Self defence

I just hosted a series of mini-seminars on self defence at the Imperial College. It was part of their Learning at Work week where staff of IC can take part in a whole range of activities and seminars for free. Ours was billed simply as a self-defence introduction and was co-hosted by both myself and Harminder Bharj - a Filipino martial arts expert.

The sessions were very popular with about 12-15 per class and mostly female. I find it interesting that a 'self defence' seminar attracts mostly women, but a 'martial arts' seminar attracts mostly men. Anyway, it was good to get a good turnout and the gang seemed to really enjoy and get stuck into their techniques. Of course a one hour seminar is gonna give nothing useful in practical terms but it hopefully gave people an eye-opener into the world of martial arts and self protection.

For me, self defence seminars - where I have to show normal people with zero background in MA techniques helps to bring a sense of reality back to the reason why we all do martial arts. A lot of people were initially very hesitant about making physical contact with each other and were quite hard to get engaged. But this soon changed after a few ice-breaking techniques (good old slapping of the hand pads) and many (including tiny little middle aged women who you would have thought least likely to be aggressive) who were really going for it with their wrist locks and strikes. One nearly broke my arm...not really, but she was much stronger than her 4foot 9 frame suggested.

Overall, a good exercise for me and hopefully for those attended. Maybe got one or two who showed interest in joining the club too.