Sensei Brien was giving us a little break from blenders today and had us work on some ground based self defense drills.

Warm ups with stances…

We started class doing some stationary stance training.  From there, we did horse stance with elbow strike into a front stance.  Next came, horse stance with elbow strike, leg up in front, like a slow knee strike, then step down into a front stance with reverse punch.  For the next drill, we did the same as the last drill but we did a front snap kick instead of a knee strike.

Quick hands….

For this drill, you block and front punch and throw as roundhouse punch at the same time.  As your arm blocks the punch like a rising block you turn it into a roundhouse punch to your attacker.

For the next drill, you move your head out of the way of front punch and throw roundhouse punch.  It like bobbing your head to the side and throwing a wide punch as your move.

For the next drill, we kept our hands near the center line of our body and blocked jabs and reverse punches as fast as possible.

Fight from the ground….

Sensei had us each get a partner with one of us on the floor and the other standing.  The one on the floor was to keep the standing person away and the standing person was to trap the person on the floor.  This drill took a huge amount of energy and some really tough legs and knees.  It was fun but my knees were really sore.

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