This month's student course covered avoidance, kata bunkai and some pressure point techniques.

The course began with Sensei Damon Cooper demonstrating how to avoid the more common kicks and punches that students encounter in sparring, such as a roundhouse kick or a reverse punch. This is achieved in a number of ways, and the students practised coiling to avoid / absorb contact, ducking, blocking, and moving out of range while helping the attackers leg or arm past it's target.

The course then moved on to look at kata bunkai, which shows where moves from a kata can be used in an attacking or defensive way. These applications are open to interpretation, as there is no right or wrong way to use the hidden meanings from a kata. After practising Sensei Damon's interpretation of the opening move from Shodan kata, together with two moves from Nidan kata, the students were asked to take ten minutes to use a move from one of their known kata, and put it into a practical demonstration. Every application demonstrated was shown to be effective, and just goes to prove the amount of information hidden inside each and every kata students learn.

Finally, the course moved on to pressure point techniques, which even though are shown to be highly effective, I would not recommend using in a life or death situation. Some people do not have the same level of pain from a pressure point technique as others, and an attacker on drink or drugs may not respond to this defence. However, they always prove popular in sessions, and if you find yourself having to show a family member or friend what you can do as they will not stop bugging you, a thumb to the inside of the elbow is nearly always enough to make a grown man drop to his knees in pain. If you don't believe me, ask some of the senior students!

The course came to a close when two hours had passed, and as always, there was plenty more left to teach, which will carry over to the next course. Well done to all students that attended, and if you didn't attend, you missed out on a massive opportunity to increase not only your technique and ability, but your knowledge also, not forgetting two sessions towards your grading session requirement.

Sensei Damon