The Uglies

It’s always fun to take a technique from the adult class and see how much of it the kids can learn.  Today we tried doing “the uglies”.  The basic idea is that you’ve been knocked down to a squat position and someone (or someones) is throwing punches down at you – a very crummy position.

From that lousy place, you circle your frames (move you arms around your head like a monkey) to protect your head, move your feet so that you’re not a still target and stand up as quickly as possible.  The uglies got its name from being a bad position.  It’s not a place to hang out – unless you want to make it a drill, and then it becomes a place to hang out.  So we hung out at the bottom of our squat, moving our feet and circling our frames.  The kids, not surprisingly, did really well.  Judging from their movement patterns when the teachers started throwing padded strikes at them, not only did they do well but they understood that getting hit while you’re crouched down like that is no fun.

Check the whiteboard for the lesson plan and feedback from the adult class.