A Week In Singapore

Just back from a training week in Singapore. It's been a while since I was there, and since I had mileage I could use for the airplane ticket and Rob let me crash at his place, I could go on the cheap. Here's what happened:

1) Testing
Guro told me after Monday's class that he wanted to test me on Wednesday. Shaiful was also testing, and was going for his kasama (red shirt) rank. Test went smoothly, and it was great to see some other old friends who are now kasama (Robin, Neal, Frederic, Sylvia) come out as well. This was my first time playing with my new kris, and I like it a lot. Guro graded me to Phase 5, and said my flow and boxing had improved. Cool.

2) Classes and Structure
Many new faces and Ben told me the school is now up to about 170 students. Wow! I went to Tuesday 12:30pm class and it was packed with 15 or so. I remember when that class was only 4-5. Guro still uses the phased approach, and this cycle was shortened due to Christmas break. This one was all about FLOW, and especially overlap between sticks, hands, and karambit. Very cool and a lot to use here in the Tokyo Study Group.

3) Video
Friday I helped Guro, Ben, and Herve work on shooting for the Kali Majapahit Online program. It was a good day and we got further than I expected. It was interesting to see how the material is catalogued, and how Guro wants to present it. Some very, very cool stuff in there. Kali Majapahit is great because there are so many options for movement and solution. It could be confusing if it was not so well organized (but it is!). Every series included kadena de mano, karambit, stick, panantukan, and flowing applications. I think it is very high quality material.

4) Gear Shopping
Brought back some new stuff for me (training karambit, everlast gloves, bag, kris) and some stuff for other students, bags, etc.) . Thanks to Ben's packing, everything arrived safely.

5) Knees
for some reason, the jumping squats played hell on my knees and I had knee trouble all week; now gone. Why?

6) Panantukan
Great classes and professional boxing drills we can use in Tokyo. Sparred with Clement which was fun. he has very long arms and solid boxing skills. I'd hate to have to fight him for real.

In short, a great week with lots of drills and training. It makes me wish I could live in Singapore again, but Yokohama is where it is at for now.