Sunday, January 22, 2012

A Karate Lesson in Self-Defense on a Typical Snow Day

Yesterday was a snow day.  Well, it would have been had there been school on a Saturday.  I opened the dojo at 9:30 am and prepared for the 10 am class.  It was great to see that some of our students were up early and ready to train in spite of the 5 inches of snowfall.  A few students expressed how excited they were to get out early, get some karate training in and then head out for a day of sledding.  This sparked a discussion on self-defense.  Last year there were two serious accidents in our area on a local hill here in the Hamptons.  It is a very popular hill for the kids in our area to get in some sledding. Because of the accidents last year, we discussed how staying focused and paying attention can help to keep us safe.  We went on to chat about how we can turn a fun activity in a dangerous situation by sledding off the trail or carelessly sledding off snow piled jumps.  The kids understood the dangers of piling too many kids on one sled, or sledding into a group of people. We continued to discuss some important safety rules for sledding as the students contributed to the discussion.  I am very proud of my students as they continue to be safe and aware in all situations and their everyday lives.  This is our self-defense and by continuing the dialogue with our karate students-this is how we avoid potentially dangerous situations.  
Sensei!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

We Love BJJ at Epic Martial Arts-EAST!




Our young Karate students are so excited to get into a little grappling.  We are so lucky to have the guys from NYC Clockwork Jiu Jitsu training at Epic Martial Arts. These athletes are part of our team.  They always contribute to our Martial Arts program by giving back to our students.  

In this video, the children are learning some cool BJJ drills, like "shrimping the guard" and "escaping the full mount and escaping the guard".  The video is a little long, but I'll be sure to shorten the next one for our viewers. Peter thinks he talks too much- I disagree with him on that! Good Stuff Epic MA Team!

HamptonsKarate.com

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Imitation Is the Highest Form Of Flattery!


I watch a lot of videos and read even more blogs on the subject of martial arts training.  I am always picking up new and old training methods and adapting them to my classes at Epic Martial Arts.  I have always found that most of the techniques can be broken down for the beginner student yet still be challenging for the more advanced student.  This video demonstrates basic and realistic self defense techniques.  These are techniques that I teach on a regular basis, but I never put them together in this sequence until I watched two black belts working this drill on thenewwaynetwork.com  One of the black belts was a 6th degree and the other was in training for his 4th degree graduation test!  These guys have some serious martial arts experience between the two of them.  

In this video our beginner students are working a straight palm strike followed by a rear leg push kick and finishing it off with a round kick to the leg.  I started them on the heavy bag, then moved them on to striking pads and eventually added some movement.  I am looking forward to taking this same drill and working it with my younger students. Seems like I will be making another video soon of this same drill with our kids karate students at Epic Martial Arts in Sag Harbor NY.