Great email from Stepthen below. He is at the Inosanto Academy (home of Bruce Lee). Dan Inosanto was one of Bruce Lees first students. I trained along side Brandon Lee there, many years ago. See you at the meeting tomorrow.

Andy

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Hi Andy,

Just thought I'd give a quick run down of my first Filipino Martial Arts class at the Inosanto Academy.

The class was taught by one of the other instructors. Have to say that if I hadn't gone up and introduced myself to the instructor just before the class started he would have had no idea I was a new student, or that this was my first class. Our system at Northstar for new students and the effort we put in to making them feel welcome is absolutely first class. Nothing really brings this home more than when you're a new student again yourself, and you have that feeling of not really knowing what's going on or what you're meant to do, and nobody to show you!

The material itself was good, and the class at a nice pace, well a nice pace for me and my current state so that I could actually get through the class. Luckily I ended up partnering with one of the senior students, who was able to give me a better idea of the basic principles. Started with some double handed stick work, onto the single stick, padded single stick and then empty handed work. Was nice to see the principles from the stick work to the empty hand remaining fairly constant throughout. Some good close in combinations when we got to the empty handed work, catching and parrying punches then attacking, very similar to Shinbudo so I was able to slip right into these combos.

Did notice a few subtle changes in my own training, instead of just concentrating on remembering the moves I found myself more and more trying to understand the principles behind each combination, how they actually work and what they do to the opponent's body and balance.

Will hopefully head back tonight for another class if the body's able.

Cheers,
Stephen