Shihan Holmes was invited again to teach another course. Aided by his usual style of wit, we were treated to a session of ground work utilising controlling manoeuvres and locks/chokes.
We started off with Shihan Holmes' 'usual' style of warm-ups and proceeded into a more vigorous Judo type wrestling to finish warming us up.
In pairs Sensei took us through a series of techniques. He brought along one of his Dan grades to assist in demonstrating and teaching. We felt sorry for him by the end of the course - after he had been demonstrated on quite a few times!
Sensei Holmes demonstrated a fairly basic but painful technique to raise the head to a better position before progressing onto final technique. Sensei also demonstrated a technique where pressure is applied to the sides of the neck - rendering the opponent unconscious fairly quickly.
Sensei Holmes demonstrated variations of some techniques both on the floor and upright. This included one that was very effecting at immobilising an opponent by utilising two arm/hand locks - one under the leg and one figure of four arm lock. Pain was applied by moving the figure of four arm lock towards the opponents hip - stopping any attempt to get out of it.
Sensei Holmes and his assistant are always very approachable by students of all grades and they are always willing to give another demonstration (not always a benefit to the person he uses!) to clarify a point.
Sensei Holmes demonstrating a technique that some of the higher grades had seen before - which everyone can vouch is very painful. It entails lifting the opponents body up on finger tips in a pressure point beneath the ears, then suspending them in the air before rolling them into a prone position.
Sensei managed to pack in a lot of locks/holds/controlling techniques in the few hours he was with us. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves as usual and obtained some good techniques for future use when working with floor techniques. Everyone also received a certificate of attendance for the course.
Thanks again to Sensei Holmes for another great course; we all seemed to have slightly looser shoulders, arms and legs by the end of the course!