Teach them something . . .

"Scott", said Eric, "you have 10 minutes to teach the group something".

Eeeek!

What do you do when asked to teach a group of your club mates?   I usually start to recall favourite practises from the past or particularly things I have enjoyed that we have not visited for a while.  By coincidence, I had been thinking about a variation on our takedown sequence so now was my chance to try this out.

To begin, I asked my group to pair up with partner and try out the first six moves of our punch-kick-grab sequence.  This was to give everyone a chance to get familiar with the techniques before I moved onto the next stage.

This was where the variation came in.  Normally we practise takedowns by lining up and coming at the defender with a punch, kick or grab attack.  My practise was to have one person in the middle of a circle and they could choose their attacker by looking at them.  After four takedowns, a new person would take over in the middle.

I felt this was useful because, whilst the defender was controlling the pace, there could be variety in the distance covered by the attacker.  For example, If an attacker was already close, the defender had less time to react to the attack.   The defender also had to get orientated  to their opponent each time they changed direction.

This seemed to go quite well and, asking for feedback at the end of my 10 minutes, everyone seemed to enjoy it.   Phew!

I would like to build on this a bit further, perhaps a next step where the defender is not choosing the attacker and has to respond.  Eventually this could build up to multiple attackers that the defender has to deal with.  It will be interesting to see where this can go and fortunately it looks like I will get a chance to try it out as Hugh as already said he will ask me to do some coaching "any time" over the next few weeks.

Until the next time, keep your thinking caps on.