Review of urbanmartialarts.com

Continuing my theme http://colinyates.blogspot.com/2010/01/returning-to-martial-arts.html) I spent an hour and a half at http://urbanmartialarts.com - the first half an hour watching the kickboxing and the last hour taking part in their Jeet Kune Do class.

What can I say? Check them out! Another good find.

Again, as last time I will review them compared to my criteria, not 'how good are they at Jeet Kune Do, mainly because I would be completely under qualified :)

The club meets in a dedicated large room - very large in fact - it has a reception, a gym, a boxing area and a large-ish floor area for the class. It is probably the same size as some school halls - plenty of room.

For the kickboxing class there was one (very good!) instructor with about 5 students and the same (although a different, but no less skilled instructor) for the JKD class.

The atmosphere was very friendly - the JKD instructor spent about 20 minutes after class answering my questions, letting me know about the calibre of the school (which I think is very very high), going through training regimes - including training elsewhere which they don't object to at all.

The caliber of the teaching was high and the students all seemed to have fun and enjoy it. I was corrected by the instructor on a particular point (not bending my knees enough when I dip and weave) twice - which was good. My partner was also happy to answer my questions and give advice.

The class started with the obligatory warm up which consisted of 'the zombie game'. Half the class were zombies (who had their arms outstretched and could only shuffle) whilst the other half had to evade. Good fun and quite effective.

We then paired up and went through some drills. The usual pattern of watch the instructor and then repeat. The instructor gave just the right level of detail and explained the principle rather than just the mechanics, which I find really helpful.

We didn't do any sparring as such - it was all pad work or conditioning, but we were encouraged to make the pad work realistic by moving around. I suspect it was everybody's first day back so they were taking it steady :)

So what do I think about the style of the art - suits me much better than Ju Jitsu. What do I think about this particular school. Excellent, without a doubt.

Am I going elsewhere - I am still going to check out Tae Kwon Do, although probably not with the (James Freer school) who after explaining that I had a good number of years experience and would expect to progress through the low ranks quite quickly still insisted that I could only grade once every three months and I couldn't grade for more than one belt at a time! I don't get that attitude at all - if I am not ready for a belt I wouldn't grade. If I am, then let me grade - weird. So I don't think I will be going there.

My next school will be Sahotas Tae Kwon Do Academy of Blackbelt Excellence who has arranged to give me a 30 minute assessment to identify where I should start (in beginners or juniors) and who *potentially* grades once a month. Their web site has a ridiculous 'this time next year you could have a black belt' which put me off immediately, but after speaking to him I realise what they mean - it still takes 2 to 3 years, but they do intensive summer camps which condenses a lots of the training hours (i.e. three weeks of 9-5 training). As a 7th Dan he might just have the experience to pull it off. He also made it clear that this wasn't an academy that handed out belts - if you weren't up to the grade you didn't, er, grade :) Which was encouraging to hear - no big 'pay upfront' either. Looking forward to checking them out.

Anyway, back on track - I have booked another free lesson with urban martial arts, this time a kickboxing session. If I do train here my strategy would be to do one hours kickboxing followed immediately by one hours JKD. If that doesn't get my fitness up - who knows what would :) I think it all depends on how Tae Kwon Do goes.

I was also worried about belts - they are somewhat controversial in kickboxing/belts but they do do gradings, although belts aren't worn. This is a nice half way house - I get the satisfaction of ticking a box, but they don't get hung up on belts. Experience always needs clarification - an excellent sparring partner who isn't so good on technique would pounce their opposite - irrespective of belt, for example.

Pros:

• excellent atmosphere
• high calibre of teaching
• passionate instructors who are there because they love it
• very mature martial arts school (in terms of the attitude of the instructors and students)
• real "street smarts" but with an art behind it
• will be fun getting fit
• familiar ground (or rather, I used to do this type of thing)

Cons:

• made me realise how utterly unfit I am
• made me realise how much I had forgotten - I was pretty embarrassing - being beaten up by a 6 year old girl....OK, not that bad, but pretty bad
• I like the comfort of a strict belt structure - I want that false sense of security of a coloured belt :)

Review of Robert Phelps@Hinkley Ju Jitsu club

As indicated http://colinyates.blogspot.com/2010/01/returning-to-martial-arts.html I am looking for a decent (by my definition) school to study martial arts.

I have just returned from an hours training at Hinkley with Sensei Robert Phelps (http://www.leicesterjujitsu.co.uk/jujitsu_Training.asp) and thought I would give it a quick review.

First, let me state that this is a review against *my* criteria.  If you are looking for a Ju Jitsu class then I would have no issue recommending it.  Any negative assertions as related to what I am looking for, not ‘is this a good Ju Jitsu school’, to which the answer is yes!

The class is held in a school room with the standard blue break mats on the floor.  There were about 10-12 (forgot to count :)) students (what are they called?) of differing ages and abilities.  It was very friendly and laid back.  Sensei Robert came over to chat to me and he was as friendly as his wife, who ran the ‘reception’.

The class started with the obligatory warmup and then Sensei Robert spent 5 minutes 1 on 1 with me going through basic breaks and rolls. 

For the rest of the class I trained with three different people, two brown belts and one red belt.  Both Sensei Robert and another black belt kept popping over to check on things when I was with the red belt.  All of the training involved 1 on 1 in different scenarios, i.e. ‘if somebody is strangling you (by putting your hand here and here) then if you move your left hand over like this, and then your right hand over like that, and move your hips……..this happens.  Now you try’.  We went through 5 different moves using this teaching method.

So what do I think – I am undecided.  It was a very comfortable and relaxed environment, and you could just tell that Sensei Robert knew his stuff.  Watching the higher belts do their thing was quite inspiring.  I just don’t know if it is what I am looking for.  There was no teaching on the strikes at all – no bag work or patterns, it was all defensive.  Also, the pace was a little slow – necessarily because it was all about the technique, but I didn’t really feel as if I had enough instruction.  To me, there are two styles – ‘who cares about technique – hit them’ and ‘attention to detail – repeat this 1000 times’.  If the style is in the second class, which Ju Jitsu clearly is, and should be, then I want to know exactly what I am doing right, wrong and how to improve it.  Quite often I hear ‘well, we don’t want to discourage beginners’, but I am not really a beginner – I am there to learn, and if it is ‘technique heavy’ art, then I want to make sure my technique is excellent from the get go.  Rather worryingly the red belt and even some of the brown belts didn’t exactly know either.

I am being harsh, and deliberately picking faults.  Don’t misunderstand, I was impressed enough to consider going back – you really need to visit a place 3 or 4 times to get a genuine feel for it.

Pros:

• very safe and respectful – no egos that I could detect (although at 6 foot 2 and the wrong side of 18 stone I either put them off or encourage them ;))
• high skill level
• diverse age and skill range
• the man had some skillz

Cons:

• it is at least an hour round trip for a one hour lesson
• not enough ‘accuracy’ in the techniques that I could see (although I am being unfair as they thought I was a beginner)
• the second hour was for very high grades
• the grading takes a very long time – 3 months between grades, although I don’t know how rigid that is, or whether you can double up (grade for multiple belts at the same time), or whether you can skip a belt
• not enough rough and tumble for me
• this isn’t going to get me fit – the warm up had me breathing hard (yeah, I know :(), but the rest of the class required zero exertion

Have I ruled out Ju Jitsu?  Not necessarily – if I could find somewhere that focused on the strikes as well with some sparing, then great.  Have I ruled out this club?  Not at all – I may well go back for another 3 or 4 weeks just to ‘give it a chance’.

As I said to my wife – if I could zip forward 3 or 4 years to when I receive my black belt in Ju Jitsu I would be ecstatic – I really want to do it, the problem is I am not sure if the journey is going to excite/interest me that much.

Tomorrow will be one of:

• Ju Jitsu at http://www.smrtj.co.uk/clubs/?id=2
• Tae Kwon Do at http://www.jfreer-taekwondo.com/club_training_info.htm (who disappointedly hasn’t rung me back!)
• Thai Kick Boxing and then Jeet Kune Do at http://urbanmartialarts.com/Timetable.html (who has so far demonstrated excellent customer service by responding to my email before and after Christmas)

Stay tuned to find out the next step on this epic journey to black belt!