Day 4 CFIC
Greetings,
Today was a slow day in a way as we had mostly tactics and recap. It’s good that it’s not completely all out constantly. Like it says in the name of the course it’s also about being an instructor. When I come back from training I’ll be a sharper and stronger fighter but more importantly I’ll be a better teacher.
The day begun with trapping and tapping. These are ways of getting past someone’s guard so you can start working with attacks; trapping can tangle your opponents hands allowing you a moment where they are incapable of defending or counter attacking and tapping is something that is used in most ring sports to knock someone’s hands out of the way opening a path for your strikes. Both are quite fun to play with so this was a good start to the day – you’ll be seeing these in class soon.
Once we had finished working with these new tactics it was back to recap on slow fighting and how to teach it.
This is the fourth time I’ve been over this on the course but one of the key philosophies of Krav Maga is to be humble. I’ll always be a student no matter what rank I achieve and getting made to repeat the basics shouldn’t ever be seen a chore as its the basics that make all the moves like the triple somersault back spinning hook kick possible.
After we had finished running over the slow fighting drills Eyal told us to get suited up with our 360 suits (according to Eyal there have been wars that have started and finished in the time it takes us to get ready…) we moved to a smaller space to work on some CQB skills. In a nutshell it’s using your surroundings – in this case walls and corners – to your advantage. I was paired up with Jacek again and we both got some form of sick satisfaction using the wall to bash each others heads against. Good times! After this we worked with some grappling to escape holds and takedowns while pressed up against the wall. Most of these involve lots of butt wiggling and Jovan was inspiring us with some of his fancy moves (a little like Shakira). Once we had gotten used to these moves we were told to take off our helmets to practise headbutts against each other. Taking the helmet off first sounds like the wrong way around but that ways good way to train. Headbutts make for an excellent weapon when in close and Jovan was showing us how to use a headbutt to pin someone against a wall and cause maximum pain leaving you free to pummel them with your hands. It was really good training even if it means I’ll be eating soup for a few weeks.
After lunch Eyal taught a lecture on mental training. It was an in depth talk about different theories on focus, calmness and concentration and how to train these. Once we had listen to Eyal talk about these different ideas we were lead through some different meditation and breathing exercises. I actually use some breathing exercises normally so I’m used to doing them however these ones are a bit more powerful than I’m used to. Being calm and focused while fighting is massively important as it stops the brain from becoming overloaded with information leaving you free to plan you tactics out.
So that was today. Its always good to go back over the subjects that you’ve been taught as normally what happens is once you get home you think of questions or different ways to apply things so these recap sessions are a good opportunity to sort things out.
Anyhoo, that’s all I have for you so I’m off to watch some Buffy the Vampire Slayer to learn some new moves before sparring tomorrow.
Cheers, Sam
