I had Colby, Llyle, and Trevor tonight.

First hour I ran through 2 hands on the throat, near and far, from the side and the rear, finishing with a takedown. I then introduced/reviewed the inner wrist lock takedown in preparation for the Arnis knife defense. I also showed an afterthrow control that I particularly like after Tori performs the takedown. Right leg passes over uke's shoulder and steps behind uke's head, pushing the head forward. Tori kneels on left knee. Tori's right arm passes between tori's chest and uke's arm and grabs uke's hand to get it into a gooseneck, bending uke's elbow. Uke's arm should be in a wrist/shoulder lock over uke's head. Tori puts his left hand over his right and scoops uke's hand over the mat while shifting his weight back onto his left foot.

The Arnis knife defense was interesting. We worked on defense from a low lunge, a cross body slash, and an icepick attack. Initial principles are similar to the can-ryu knife defense: palms towards your face and use the bony part of the forearms to block while stepping forward @ 45 degrees. once blocked, the arms rotate inward to allow tori to grab uke's forarm, pulling it in close to tori's body. From here. tori's right hand is grabbing at uke's wrist. Tori positions the bony part of his forearm on the side of the knife's blade and bends uke's wrist in similar to an inner wristlock takedown. Tori then, with his right forearm, pushes through on the knife blade, causing it to come out between uke's thumb and index finger and drop.

Another variation from the same entrance is instead of turning the knife-wielding hand into an inner wristlock takedown, Tori uses his right hand to pass between his chest and uke's arm, under it up the far side and over the top back to his chest. In this motion, the forearm is maintaining contact along the side of the blade and rotates it out of uke's hand and traps it between tori's arm and chest after the disarm is complete. This disarm also works well for a baton disarm.

These are more in the "could know" or "might know" categories of can-ryu. The meat and potatoes of knife defense was covered on Monday and re-emphasized again in Wednesday's class.

I'm looking forward to playing with some of these techniques for baton disarms. Next month!

I broke class into two parts tonight:

Part one was when the juniors were still present. After breakfalls, we worked on bear hugs from the front and rear, over and under the arms, lifting and not lifting and finishing with either an ankle-knee takedown, step on foot push shoulder, or a takedown to the rear.

After the juniors and their parents left, I lead a class on basic knife defense. This class was prompted due to the number of recent stabbings. I lead off with a small display of common knives and other types of knives that wouldn't normally be considered 0 box cutters, xacto knives, scissors, scalpel/craft knives, and some pictures of belt buckle knives. I emphasized that everyone knows how to use a knife and made the analogy of people cutting their food. I also emphasized that there is NO defense against a knife and that you will get cut. I then did a demo with Sensei Mariedke and emphasized that I have no formal training with a knife while Sensei Mariedke does have formal Arnis training. I then proceeded to stab her about 6 or 7 times. I also emphasized that if someone pulls a knife and demands your money, give it to them. your life is not worth the $20 in your wallet.

I then showed the windshield wiper blocks and the concept of turning your palms towards you to not expose the soft tissue int he forarms. We worked the windshield wiper blocks from a low stab and a high stab, with each block, stepping forward at a 45 degree angle and running through with NO hesitation.

After about 10-15 minutes of this, I went on to some light "reality" drills and emphasized that this is the last ditch thing to try only when you're cornered and all other options have run out. Performing forearm blocks and when the opportunity is right to grab control of the knife wielding hand, step in and bring the arm in close as if you were going to do an inner winding throw, give a few elbows to the BPO, and then step through with an outter reap takedown and escape.

At the end of class i reviewed and re-emphasized that there is no defense for a knife. All of the fancy demo techniques are just that: demo techniques, and will not work.

On Wednesday's class we'll probably review some of the basics and then Sensei Mariedke is going to teach some of the Arnis technqiues for knife defense and disarms.

I attended a 2-day seminar with Shihan Steve Hiscoe at Sensei Daniel Verzotti's dojo in Airdrie on the weekend of November 24-25, 2007. Shihan Steve covered the fundamentals of Can-Ryu and knife defense. On Saturday we focused more on the self preservation aspect of Can-Ryu while Sunday we worked on knife defense and more of the traditional techniques of Jiu jitsu.