A report on the recent Shihan Mally Holmes course
Shihan Holmes took his latest course in a very long line of visits recently at our usual course dojo in Kempston. As always he proved his depth of knowledge and skill of Jyu-Jitsu which was accompanied by his sense of humour, just as it has for the last twenty years.
The afternoon began with Shihan’s take on warm-ups and quickly moved on to training drills including some effective blocks and wrist locks. Many of the senior students commented on how many moves could be linked to bunkai within our Shotokan kata.
The afternoon whizzed by so quickly it was soon time for a short break after which we resumed looking at defences to knife attacks. It was as interesting here to listen to Shihan Holmes’ philosophy as it was to practice a couple of defences to sharp edged weapons. One stand out point he made was that nowadays you are more likely to be attacked or mugged at knife point than you are to be attacked by an unarmed assailant. His advice was the same as other instructors have given us “If you get the chance, time and space run away! Only take on the attacker if you really have to, and sadly, if you must, expect to be cut!”
The afternoon concluded with Renshi thanking Shihan, and assistant instructor Mark, for their attendance and for delivering another great afternoon’s training in a long line of CFTS visits. Finally, after the obligatory group photograph, Shihan Holmes and Mark handed a certificate of attendance to all the course delegates.
Once again thanks our sincere thanks must go to Shihan for delivering another informative and interesting course. Here’s to the next visit!
More images of this course can be found in the gallery below.
Renshi Kidby July 2019