ryan kennedy’s blog

Inspired by a recent episode of Fight Quest, Lisa and I went to check out a local Krav Maga school on Saturday. We sat through 30+ minutes (out of 3 hours) of a belt test for about 14 students. While not nearly as intense as the Fight Quest footage was, it was still pretty brutal watching them go through their warmup routines.

Tonight Lisa and I had our first class at the Academy of Self Defense in Santa Clara. They gave us two free weeks to check it out, so we dropped in on the 7pm Level 1 class. Let’s just say that Level 1 is only referring to the competency level, not the intensity level. The class started out with us mounting punching bags on the ground, pounding our fists and elbows into the imaginary face of our enemy. When the instructor blew his whistle, we rolled on our side to our backs, grabbed the punching bag handle and proceeded to wail on the virtual assailant’s face with our fists. That went on for about 5 minutes.

After that, we paired up for more work. I paired up with someone slightly taller but considerably larger than myself. Mistake. We took turns punching the bag that the other was holding up. I landed some strong rights, but my left is weak by comparison. We switched and my partner took turns pummeling the bag with his ham sized fists, driving the air out of my lungs with every punch. Seriously, I’m pretty sure the pad is just there to make sure I don’t get a bruise or a broken sternum because it wasn’t doing much to prevent his powerful blows from pushing me backwards.

After a few minutes of that, we started running around like mad. Literally. One of us ran with the pad while the other ran with nothing, sprinting through the crowded classroom, dodging the other students. When the whistle sounded, the person with the pad stops and the other person seeks them out to take out some sweet aggression on the pad. Once again, wind being knocked out of my lungs. On a related note, don’t let the pad come away from your chest…or else it just gets repeatedly driven back into your chest by your partner. Also, don’t let the pad dip…or else it will be driving dinner out of your stomach instead of air out of your lungs. Words of wisdom by Ryan Kennedy.

There were some other drills. Voluntary amnesia is suppressing those memories in the hope that forgetting the misery means I’ll go back for more. We did some choking. One partner chokes the other. The person being choked has to simultaneously break the choke and kick the other person in the balls. The choking might explain the amnesia.

That brings up a fun topic…rules. There are none. In other martial arts there are things you don’t do. You don’t gouge the eyes. You don’t strike the back of the neck. You don’t kick the balls. All of those are the bread and butter of Krav Maga. Crushing the testes of your opponent is how you start the fight. Most martial arts start with a bow. Krav Maga subscribes to the roshambo school of starting fights. This lack of rules is really what draws me to Krav Maga. There are no formalities before the duel. There is no referee. There are no points. You win if you don’t die. It’s reality based fighting, this is how it’s going to be if you’re attacked on the streets or on a battlefield. Bow to your opponent? Not unless you want him to kick you squarely in the face.

We rounded out the night with 10 jumping jacks and 10 burpees. Well, the class did. I was able to do about 5 jumping jacks and prevented myself from performing any vomitees. It was brutal. My hands are chewed up from the punching (my poor, delicate, programmer hands) and the physical exertion is flat out exhausting. I loved it, I’m going back on Saturday and I’m going to do it all over again. With luck, I’ll loose some weight and get back in shape while learning some practical defense techniques.

Wanna join me? It’ll be great.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 11:57 pm and is filed under Health, Krav Maga, Recreation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.