Andy Murray
28-Jun-2002, 01:51 AM
..............leaving his friends in the Rebel Alliance to face certain knowledge, Luke Skywalker pilots his X' Wing fighter to Coruscant.....a small insignificant planet in the Dagobah system. He seeks the Jedi Master known as Yoda, though he has no idea what he will find when he gets there....................
Well I can tell you that Yoda is alive, well and teaching Jeet Kune Do in the Merseyside area of England. Dave Green, known to you all as Yoda on the forum was kind enought to invite me down to train with him, and experience his JKD.
Now just in case you think I am some sort of Bill Gates who fly's round the world in a Helicopter, popping in to train with anyone he feels like, this is not the case. I am a mere Sales Rep, who travels the UK doing around 1,500 miles a week, and fitting in whatever training I can. I love Chinese Martial Arts, but I have trained with some JKD guys off and on over the years.
The class I attended was to be two hours of 'stick' work, followed by an hour of grappling. Dave asked me what I knew of sticks ( very little), and then kicked off with a warm up. We warmed up the wrists, elbows and joints using the flowing strikes of the Arnis system. Drills and sequences were gradually introduced, but always at the right pace. There was sufficient time spent on each subject before moving on. I was never left feeling bored, yet I never felt rushed through either.
Movement patterns were shown in three's and sixes and twelves, leaving me wondering whatever happened to the metric system in the FMA. These were gradually increased in complexity, to just short of the point that my brain wanted to give in with an 'INSUFFICIENT STORAGE CAPACITY' message.
Having ascertained my standard, or lack of it, I was paired off for single stick work with a partner. We ran through twelve basic strikes, basic defences for six of those and Dave was good enough to spread some jam on our bread n butter, by showing us four 'strips' and a couple of nasty compliance pinches with the stick.
Two hours passed like ten minutes.
The mats were dragged out, and we were paired off with people of similar build/experience for our grappling session. The last time I got as close and personal with another human being , it was with the wife, and that was a very long time ago I can tell you. My first partner was a Wing Chun player. I think we quite amused each other, as we seemed to be having a lot of the same ideas, and were using our arms as feelers for an opening. Once I was thoroughly exhausted, Dave jumped on me, and proceeded to gently (thanks), thoroughly and efficiently show me how little I knew about grappling. I was then paired off with Russ (another WingChunner), who was a little easier on me. I thought I was going to make it to the end of the class with all my limbs intact but no, while messing around with Russ, and basically relying on the fact that I was a little stronger and more compact, Dave came over and started coaching Russ. Now I had no idea why Dave was telling Russ to move his left foot there, or his right hand another place or whatever, until I found myself sitting with a silly grin on my face having been choked out by some sort of thigh guillotine manouvre. It took a couple of minutes for me to remember why I was there. Apparently I was supposed to 'tap out'. I wish someone had told me.
Dave has gathered a nice bunch of guys round him. You can tell a lot about an Instructor by the types of students he has, and I can assure you that Dave's students do him proud. If you ever get the chance to train with Dave you should. Information is put across at your pace, and with a complete absence of ego.
I found Dave to be knowledgable, realistic, practical, respectful, open to suggestion and helpful
I would like to finish of the post by saying that I hope to train with Dave again, and that I wish him the very best of fortune in the MA and everything he aspires to do.
I wish he was as little as Yoda, cos then I might have a chance with the grappling thing.
AndyM
P.S. I hate grappling. I hate pain, I hate sweat, armpits and body odour too. It's just not nice!:)
Well I can tell you that Yoda is alive, well and teaching Jeet Kune Do in the Merseyside area of England. Dave Green, known to you all as Yoda on the forum was kind enought to invite me down to train with him, and experience his JKD.
Now just in case you think I am some sort of Bill Gates who fly's round the world in a Helicopter, popping in to train with anyone he feels like, this is not the case. I am a mere Sales Rep, who travels the UK doing around 1,500 miles a week, and fitting in whatever training I can. I love Chinese Martial Arts, but I have trained with some JKD guys off and on over the years.
The class I attended was to be two hours of 'stick' work, followed by an hour of grappling. Dave asked me what I knew of sticks ( very little), and then kicked off with a warm up. We warmed up the wrists, elbows and joints using the flowing strikes of the Arnis system. Drills and sequences were gradually introduced, but always at the right pace. There was sufficient time spent on each subject before moving on. I was never left feeling bored, yet I never felt rushed through either.
Movement patterns were shown in three's and sixes and twelves, leaving me wondering whatever happened to the metric system in the FMA. These were gradually increased in complexity, to just short of the point that my brain wanted to give in with an 'INSUFFICIENT STORAGE CAPACITY' message.
Having ascertained my standard, or lack of it, I was paired off for single stick work with a partner. We ran through twelve basic strikes, basic defences for six of those and Dave was good enough to spread some jam on our bread n butter, by showing us four 'strips' and a couple of nasty compliance pinches with the stick.
Two hours passed like ten minutes.
The mats were dragged out, and we were paired off with people of similar build/experience for our grappling session. The last time I got as close and personal with another human being , it was with the wife, and that was a very long time ago I can tell you. My first partner was a Wing Chun player. I think we quite amused each other, as we seemed to be having a lot of the same ideas, and were using our arms as feelers for an opening. Once I was thoroughly exhausted, Dave jumped on me, and proceeded to gently (thanks), thoroughly and efficiently show me how little I knew about grappling. I was then paired off with Russ (another WingChunner), who was a little easier on me. I thought I was going to make it to the end of the class with all my limbs intact but no, while messing around with Russ, and basically relying on the fact that I was a little stronger and more compact, Dave came over and started coaching Russ. Now I had no idea why Dave was telling Russ to move his left foot there, or his right hand another place or whatever, until I found myself sitting with a silly grin on my face having been choked out by some sort of thigh guillotine manouvre. It took a couple of minutes for me to remember why I was there. Apparently I was supposed to 'tap out'. I wish someone had told me.
Dave has gathered a nice bunch of guys round him. You can tell a lot about an Instructor by the types of students he has, and I can assure you that Dave's students do him proud. If you ever get the chance to train with Dave you should. Information is put across at your pace, and with a complete absence of ego.
I found Dave to be knowledgable, realistic, practical, respectful, open to suggestion and helpful
I would like to finish of the post by saying that I hope to train with Dave again, and that I wish him the very best of fortune in the MA and everything he aspires to do.
I wish he was as little as Yoda, cos then I might have a chance with the grappling thing.
AndyM
P.S. I hate grappling. I hate pain, I hate sweat, armpits and body odour too. It's just not nice!:)