One last class

Introducing close contact martial arts to young students is tough but as far as a complete self defence skill set goes, it is an important piece. We started the basic technique of bridging from standing, went through a few steps and then took the whole thing to our backs. I find that once you put a group of students on the ground, if they’re not used to it, they struggle with learning new material.

The steps to get someone off top of you go like this: 1. hold a cup of water with the right hand, 2. point the left thumb at the right shoulder, 3. bring the feet in close to your bottom and plant them flat on the floor, 4. fold the left arm down into your chest, 5. bridge up with the hips and 6. roll to the right. Amusing as it is to watch students steamroll into one another, I tried to make sure that everyone was rolling in the same direction to avoid just such an occurance.

Bridging up with the hips was already bringing out the giggles for most of the kids BUT when they got a partner and had someone sit on top of them hilarity ensued. And with all this enjoyment, I’d say most of them understood at least the first three steps.

The trickiest part is getting them to push up with the hips. Since most of them ended up with a partner their own size, it wasn’t too much of a struggle to accomplish the roll with just the strength of their arms. A few of them understood that with a bigger partner they’d need to add in those bigger core muscle groups so they might as well engage them against a smaller and more compliant partner.

After grappling we all settled down for a end of year party, replete with fruit from the local vegetable stand and a couple of pizzas.