Practice in the park – eskrima

Finally, the weather was nice enough to start practicing at the Stone Arch Bridge park on weekends.  I’ve been informed (O.o) that my invite lacked a few rather important details, such as “we meet at the Dunn Brothers on 6th and University first”, but on the whole it went very well.

Gwen and I arrived to find Chris and Esten working on six-count siniwallis, with Gyuri watching.  We went over some of the largo sparring techniques we’ve been working on in class, with some very welcome help from Esten on the form for some of the two-handed blocks we learned on Thursday.

After Gyuri and Chris had to leave, Gwen, Esten and I stayed behind to drill formal serrada angles and blocks.  I’ve determined that I’m relatively comfortable with feeding formal angles 1-7, and also getting comfortable with full serrada blocks & counters for angles 1-5.  If that sticks, I’m going to have to demand more information soon.

One thing I’ve noticed with all the extra drilling of the serrada counters I’ve been doing in the morning is that there appears to be a common vocabulary within the counters, depending on whether I end up on the outside or inside of my opponent.  Discovering that and chaining moves into “phrases” really seems to be helping me remember the counters and also begin to speed things up and smooth them out.

If this can just *stick*, I’ll be extremely pleased.