Why do we train?
Well for me personally I took up lifting heavy stuff and challenging my body with endurance challenges as a way to improve my performance in the martial arts.
I took up martial arts because I took a beating or two at school.
Later in life as I took to travelling, I began working on nightclub doors, where I not only got to test my training but I also got to see why it was necessary in the first place.
I’ve seen people dropped by ridiculously obvious punches. I’ve seen people get dragged into a brawl that they could have ended quickly if they had the skills to do so.
And I’ve seen people get hurt simply because they fell apart when it came to crunch time.
People like this motivate me to train like a beast
This is why I train.
For a few years I travelled solo, backpacking across the globe. I never had a worry, I knew that between my self defence skills and physical training, I could get myself out of a tight spot, even when going places that weren’t recommended for people to travel to.
These days I don’t travel much because I have a young family. Nor do I have the time to spend hours each day training as I have a young, yet busy, business to run. So when I do train, it must be to the point and effective, I don’t train for anything fancy, just to ensure that if anyone attacks my wife or kids. If anyone attacks my kids father or my wife’s husband (yes, I mean me) I wan to know that I can sort the situation as quickly as possible.
So I have looked long and hard to find the simplest methods of training and achieving the biggest bang for the buck.
Two men have provided me with pretty much everything I need these days. Yes I have over 25 years of training under a variety of people, but I firmly believe the information I have learned of these two men is worth more than most of what I’ve previously done.
Mick Coup talking about the punch
The two men are Mick Coup, the founder of Core Combatives and Pat O’Malley founder of Rapid Arnis and the creator of the Rapid Response System.
Pat showed the Rapid Response system several years ago as a short syllabus for dealing with a knife attack. I liked it, so much so that it became my primary unarmed combat method. Mick Coup ran his Foundation Course at WG last year, 4 days of intensive training, some theory, some science and a whole lot of common sense wrapped up in some of the highest quality training drills I’ve come across.
Between these two, you really don’t need much more to deal with most of what’s out there.
Simple, effective, proven techniques that are underpinned by rock solid and irrefutable principles. The principles are the key here, techniques are just that, but the principles behind them can be applied anywhere, in any situation. It’s the principle that tells you how to apply the correct technique.
So a week on Sunday I’ll be running a one day Rapid Response course. My method of teaching is heavily influenced by the Core Combatives system and so is slightly different to the way Pat originally showed it and teaches it today. He likes the way I teach it and has implemented some of my info to his version of the course.
If you want to take part in the course, drop me an email to info@wildgeesema.com, title it Rapid Response. If you click the email address it’ll open your email client for you.
Some of the info we will cover on the day:
The Flinch Response
Parrying and trapping
Body mechanics
Power generation for striking
Controlling the knife
regaining the initative
testing
There will be more if time allows.
Now for some details:
Location: Wild Geese Martial Arts & Fitness, Magennis Place, Dublin 2 Date: Sunday 30th June Times: 1000 – 1600 Cost: €50 pp
Places are limited.
Here’s that email address again:
Regards
Dave Hedges www.wg-fit.com