Tuhon Tom Kier Warwick Dec 2011

Dave Joyce

Been so up the walls I didn't get a chance to post this till now. It was great to have Tuhon Tom return after over a year as he couldn't make Sama Sama in England last year due to committments with Sayoc Tactical.

As usual Friday night was by invitation and this is always a great class and gives us an idea of what's in store for the weekend. From the get go, Tuhon Tom focused on mindset over the course of the whole weekend but particularly on this session which was working concepts towards multiple opponents which Tuhon referred to as multiple targets again trying to focus on how to mentally prepare for this type of scenario. Obviously this training is from an armed perspective and he also showed an excellent tactic for trying to escape been encircled by the mass.

Saturday morning focused on fighting from awkward positions ie sitting in a chair or car and how to work power into your strikes from body mechanics, loading up the striking hand etc from these type of positions. Also worked from your back on the ground, with opponent going for mount, knee on belly etc. For the afternoon session we moved outdoors to a quiet private location in order not to scare the natives and worked on the morning but in cars. We practised opponents in all 3 other seats of the car while you are in the driving seat. The worst for the opponent was definately the passenger front seat and was amazing to see how you can totally close them down using everday items in the car once you can generate the necessary power in your strikes. Very eye opening stuff in both of these sessions.

Sunday morning started with cirriculum training with Tuhon Tom emphasising the importance of the Feeder doing his attacking to the best of his ability to bring on the Receiver to a higher/better level and he explained how important it was to vary the intensity of the different levels of isolations. He also explained why footwork isn't actually taught in Sayoc Kali (new members are encouraged to use whatever footwork they have learnt in their base art) as the hands and legs are separate entities and move differently to each other.

The Sunday afternoon session consisted mainly of Stickgrappling which even if we've trained this with Tuhon a good number of times was all new material and even worse if you're the one on the receiving end:( ie ME Anytime we do Stickgrappling I experience a level of pain I have never felt before and this was no exception. I would like to thank Bambi for the clarifying question during this particular part of the session:eek: Overall, it was once again another fantastic weekend's training!

Dyr

You actually asked some questions too Dave..which is the equivalent of self harm :pac:

I only made the sunday session, the level of detail that sayoc knife goes into is no surprise but I took a lot from the stick session, lots of tweaks to movements that i never really "got" which had them working for me.