Big Summer Bash Schedule

Our Big Summer Bash in aid of the MS Society takes place on Saturday 6th August. How will we fill nine hours of training time to keep things interesting and ensure we don’t collapse from exhaustion in the first hour? Let's take a look at the schedule.
 
8:00 – 9:00: The warmup hour
The first hour will be getting us started, with a welcome to everyone and then warm-up activity. We’ll also have to decorate the hall with MS Society banners and bunting. In terms of warm up, we are planning light cardio, followed by pad work and kata. Once everyone’s warm, we’ll stretch out and then we’ll be ready to go for the rest of the day.
 
9:00 – 10:00: Kata Party
Hour two will be a kata party, a term we use to describe any training session that focuses entirely on kata. This will give all our different grades a chance to work on kata, breaking down the details of the movements and what they are for. Our plan is to split the group by our different grades so that we can concentrate on appropriate katas before coming together to demo kata of our choice.
 
10:00 – 11:00: Juniors / Parrying
We have our first split group of the day, allowing our junior members to take part. Eric will be leading this practise, building to a demo. We would like the parents to also take part and join us on the mats.
At the same time for our adult members, Hugh will be leading a session on parrying starting with slow movement and sticky hands leading to sparring.
 
11:00 – 12:00: First Taster Session / Kata Application
Another split session for hour four. We open the mats up to anybody who would like to try a martial art in return for a donation. We’ll take you through basic strikes, kicks and locks that form part of our practise. You can register for the taster session at our Facebook page www.facebook.com/BearsdenMartialArts/events
 
This kata session for the rest of the club will focus on the application, multiple attackers and general body conditioning.
 
12:00 – 13:00: Weapons
 
Barry and Eric will lead this season and focus on an area we touch occasionally, weapons. How to deal with traditional martial arts weapons such as bo staff, shinai or tanto can be useful in learning real world self-defence techniques. At the end of this hour we’ll include a demo.

13:00 – 14:00: Women’s Self Defence / Groundwork
We have another split session. This will be an hour-long taster session of our popular women’s self-defence class. Emma will be leading this hour, ably assisted by Rachel. We are planning to run a six-week class later in the year so this will let everyone see the type of techniques involved. Hop over to our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BearsdenMartialArts/events and sign up for the Women’s Self Defence event.
 
At the same, the club will be practising groundwork, led by Hugh. Our club is known for our love of groundwork, so we just had to include it in the day. We’ll be practising movement, locks and takedowns as part of this session.
 
14:00 – 15:00: Second Taster Session / Self Defence
We have a second taster session at 2pm if you would like to try our martial art. Visit www.facebook.com/BearsdenMartialArts/events and book your place.

For the rest of the club, our living encyclopaedia of quick self defence moves, John, will be taking us through an hour of what we affectionately call Marley Specials. These are always fun although you sometimes end up on the ground, in a knot and with no idea how you got there.
 
15:00 – 16:00: Juniors / Distance Control
Our last split session of the day, with a second hour for our junior members and parents to take part.

Jamie and Michael will lead on a distance control and movement practise in situations. This will include grappling, groundwork, looking at footwork and wall defence.
 
16:00 – 17:00: The cool down hour
We’re almost there with out last hour. A masochistic streak will see us do a breakfall kata in this hour (but only one!) before using other kata as a cooldown. We’ll do an extensive stretch and make sure we get photos and share our closing thoughts.
 
It should be a wonderful day of martial arts and we hope to raise lots of money for the MS Society. Everybody is welcome to take part or just watch the day’s training and you can support us by visiting www.justgiving.com/bmacbash.