MAP Meet Cardiff August 2003
By Andrew Melrose
Background
Well in June myself aka White Wizard and John aka THEGREAT1 decided that
we were going to go down to Wales to watch the rugby world cup warm up match
between Scotland and Wales at this point we didn't know where we would be
staying so I posted on MAP looking for ideas for accommodation. Paul aka
Morphus gave me a link for a hotel he had worked in before also he offered
us the chance to come and train with him at his CKD class. At the same point
in time I got to know Sarah aka Kyokushin_Girl on the site she said that
she was going to go down to train with Paul at some point but hadn't managed
it yet. So the idea came up for us all to meet up and take up the opportunity
to get to know some of our fellow members.
Before the Class
I have to say I was pretty nervous at this point I had spoken to both Paul
and Sarah a lot online but its never something I imagined myself doing going
to meet someone I know from the internet but that's the great thing about
a community like Martial arts planet lots of good interesting people on
it that you would like to meet. I had spoken to Paul online in the week
before I left he seemed quite nervous about the whole thing this seemed
strange to me as I'm no expert in the Martial arts only having started doing
Lau Gar 5 or 6 months ago. Then again it would be strange to have people
come in who may have totally different methods and don't give your methods
a chance. I went there with and open mind to learn how other people do things
not to go and criticise people for doing things differently.
We arranged to meet up at Cardiff train station before the class Paul came to pick us up as we didn't really know where we were going so that was a big help. John and I arrived pretty early due to our lack of knowledge about buses in Wales apparently one takes 45 minutes longer than another. So we were waiting outside the train station me in high visibility clothes (Orange Rangers shirt with my name on it) so they could find us. Paul turned up first as Sarah missed the bus silly girl. My first impressions of him were that he was a nice guy quite talkative I felt the meeting went well considering we didn't know each other at all we then waited for Sarah. My first impression of Sarah was that she seemed quite quiet but then again she said she would be. So we all jumped into Paul's car and went out to the leisure centre where the class would be held we arranged to meet up early so we could get to know each other a bit which was a good idea. I have to say on the drive there it looked a pretty nice place to be honest but I was told it was quite rough. We got to the leisure centre and since the bar wasn't open we went and sat in the café bit had a cup of coffee. We chatted about MA surprisingly enough what we had done what we would like to do. Paul showed us a lot of the CKD syllabus and some of the ju jitsu that he does too. What I thought was particularly good was that he took the time to tell us what was good and bad about CKD its always good when people inform you of the bad points of what their art. At this point we all became more at ease with each other I think. We had a laugh about things in general. Paul's sister also came in she is an assistant instructor too so we chatted some more and then the class was about to begin.
The Class
So we went off to get changed etc then we went up to the room where it was
held the class in before us was running slightly late so we had to wait
a while seemed to be a good few kids there which was nice to see also. Had
a good game of odd one out with me in my black suit and Sarah in her white
gi you'll never spot us in the photos honest. We started of with a lot of
stretching very different to the way we do it. It was yoga based stretching
I quite liked it actually felt the stretch right though all the body I lost
track of how long we did it for to be honest but it seemed like a while.
We then moved onto some pad work to work on Cardio a bit we just had to
keep hitting the pad as hard as you can till they say stop really gets the
heart pumping that's for sure. We also did some more drills on the pad just
to work up a sweat. At this point the class separated into the kids the
adults and us Paul took us aside and showed us the basic techniques of CKD.
We started with the stance which was very different to Lau Gar but for reasons that will be discussed later. The basic stance involves you standing with you feet about shoulder width apart at a 45 degree angle your back hand is at about jaw height roughly and your front hand is slightly lower than that. Paul then showed us how to do back punches and front punches, which are very different in CKD to anything I have seen. I wont go into full details here as well I'm not the best person to explain but it involves a lot of hip and body movement the principles behind it are to use your whole body to generate power to the punch and not to hyper extend the elbow to avoid injury. We then moved onto the basic blocks of CKD once again body movement is used here a bit there are similar ideas to Lau Gar we did high middle and low block. Sarah showed the Kyokushin equivalents and I showed the Lau Gar equivalents. We then moved onto the front kick which is very different to the Lau Gar front kick as it isn't a snap kick it involves you kicking while on the ball of you balancing foot which is difficult when done slow but becomes easier when doing it faster.
At this point the kids class finished up and the adults all came together we all partnered up for some more pad work this time we were given different situations to deal with the pad holder moving forward pad holder standing there ground and having to move them back etc. Next came the slightly disastrous bit of my trip we were doing a drill where we stood with our backs to the pad holder we were then to be nudged fall to the ground get back up and attack as quick as possible the first couple of times I did this were great my sidekicks were pretty devastating to be honest then I switched foot to work my right leg as its weaker unfortunately for me I tried to kick before my left leg was ready to support and all my weight went on the ankle didn't actually hurt at the time but I knew it was going to this was especially ironic as Paul had mentioned that they try to make CKD training injury free we had a good laugh about that anyway. So I sat out the rest of the class with a gel pack and my leg in the air. I only really missed the grappling stuff at the end which was only 15 minutes of course I would like to have done it but better resting the ankle I took this opportunity to get a few photos we then lined up at the end for the traditional stuff which confused me a lot admittedly but it usually does. At this point Paul showed us some of the CKD forms I even managed to do our first form not totally in correct stance as that may have killed it mind you but the hand movements were there which is the main thing Sarah also showed us her basic form it was good to see techniques from different arts at the same time. We then got some group photos and the class was over.
After the event
We all actually lost track of time at this point and Sarah missed her train
and we missed our bus but it wasn't too bad we waited with Sarah while John's
auntie came to pick us up the saint that she is just after driving back
from holiday too J. So we all said our goodbyes. It was a great night my
ankle did look like a tennis ball but these things happen and its okay now
only took a week to recover not bad even if I do say so myself. I will definitely
visit again if I am in the area, which I very much hope I will be. Paul
took the time to set-up a class that would help us understand the ideas
behind CKD and get a grip of some of the basics I very much appreciate the
time he took to both prepare for our coming and picking us up from the station.
I gained a lot from the visit an understanding of how different arts work
as well as meeting new friends thanks to Paul, Sarah and all the people
at the class that night I very much enjoyed it.
Andrew
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