3 Count Sombrada

Hi Guys,

Because it's difficult to catch the movements mid flow, here's a few stills illustrating each position of the 3 Count Sombrada.

 I inside sweep against the angle 1 attack, I will follow it with an angle 4 strike

 My partner retreats his leg, with a palm down drop stick to counter my angle 4

I roof block another angle 1 he hits with after his drop stick defense

 I attack with the angle 1 and my partner defends with the inside sweep and angle 4

I counter his angle 4 with a palm up drop stick, notice I don't have to retreat the leg in this variation

My partner roof blocks my angle 1 attack

Sombrada drills are flowing and continuous, much like a circle it becomes difficult to determine where it starts and ends. As you can see from these stills there are a few attack and counter attacks that repeat in a loop. Once you understand each shape and position it becomes easy to flow and determine how you can start a Sombrada drill as there is more than one way.

See you in class guys, Oss!

Trapping workshop June 30th

Hi guys,

I'll be holding a 3+ hour workshop at the end of the month where we'll study how to trap, pin/immobilize your opponents arm to clear a path to hit!

We'll cover follow ups including how to set up traps as well as move from trapping to grappling. We'll also cover the straight blast that Vitor used on Wanderlei back in the day!

A fantastic resource for all things striking, there's a great write up on Fights Gone By about trapping and its use in Boxing and MMA.

Here are some of the techniques we'll be looking at, nothing fancy because the fancy stuff doesn't always work!

When:  12:30pm, Sunday June 30th

Where: Fulinkazan Gym, 114 Sunbridge Rd, Bradford, BD1 2NE

Open to all ages and levels

Cost is £15

See you in class!

Developing

Last week I had a marathon of Martial Arts, roughly 10 hours of training with the legendary Bob Breen at the Breen Instructor Camp over two days which was fantastic.

Being someone who doesn't like missing opportunities and always wanting to make the most of everything, I had also arranged a private training session with none other than CFS founder and Head Instructor, Guro David Onuma.

I've spoken before about how important it is to have a skilled instructor and to make the most of their teachings, on Sunday morning I walked in to the gym and started some warm ups and had a catch up with Guro David and got started with some Panantukan and trapping padwork, we then moved on to grappling and finished the session off with a light roll.

The thing about training with masters is their skill to teach you things when you are barely aware of them, Guro David had this way of letting me do things while rolling that increased my positional knowledge and overall movement, I've felt this before when sparring on the feet as well and it's a testament to his skill and knowledge and one of the many things that makes him as good as he is.

I am extremely proud that Guro David promoted me to Apprentice Instructor Level 1 in both Jun Fan/JKD and Filipino Martial Arts. This was completely unexpected and I thank him for all the time he has given me over the years and all he continues to teach me.

Oss!

B.I.G. Camp May 2013

This past weekend I was in my home town for another great weekend of training with the Breen Instructor Group. It was a fantastic weekend of technical and practical training with some of the most dedicated martial artists I know.

On Saturday Guro had us work the back sweep and pointed out the subtleties of finding it as well as more easily executing it. In true JKD spirit we covered many things from a few basic techniques and openings  and it was easy to see how the same shapes and positions offered themselves within boxing, knife and pummeling/clinch work.  

Almost like Matryoshka dolls the variations that Guro had us worked from key techniques just kept coming, but form the same source. I've always remembered what Guro has said about doing more with less and what we covered on the weekend with single stick and trapping was exactly that. 

I must admit one of the many highlights of the weekend was ending off the training on Saturday with cake Judy had brought along, which was superb!

I got to see and train with friends and share notes and had a fantastic weekend, looking forward to the next one!

A big thank you to everyone I partnered up with on the day, see you at Knife Day or the next B.I.G. weekend! Oss!

2013

Every year we make intentions to make improvements and do better than we did in the previous year. The fact is nothing gets better without working for the improvements we desire, whatever they may be.

We're starting the year off with hard work and will continue to work hard to make gains in all we do in the classes. We will be having fun, as always, and there will be a 4 hour seminar every quarter covering all areas (dates to follow).

Regular attendance along with additional training in seminars and any open mat sessions that are available will really make a difference to your game. There will be a lot more pictures and videos on the blog this year as well to help with training so check back soon.

As always, I'm here if you have any questions, suggestions or requests.



See you in class, Osss!