Class was cancelled last week due to the weather. David Davis ran class this evening and submitted the following notes:
Class attendance: Andrew, Julie, Brian, Tavon, Brian, Kashif, Asim, Bryant, Jon, Nancy and Frank.
For safety purposes, all practitioners received a temporary pair of safety glasses.
Class Goal: The goal of class was to re-familiarize the learner with the definition and purpose of cross tapping (ways to make your body small and less of a target) within the context of flow and focus on the emotional impact(exposing, desensitizing, and habituating) of different reflexes particularly when forcing the learner to tap with the bad hand.
Class Objectives:
- Improve the receiver’s ability to analyze using information gatheredfrom observation and follow up with a preemptive strategy.
- Desensitize the receiver’s fears when grabbed while cross tapping.
- Familiarize the receiver‘s with the feeling of vulnerability in a difficult situation and to give the receiver’s a framework within recall that they can understand how to recovery and what is taking place
Training Methods: Show through the training rig how the receiver can heighten their perceptual skills by cuing in on the elbow.Class Theme: The class evolved around the hit set theme always put something (strike) back and using footwork to make the body less susceptible to attacks. The class worked on three activities, they are as follows:
- Preemptive strike (sucker punch): The beginning of a confrontation is really the only time an individual has time to control or negotiate the outcome of an assault. The preemptive strike deals with the emotional impact of changing the early outcome of the fight. Most criminals know that, if they can get the jump on you, they have an advantage. This activity revisited the OODA threat assessment model to inform the receiver’s decision-making and ways to detect early signs of body movement. In this activity, I proposed that the receiver analyze the feeder’s movement to draw a blade. The exercise required the receiver to identify body cues and jam or pin the feeders’ hand while simultaneously doing one of the four counter assaults: thumb to the eye, palm to the chin, elbow to the face, or knee to the groin. This activity segued into phase two of the 3 of 9.
- Phase Two: 3 of 9: In phase two, the receiver takes on the feeder’s mindset and becomes aggressive. Attention was given to the types of hand configuration that best suited the counter assault. For instance, instead of a punch to the groin, the receiver could perform a groin rake. Note this particular move was performed with the receiver tugging the garment near the inner-thigh area closest to the groin.
- Dual Experience Activity: The class concluded with the dilemma of having to bad hand cross tap. This activity dealt with the emotional stress of having to palusut/pama-a (passes the attack through with your bad hand restricted and evade with the body using footwork while the feeder is attacking). The objective was to use the role-plays that desensitize the reflex of the receiver’s to their worse therapeutic nightmare. In other words, this represented a situation that suggested a possible boundary threat. Again on a deeper psychological level, the objective of this exercise was to bring awareness to the anatomical flexibility of having a held hand and the ability to evade by angling the body from the position the receiver felt most vulnerable while maintaining their cross tapping flow. For instance, as the receiver palusut with their bad hand their live hand and total body was still alive and could still cross tap, but most important the exercise forced the receiver to pivot their body off line from the attack by remaining close to the feeder’s blind side while still cross tapping. This movement is an adaptation of the quick double tap recovery in response to the internal jugular or no.5 strike in TD1.
The overall aim of these activities is to familiarize the receiver‘s with the feeling of vulnerability in a difficult situation and to give the receiver’s a framework within recall that they can understand how to recovery and what is taking place.
Assessment: Students were assessed on their ability to adapt to change.
