Crazy Monkey Defense

Yesterday was Basrull's last class with us before he heads back to the UK to continue his studies. We wish him all the best and will miss his cheerful demeanor!

Last night we basically did tennis match and light sparring and continued to drill the CM1 phase. Everyone shows marked improvement and when sparring I notice it's a lot harder to break through their CM1.

On my own end, I am beginning to learn how to pace myself and move around efficiently. I no longer feel as if I have difficulties breathing when approaching the 2 minute mark and can still throw attacks.

Several points I noted last night:

1. CM1 movement can be very light and still effective. I find that as long as I don't overtense my muscles but keep it firmly planted on my head, I need not expend that much energy when doing CM1 even when the force of the punches get heavier. Need to test this against stronger punches.
2. When attacking heavily, sometimes it is possible to use that as a distraction to get off at an angle to attack the unprotected side.
3. Varying the height of your stance (by going lower not higher) seems to give better angles and makes it harder for your opponent to punch you if your CM is tight

Albert while watching us spar, reminded us to keep our elbows close to each other and keep the forearms more or less vertical so that the space in between the arms are consistent and tight. The rationale is to ensure that punches cannot be jammed in and also makes CM1 more efficient by minimizing the distance that needs to be covered to close the centreline.

We also learned some basics of the uppercut which is a very close range upward punch that is aimed at the chin. The punch is kept close to the body to ensure that the power generated from the legs is passed fully into the uppercut. Albert demonstrated that with proper CM structure, even an uppercut can be blocked relatively easily.

Here is a video of last night's sparring with Riri and Basrull in front and me and Owen at the back (I'm the shorter one).