Your new training videos are up on the Lynn Lockhart channel. I just added titles to them but I am figuring out the new editing software.

Hope all is well,

Lynn

Thanks, Lynn and thanks to The Leveler for filming this.

The following videos are the last three rounds in an hour-long training session with Brian, The Leveler and myself. We start out with light sticks and do long rounds that last between 5 and 15 minutes. Then, at the end of the session, we slow back down and work on footwork and position with heavier sticks.

You will hear me speaking to Brian about not doing “that short stuff.” The quick beat with checking hand assist and sharp counter is an effective means of counter-stroking in a point fight and Brain does it here as classically taught to him by Arturo Gabriel, the same guy that has worked with me as a coach and gave me my black sash. We are working on using slow motion sparring to adapt and apply Brian’s traditional Escrima training to an open ended situation. When Gabriel and I coached at the same school he would bring people to me for this segment of their development, which is an old Spanish tradition, with the head instructor teaching the curriculum and then assigning an experienced fighter to work on applications.

The convention of traditional instruction calls for a resumption of guard and a return to facing the antagonist after scoring a point, which means he ends up in the pocket or wheelhouse of his larger antagonist after scoring by default, which could get him killed in a bat attack, for instance. Working with traditionally instructed stick-fighters is similar to helping a karate man adapt to kick-boxing. This entire three round exercise is an attempt on my part to get Brian slashing with the stick rather than jabbing and moving with the slash, using that checking hand to stuff my counter in an attempt to get behind me.

The other thing I am doing is exaggerated open slashes, so that Brian can train on dissecting these motions of mine and delivering his own passing slash.