gave them random angles off of which to work the combinations. Depending on range and preference, the 4-7 variations we worked all came out.
Duels- for about 15 minutes we rotated through Actionflex duels working on maintaining a tighter guard Single Stick and using the combinations to overload our opponents and avoid getting hit ourselves.
We also worked on using our Perception rather than our Senses or pure athletisicm. This is material we touched on at the recent Tactical Awareness/ Sayoc Kali Seminar in Ocean City, Maryland (AKA Shawny Sama). You should see Carl Atienza hit this zone when he fights. F'n amazing! After the first 30 seconds of each duel, we tended to fall more into Thinking than Perceiving however.... more work needed here!
Some high level observations took place during these duels and we were able to give each other a lot of feedback with which to work. Most of all, it was a lot of fun! I came away from that class feeling great, as I think all of us there did.
Woof!
Dog Russ