MAP Meet 2017

No idea what you're talking about.....

 

Mankini defense 101?

 

I'm on my home to polish my new sword(s).

 

I got back home fine.
The plane from England was delayed, so I only managed to get one of my trains to get home and needed to take a cab for the rest, but okay - not everything can go totally smoothly

Anyway: Thanks for these words!
I didn't had internet in England (or I would have paid a lot) and didn't ask Mitch, so I just that when I got onto the PC a few moments ago.

In our defense: I'm sure I heard Ted asking for it :vanish:

 

I usually don't post two answers right after each other, so I apologize for doing it now!


But I thought giving a more or less quick feedback would be the very least I should do, and it didn't seem to be fitting in the above post.
I try to keep it short, but it probably won't work out, so I will put the more important/ interesting part in italics, which shouldn't be much at all.



Not quite sure where to start :thinking:


Right, first of I want to say thanks.

First two Mitchs family cat for not only allowing me to stay at his place, but also allowing me to pet him and having him chewing at my hand for quite a while.

Oh, yeah, and the same goes for Mitch and his family, of course.
The thanks-part, not the pet and chew-part, none of them did that!

More serious: I had a really fantastic weekend, not only at the Meet itself, but also at my time at his home as a guess.
He was an excellent host and his family is great as well!
I'm really glad that I got to meet them and I'm absolutely grateful, that they would have had me for the weekend!

Interesting enough Mitch reminds me of an instructor I know, which made interacting with him rather easy right from the beginng.
Plus him being very nice didn't hurt either; same with his family.

So a big Thank You to Mitch and his family (including the cat anyway!)


Second thanks obviously goes to Simon & Co for organzing the whole event!
The people there really were friendly and I found myself actually talking to some at times, which isn't something I tend to do.


I do admit, that I don't know of a lot people who they are here (or the other way around, who they were at the Meet), but Mitch told me some
I probably have forgotten most of it, but still know five or six for sure, I think, excluding Mitch and Simon.
I just don't remember most of the real names :whistle:


I also was absolutely surprised and am still amazed, that people seemed to actually understand what I was saying, since I'm pretty sure I must have an horrible accent
But given that the responses would match what I said, I think I really was understood; at times anyway :thinking:


Last but not least also a big thanks to Chadderz... uhm, I mean, Pretty in Pink, for the headgear!
I fits perfectly and I will make sure to put it to good use!



About the Meet itself and the sessions I attended:

FMA
Since I read his name here again earlier, I know that it was run by Ricky, otherwise I would forgotten the name already (really sorry!).
What I didn't forget and probably won't for a while, was what was shown.

Seeing him work with the knife I found to be rather impressive, even though I bet it was only scratching the surface of what he could have shown.
He certainly made it look easy, which was great.
I felt like a clumsy I don't know what and rather useless and I' not sure of how many mistakes I bet I made, but it was interesting and fun, which I find to be more important anyway

I also liked that he pointed out, that he wasn't showing anything for SD, but just how to "play" (my word, not his. He was more eloquent than I can be right now ) with knives and what they could do.
Sure, with some thinking that was probably clear anyway, but I think it's sort of important to mention it anyway, so there won't be any misunderstandings.


JJ was next, with Smurf

I was having a bit of a trouble to decide whether to try this session or one of the others, because I do JJ myself anyway.

In the end I decided to do it for two reasons: *Because* I do it anyway and was curious how it would compare to what I learn and how I am taught.
And because I wanted to meet Smurf and see him in action.

What I learned was that it's not that different to what we do.
Sure, it has some details and touches that might differ, but as a whole it's very similar.
Which I actually kind of liked.

I also learned to smile while I hurt other people

With all the warnings of not shaking hands I was dreading to see what might happen in that regard and was expecting another lock than he showed; a worse one actually (for my liking and how my thumb hurts after it, compared to the one he did. I'm sure are people would say it the other way around, since different people react differently to pain and locks ^^ I'm sure more then anough people would find the shown one worse!)

For a few minutes he made us play with pressure points; so I found three more that doesn't work on me (made me feel sorry for my training partner, because I understand how annoying that must be ).


Three was Wrestling

I loved it.
A very charismatic and nice instructor again plus playing on the ground, so not much could go wrong for me
First getting people to the ground was fun as well; getting throw will always be fun! (Yeah, I'm afraid, I'm weird like this.)

I especially liked the beginning, when he was doing some greco roman wrestling, because I never have done that before.

I even threw my first suplex and was thrown it for the first time!
Only once and "only" on crashmats, but - suplex!
I know I didn't do it too well, but at least I did it.
Just two years ago I wouldn't even have tried it, so I look at it that way

I think it was improvised a bit, but I also liked how he (Steve?? I don't really remember. Again. Sorry. Again.) structured his lesson; even more so, if I understood it correctly and it *was* a bit improvised at times!
So I certainly don't mean that in a bad way!

At one point we tired to work on a techniques that made you squish at the achilles tendon and the calf.
Still having a high pain tolerance apparently; the one at the tendon set in really late (I knew that before) and when my training partner tried doing the one on the calf I couldn't stop laughing, because it was tickling
When Steve(?) tried it, it did hurt a little after a while, but I don't think it would make me stop anything.
What he tried a moment later on my foot actually made me tap out, but apparently it hurt at a different place then he expected
So, welcome to nutter-world


Last was HEMA.

I have to admit I nearly quit that one at first.
But NOT because it was bad or anything, but because I really had trouble understanding what was being said by Aegis; not due to an accent or anything, but somehow the accustics at this part of the dojo didn't seem to work for me, which really had me annoyed in the beginning and made for the first and only language barrier (so to speak) at this weekend.
When he told me that just copying what I saw would work either, I stayed of course.

I was rather useless at it and I'm pretty sure my partner would have preferred someone else to train with (especially after I nearly removed one of his eyes), but it certainly was interesting!

I'm still not sure whether I imagined it, or if the shown stances were a bit comparable to some Karate stances.
Three seemed to be be a bit like Zenkutsu-Dachi, Kokutsu-Dachi and Kiba-Dachi.
But then again, it could be that I just ended up in stances similar to those, due to habits.
That's the problem (for me anyway), when you copy a lot and don't really know and understand what you do; but it was worth it, that's for sure.



I wish I could have given feedback a bit more helpful, sophisticated and actually useful, but I'm not even sure I could do that at all.



What did this weekend leave me with?
- The urge to watch some Star Trek
- The urge to play Super Mario
- The realization, that I really, really need to get more flexible, fit and the such
- The need to get my hair cut, because it feels like it's everywhere and is tickling.
- looking forward and hopefully being able to attend the next Meet as well.

 

Really good fun meeting and training with you, Latikos!
Glad you had a good time and made it home safely

 

Three days later, and I'm still finding new bruises