DISCUSSION

Relative Distance

We experimented with changing the distance between ourself and the aggressor by having the aggressor pull while grabbing the wrist. We quickly discovered that when there is continuous tension through the grab, the technique did not feel the same. In fact, the change can be significant enough that you may find you cannot get out, or that you have to brute-force the technique to make it work. This is due to you not being able to maintain a constant distance you and the aggressor.

If however, you step forward or extend the arm to maintain the same tenson while the aggressor grabbed and pulled, then the “relative distance” and therefore the “tension” can be maintained . The escape technique will then feel more like how it was when you drilled with a static partner.

Relative Speed

It is not enough to simply move forward in response to the pull. You have to move fast enough to catch up with the aggressor’s movement. So, if the bully is stronger and faster than us, how can we compensate for the difference?

In self-defense, you do not have to be the fastest person on earth. You only have to be faster than the aggressor in that specific instance.

Furthermore, self-defense is not a sport, so do not feel embarrassed about “cheating.” The aggressor is the one creating an unfair situation by choosing to bully you. Use whatever advantage is available to you.

SCENARIOS

Grabbed along, facing the same direction

The thumb plays a very important role in a strong grip. If you look at how a grip works, the fingers are all closing inward, not outward. Therefore, instead of resisting the expected way by trying to yank your hand out, you should press against his thumb in its weak direction.

Various Grip Escapes

We find that many of you still start an escape by “fighting” the grip, rather than first identifying the vulnerabilities of the grip you are being held with.

As the defender, you need to amplify your own resources while taking resources away from your opponent. For example, take away the space available for him to move and deflect; amplify your power by using good mechanics; and use your entire body to localize the effect onto just one finger, rather than working against his entire body weight and muscular strength.

Do NOT Lean

A lot of the time, we have the impression that if we lean into our movement, we are adding more body weight to our delivery. In reality, the mechanics work in the opposite direction.

Leaning your body at a 45-degree angle reduces the amount of your body weight that can be effectively delivered, similar to the way a hand truck or dolly is tilted when moving a heavy box.

If you keep your spine close to the vertical axis, you can use much more of your body weight in your delivery—potentially close to 100%—rather than allowing part of your weight to be directed downward or otherwise lost through your posture.

Responding to Pulls

If you tighten up when someone tries to pull you forward, you will be fighting directly against their force. You will lose if they are stronger.

Instead, you should “relax” your arm and body like a bungee cord, while guiding their force around you. The bungee-cord effect, combined with a change in direction, reduces the effectiveness of the pull because the force is no longer being applied in its original direction.

EXERCISES

Integrate training into everyday activities like going up the stairs, the push through the legs when you push the lawnmower, or walk long steps driving through every step. Do practice slow and be mindful when you are trying to learn new things or to change some old habits.

Use simple props to help you train – For example, push a static wall driving through the legs, squeeze hard with a pillow in between your legs to train your inner thighs, use a static object like the wall or a chair to see that you are not moving a pivot away from where it should be.

SIDE NOTES

Class notes for Confederation Park has been posted as well. Go check it out. Find any differences? Let me know what you think.

DISCUSSION

Back from holidays

We have a couple of new participants and the rest of you may have been with me all the way. Thank you!

I hope you all realize that it is impossible to teach all sixty years of martial arts training in only 12 hours. Everything takes a lot of practice on your part as well as effort on my side. Remember that knowledge is like a good book, you need to read it multiple times to really enjoy it in different ways. This class is almost like the missing owner’s manual for your body.

I started the current season going through the 5 wrist grips and escapes. While all of you can verbally describe the moves required, not everybody can execute it correctly. Some of you are still yanking your hand back. Do remember we have to perfect the technique till you can do it without depending on strength and speed. During class, I taught a way to practice all these techniques anywhere, even without a partner.

Even though we don’t depend solely on muscles and speed, it is nice to have a good base layer. This season, we will emphasize on getting you stronger, improving your reaction time and making you move easily.

Explore details beyond just copying visible movements

Flashy techniques as in the movies requires a lot of preparation. Both actors know exactly what is coming and therefore is relatively safe. Even with such elaborate planning, things can still go wrong. In movies, they can do multiple takes of the same scene until it is perfect.

A lot of teachers teach movements by getting you to simply copy them. However, not everything essential to making a technique work in combat can be seen from the outside if it is not explained.

Some examples are:
– There are multiple ways to round the back – These may look very similar from the outside, but they produce very different results.
– How power is generated – The amount of power you can deliver when you are focused on muscle contraction is significantly different from what you can achieve when you use the correct visualization, such as projecting something outward.
– What stays still and what part of the body is actually moving – Once you know what to look for, you can see it. However, we are not naturally used to picking up this level of detail.
– Timing – We are used to paying attention to the starting and ending positions. We don’t usually notice whether a movement should be performed in sequence, with everything moving together, or with one part starting just before another.

SCENARIOS

5 grips to start – We start with 5 different grips to help you understand some of the key concepts of what “effortless power” means. The following are the 5 grips:
– low, across center line, hand-shake grip
– low, across center line, palms down grip
– low, on same side grip
– high, across center grip
– high, same side grip

A few key-points / concepts universal across all of the skills
– stay relaxed, using muscles and yanking escalates and usually make thinks worse.
– you cannot telegraph your intent to get away. So you must move and affect as an entire unit. You cannot prepare before you deliver.
– keep calm and while smiling, identify partner’s vulnerabilities (e.g. where is his thumb?
– project your energy from belly button through your arm and beyond the fingers to maintain intended shape or structure
– always remember the entire technique doesn’t end until you strategically reposition yourself.

Explore projection

There are three types of power: bio-mechanics, psycho-mechanics, and nature.

The projection experiment done in class lets you experience psycho-mechanics yourself, not just watching a demo. So it is very learnable and you don’t need to train ten years until qi is cultivated:
– Unbendable arm – Key-points are correct visualization of an endless stream of energy going from belly button through your body to the arm and past the finger tips.
– Heavy elbow – Key-points are relax the shoulder and imagine a force like magnet sucking your elbow down, take your mind off the muscles. Just focus on the necessary visualization.

EXERCISES

Do practice by yourself besides coming to class. For some of these grip-escapes, the following are concepts are very very important:
– Stay relaxed
– No telegraphs. Don’t give your partner any indication of what you are about to do.
– Identify partner’s vulnerabilities. For example: Where is his thumb? What parts of my body can I still move even though my wrist is being held?
– Identify what stays and what moves. Understanding this can make a huge difference in the mechanics and therefore how effectively you perform the technique.

SIDE NOTES

 1. Class Logistics and Participation: Arrive around 8:45 for the warm-up. Review the notes on this website beforehand, write down any questions you have, and bring them to class. These extra 10–15 minutes are for Q&A, warm-up, and sometimes partner practice.

 2. Course Focus and Audience: Training is practical, non-sport self-defense methods oriented towards females and seniors. You will learn non-escalating responses to aggressive grabs and yanks. The techniques are used as vehicles for teaching underlying concepts. The priority is developing conceptual understanding. You will gain the ability to identify and correct errors, rather than simply imitating techniques.

 3. Safety and Partner Drill Protocols: The emphasis is on reaction and understanding, rather than cardio or muscle activation. During partner drills, calibrate the intensity to your partner’s ability. Ask permission before increasing the force—for example, “Can I grab harder?” Avoid overwhelming your partner, and communicate about grip strength: “Is this too hard, or am I too soft?”

4. Functional Fitness – If you have never taken the Martial Gym Functional Fitness class, you should try it at least once. It teaches you how to manage some of the common problems we experience, such as shoulder tension, lower-back discomfort, and difficulty sitting down and getting back up. We also cover ways to release tension through massage.

The class also teaches you how to fall properly in order to reduce the risk of injury. Even with common exercises such as stretching, there are details that are often overlooked, which can reduce the intended benefits of the exercise.

DISCUSSION

Structural alignment

During the escape drills, we highlighted that the position of the arms and fingers, the angle of the grip to your arm are all relevant details that must be followed for some techniques to work.

The “Heavy Elbow” Principle:

An effective downward force cannot be generated via brute force as is demonstrated during class. you have to transfer your entire body weight through the elbow without learning onto the elbow. This can only be accomplished by visualizing your elbow as “heavy”. By letting your body weight sag and apply pressure through the elbow, it creates a much stronger, more stable effect that’s hard to counter.

SCENARIOS

Basic Arm/Wrist Control Techniques

Five essential techniques—three low and two high—form the foundation for breaking an opponent’s grip. Mastering these five solutions develops a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanics common to a wide range of escape techniques.

The thumb is a critical component in most grips. By learning to disrupt the structural integrity of the opponent’s thumb, you can escape the majority of holds efficiently, without relying on brute force.

Redirection of incoming forces

A physical and philosophical approach that avoids meeting force head-on. Rather than pushing back (which combines your force with theirs), redirect their momentum—relax and step aside—to neutralize the attack more efficiently than direct confrontation.

Key Points:
  – Do not meet force with force—redirect it
  – Pushing back against 100 pounds using 110 pounds yields only a 10-pound net.
  – Head-on collisions amplify impact, as both forces are absorbed directly through the bodies involved.
  – Redirection (e.g., stepping aside) minimizes impact and uses the attacker’s momentum against himself.

EXERCISES

Planks

We made a few corrections before class—keep applying them in your practice. Use your abdominal muscles to support and “hang” the hips and legs in position. Minimize reliance on the legs, and avoid using the lower back to hold the posture.

Focus on maintaining a stable, aligned structure driven by the core rather than muscular tension in the limbs. If you practice consistently over the summer break, you will return significantly stronger and more stable in this position.

SIDE NOTES

There are only two more classes after this week before we break for the summer.

It has been a pleasure teaching all of you. You’ve been supportive of one another, which has made for a great training environment. I’d also like to give special mention to those of you who returned to training soon after hip surgery—your commitment is impressive.

Learning to adapt your training to how your body feels each day is essential. Adaptation is a key component of any effective survival skill.

DISCUSSION

Off Topic

I apologize for the late notes. Two things happened: my recorder ran out of battery, and on top of that, I was heading off on holiday the next day, so I didn’t have time to write everything down before I left.

Anyway, the bird photo above is one of the special birds I photographed during my trip to Alberta—a White-faced Ibis. I had never seen one in full breeding plumage in person before. In the Lower Mainland, they don’t show up often—maybe once every few years—and when they do, they are often juveniles, meaning they haven’t developed their full coloration yet.

Birding has taught me patience, as well as an appreciation for the laws of nature. I have seen hummingbirds harass eagles many times their size. I may have the best plans and intentions, but if a bird doesn’t show up, there is nothing I can do on that trip. Sometimes it’s not movement itself that scares birds away, but changes in movement patterns that trigger their danger-detection system. I’ve also learned that with advances in digital photography, you need to maximize and take full advantage of those moments.

Last but not least, I’ve learned to make use of every opportunity in front of me instead of thinking “it can wait”—because opportunities often fly away.

Now, how is birdwatching related to self-defense? Give that a try. 🙂

Technical Tension vs Technical Relaxation

We’ve talked many times about the need to relax in self-defense. However, that’s not how most of us have been conditioned throughout our lives. We lift weights, arm-wrestle, play tug-of-war as kids, and instinctively “try harder” when things aren’t working in our favor. It’s easy to assume that fighting effectively depends on muscular tension. Obviously, that’s not true.

Relaxation is not the same as being limp like overcooked spaghetti. Technical relaxation requires precision. It involves knowing which body parts should move and which should remain stable, where your focus should be directed, and how to maintain proper structural alignment.

If there is such a thing as technical relaxation, then there must also be technical tension. The projection technique we covered in class is a good example. It is relatively easy to learn, but more importantly, it allows you to experience the difference between relying purely on muscular effort and using an efficient mechanical system—one where both muscle and intent work together.

Rest/ Restore Cycle

When I was training for triathlons and marathons in my younger days, one of the toughest lessons I learned was the importance of proper recovery. At first, I believed that pushing harder and “toughing it out” was the key. Very quickly, I found myself becoming more susceptible to colds and flu when I didn’t allow enough rest.

We learned to build in structured recovery cycles. This included small “breaks,” where we reduced training volume or intensity once a week, and a more significant break once a month—a full day of complete rest. This approach kept me much healthier and improved my overall performance.

Let me explain what I mean by “small breaks.” In triathlon training, you have three disciplines to manage. It’s unrealistic to train all three at high intensity every day. Instead, we would focus on two disciplines per day. On the following day, we would rotate—training the third discipline more fully while reducing load on one of the others. We also varied the focus within each discipline, such as working on speed versus efficiency. What works best depends on the individual, but the key principle is variation to keep both the body and mind fresh.

What is active rest?

Rest doesn’t mean sitting on the couch all day. It means allowing both your body and mind to recover by engaging in something different and enjoyable. Active rest is a planned reduction in training intensity while maintaining light movement to support recovery without complete inactivity.

Examples include going to the beach and casually throwing a ball, playing on a water slide with family, enjoying a light game of tag with grandchildren at a park, or even participating in a relaxed social dance. The specific activity doesn’t matter—what matters is that it’s enjoyable and low stress.

I also use active rest as part of recovery after illness or surgery to gently reintroduce movement. The goal is to increase blood circulation without causing fatigue.

For seniors, depending on individual condition, incorporating active rest once or twice a week can be very beneficial. It helps maintain consistency while ensuring that training does not become a chore.

SCENARIOS

Shoulder shrug push

This exercise is designed to help you experience the difference between passive relaxation and functional (technical) relaxation.

On one end, there is the “limp” type of relaxation, where structure is lost and power cannot be transmitted effectively. On the other end, there is excessive tension—stiffening the shoulders and arms in an attempt to generate force—which often restricts movement and reduces efficiency.

The goal is to find the middle ground: allowing the shoulders to relax and move forward naturally while maintaining the structural integrity of the body and arms. This prevents “leakage” of power and enables force to be transmitted efficiently through the entire body.

By comparing these three states—limp, tense, and technically relaxed—you can better understand how to generate power without unnecessary effort.

EXERCISES

Remember to work hard and yet make sure your body do get some active rest once or twice a week.

SIDE NOTES

Tug-of-war may seem like a pure test of muscle power—the most direct form of strength against strength. But if you look closely, technique plays a critical role, and small details often determine which team wins.

Can you see it?

It’s not just about pulling harder. It’s about body alignment, timing, coordination, and how effectively each person connects to the ground and to their teammates. Teams that move as a single unit, maintain structure, and apply force efficiently will often outperform stronger but less coordinated opponents.

Even in something as simple as tug-of-war, technique matters.

DISCUSSION

Knowing is not enough

Look at kids practicing table tennis at a competitive level. They repeat the simplest movements over and over again. Watch the video above.

Self-defense is not a sport—but doesn’t that make it even more important to invest time in repetition, so that your trained responses become automatic?

I want you to stay curious, to enjoy the process of practice, and to notice the improvements that come over time.

Our method of self-defense may seem simple and logical. However, it is not how you have been operating for most of your life. As we age together, we need to do things differently and learn to compensate for the changes in our bodies.

Using an Opponent’s Reflexes

Exploit natural reactions to trap or control an opponent. Create scenarios where their instincts, such as tightening a grip or pulling back when pushed, work in your favor. When done correctly, their response helps complete the technique, allowing you to use less effort and achieve greater control.

Common mistakes of stick maneuvers

• Wrist flipping – Flipping the wrist during a strike can misalign the weapon. If the stick were a blade, you would be cutting with the back edge instead of the edge itself. Maintain proper alignment throughout the strike.
• Dropping the arms too low – This is a very common mistake. As your arms drop, you lose reach and structural integrity. Instead of lowering your arms, lower your body by bending at the knees and hips.
• Failing to “park” the stick after a strike – Recovery is critical. If the stick is not properly controlled after impact, you can easily lose structure—or even strike yourself. Build the habit of returning the stick to a controlled, ready position after every action.
• Remaining stationary during strikes and defenses – Keeping the body and footwork static limits both power and safety. Movement is essential—not only to generate force, but also to reposition yourself and avoid becoming a stationary target.

SCENARIOS

Review of the escapes from the 5 basic grips

It is important to remember the five basic grips, as most other techniques are simply extensions of them. At this stage, many of you still hesitate when being grabbed. In addition, it often takes more than one attempt before you can recall and apply all the key points correctly.

This is a natural part of the learning process. You simply need enough repetitions to truly own the technique. It is also important to train with different partners, each with different body types, timing, and reactions.

Do not be afraid, frustrated or embarrassed. It can be solved. Arrive a bit earlier if possible to experiment, and ask questions whenever needed.

Extending What Was Learned into Different Situations

The five basic grips provide the foundation for handling a wide range of other grip variations. From there, we experimented with the following scenarios:

• Two-arm grip from the opponent with their arms crossed
• Two-arm low grip on both wrists in a natural grip
• High two-arm grip against both wrists with upward pressure
• Face-to-face position with an elbow grip
• Side-by-side position with a wrist grip

While these situations may feel new, the solutions are based on the same concepts you learned from the five basic grips. Try to determine the appropriate response by recalling those principles and applying the underlying mechanics from the other techniques.

EXERCISES

All exercises taught, whether using body weight or a stick, should be practiced to improve strength and stamina. Everyday tasks often require only specific parts of the body to move and over time, this becomes a habit. We frequently rely on just our arms to lift heavy objects, which is why workplace safety guidelines (such as those from WCB) emphasize using the legs instead. Once you are used to the new way, it becomes your new habit.

Similarly, when pushing a person or resisting force, many people rely primarily on their arms instead of driving power through the legs and body into the arms. To change these habits, these mechanics must be trained as life skills—not just as a Thursday class exercise.

SIDE NOTES

T-shirts should be ready coming Thursday. If everyone is there, we should take a group picture!