What to call it?

I need some sort of pithy title for our freestyle training session posts. I’ll have to work on that. Anyhow, I met with Tornado last night in the park. It was raining lightly but we found a good tree which worked to shelter us. I can honestly say I’ve practiced martial arts in the rain now! All I need is Steven Segal to appear and ask me to snatch the cheeseburger from his hand and my training will be complete.

Since we do not have any of the equipment that my kung fu school has it’s hard doing speed training. Plus, I promised to teach him some hand techniques that are not found in taekwondo. So last night as part of the warm-up we practiced a very basic sticking/trapping drill that works against a punch or grab. Since part of the drill is to stick and grab just like in chin na it was a good lead-in to our locks.

We also covered a kung fu/ chin na throw which is a varriation of small wrap hand 1. In order of flow:

1. From a cross hand grab (right to right) small circle your hand clockwise around attacker’s hand then extend to your right. This is a basic breakaway escape from a wrist grab.

2. Build on that same breakaway by stepping in to your attacker and getting your left knee behind his right leg. At the same time shoot/extend your left arm across his high chest (throat in real situation). Then expand your chest. Doing so uproots attacker and dumps him.

3. The third option is just to execute small wrap hand one (28 seconds in).

A very basic beginner example that shows the depth of chin na. It also shows how the Chinese martial arts focus on flowing from one technique to another.

The other lock covered was a reveiw of forward wrist press. It was new for Tornado so it took some time to teach. Worse still there are only two of us so I cannot demonstrate it on another person so he can watch. I did e-mail a former school member to see if he’d be interested in chin na. So far I have not heard back from him but it would be nice to have a third person so we shall see.

Past that we reviewed the jab, then I taught him a thrusting knife-edge throat strike and a basic finger strike to the eyes. The latter we practiced first on pads then on a tree. FYI this is not a karate or taekwondo finger strike where you’d keep your fingers rigid. Rather, the key is to learn how to flex them on a hard surface. I was taught on a board but a tree worked just as well.

~BCP