First class back after the holidays.

I worked about 10-15 minutes on the defensive stance: getting into the defensive stance, foot/hand/body positioning, and walking. Illustrated the stability of the defensive stance vs a horse stance and the arm bending demo of a punch with the fist sideways vs at a 45 degree angle.

Tied two skipping ropes together end-to-end and had the students work on walking and ducking under the rope while keeping posture and looking forward and keeping the hands up. After we worked on the jab and cross. some shadow boxing to work coordination with the hands and feet and then some punches to the focus mitts.

Techniques: Thumb lock from a lapel grab, thumb lock from a lapel grab turning it into an inner wrist-lock takedown and a control (student's choice).

I then reviewed bear hugs lifting off the ground from the front & rear, over & under arms and full nelson before fully applied, fully applied, and fully applied while pushing head down. We did a few basic escapes from each and then started working on variations.

Class last night was fairly small. Kyle was helping Sensei Mariedke with the juniors and I ended up working with Dan one on one. Dan just received his yellow belt about 2 weeks ago.

I started off by introducing him to the 12 open hand strikes: palm heel to the nose, slaps to the head, palm heel to the chin/jaw, forearm to the brachial plexus origin, forearm across the chest, and punch to the solar plexus.

I emphasized for the forearm to the brachial plexus origin that you do not remain in the same position as for the previous 6 strikes, but you have to step to the side and enter the strike on an angle, otherwise you tend to skim off the target and do not get an effective strike as well as losing time on target. Also emphasized extending the fingers to make the forearm more rigid for this strike.

For the punch to the solar plexus, i emphasized turning the fist such that the knuckle of the index finger is pointing up and the wrist is tilted forward slightly as if you were throwing a glass of water. I showed Dan how this hand position allows the fist to fit in underneath the rib cage without touching bone and by tilting the hand forward, the knuckle puts more pressure on the solar plexus.

When teaching these 12 strikes, I did them in groups of two (one technique, left and right hand strikes). We would start from the beginning and repeat each strike 3 or 4 times before adding in the next two strikes. After we did all 12, i donned the focus mitts and gave Dan the opportunity to perform the open hand slaps at full power, emphasizing the biomechanics and form of the hips and feet as well as the strike.


Next we worked on the Nelsons:
Full Nelson before it is fully applied
Full Nelson fully applied
Full Nelson pushing head down
Side Nelson

Full Nelson before it is fully applied
Simultaneously, as you feel the hands coming up under your arms, drop your body weight and trap uke's arms between your ribs and your arms. Shin scrape or foot stomp as a distraction, then attack uke's left hand. Grab uke's index and middle fingers with your left hand and apply a finger lock (emphasized pointing the finger and how this changes the fulcrum position). From here we had three different finishes:

1. Break fingers or keep the control, step into a knee-ankle take-down,

2. Keep pressure on the fingerlock and turn out of the hold (to tori's left) to the 1.5 position. From here, while keeping control of the hand, tori can execute a knee or kick to the lateral femoral, and then escape,

3. Keep pressure on the fingerlock and turn out to tori's left, lifting uke's hand up over his shoulder and then bringing his hand down, off-balancing uke onto his heels and taking him down backwards. After the breakfall, I showed Dan how to turn uke over from his back onto his stomach by keeping the pressure on the fingers and just bringing the fingerlock across the chest. To finish, place the knee of the leg closest to uke's head into uke's back between the shoulder blades (keeping on your toes in case you need to stand up quickly) and bringing the hand behind uke's back in a hand-cuffing position. Added in the verbal commands: separate your feet, ankles on the ground, arm out, hand up.

Full Nelson fully applied.

Again, drop body weight. This time, knuckle punches to the back of uke's hands to losen the grip, and then with your left hand, feel for uke's fingers and peel them back into a finger lock. From this point, the commonality of technique of Can-Ryu is evident as we did the same three followups as above.

Full Nelson Pushing head Down

Two variations:

1. Similar to those above, but as body weight drops, you put your forearm across your forehead to prevent your head from being snapped forward. Foot stomps and shin scrapes are done as distractions. After the pressure reduces, the technique is the same as the full nelson fully applied.

2. As above, drop body weight and resist the head push with your forearm. Suddenly, tori will stop resisting and bend forward, going with the headpush, twisting his hips out of the way and performing a groin strike. From here, the followups are the same as full nelson fully applied.

Side Nelson

Basic escape: drop body weight into horse stance and simultaneously, grab uke's arm around the elbow and pull down (this is an attack, not a passive grab) and tuck your chin in. uke should be off-balanced forward as well as sideways because of the arm pull. Step in with the outside leg so that it is under your hips for balance and then perform foot stomps and/or shin scrapes. Elbows to the brachial plexus origin can also be done and then a modified inner winding take-down/throw or a step on foot-push shoulder takedown.