Getting out of an unfriendly handshake

Very interesting class last night. We worked on some self defense technique against someone who would grab your hand or your wrist, handshake style, i.e. his right hand grabbing my right hand. It's hard to put into words but basically the technique consists into bringing down my hand, for the sake of example here let's say it's the right hand that was grabbed, while twisting my body counterclockwise so that I kind of turn my back to my attacker while bringing my hand close to my lower back. Yeah, at first it is counterintuitive to turn your back to him, but the way it twists his hand, he gets at my mercy and I can hit him with a left elbow to the face, at which point he would probably let go of my hand and I can follow up with a combination with my right hand. Was pretty effective in practice...

We finished class with some work on our kicks. Our kicks have americanized names so I'll call them by what I remember them being called. The first we worked on was the spin around hook kick. You start wacing your opponent, swiftly turn clockwise (if you are going to kick with the right leg) and hit the hook kick while spinning. It was a lot of us looking like fools at first, then being woozy, then getting a bit better, but not by much. The second I think was called a spin around jumping reverse crescent kick. Kind of similar but with a jump added to it, as if the first one was not tough enough, heh. Anyway, we did them two by two with a partner holding a pad. Gave us a good workout.

Ring 12 and 4 is where we'll be

There's always something special to me when I make our entry into a competition official. To me it means there's no coming back, now you gotta get ready for it... Well, it's now official. We're both entered into the October 15 competition in Ste-Foy. There will be 228 different categories at that competitions and from the categories list, you can see that I will compete in categories #16 (weapons, 30-39, all underbelts) and #88 (traditional form, 30-39, advanced underbelts) while my son will compete in categories #8 (weapons, 9yo, all underbelts), #57 (traditional form, 9yo, intermediate underbelts), and #103 (fighting, 9yo, intermediate underbelts).

Even though rings 4 and 12 could seem far apart in numbers, they will be pretty close in distance, as you can see from this plan. Only one ring apart. I think that's the closest we've ever been in a competition, and maybe the closest I'd want us to be. We're not close enough that Andrew could get disturbed by me doing one of my kata right before him, while he's getting ready.

This competition will be even cooler as one of my reader has already confirmed that he will be competing. Yep, akarien, all new to the Nick Cerio's Kenpo style, has decided that he will compete. He will compete in the same ring as me, although he'll be a young puppy among the 30-39 crowd. ;) Good luck akarien!

FM