Fighting Children

And by this title I don't mean two minors fight while I bet with other adults on the outcome. No, I mean this in the literal sense.

The adult class which is always struggling to maintain it's membership beyond a few people looked pretty sad last night. Check and Beard didn't show so it was just me and Cook. However, we had a graduate from the kids class. This gal is the younger sister of Arms of Steel. AOS has left for college, but the legacy remains.

So as Teacher explained some of the differences in the two classes Cook and I continued to warm up on our own. I couldn't help but notice the juxtaposition - both Cook and I are over 6 feet in height and Little AOS is about 4'5" and about 90 pounds.

So we did some blocking drills. I was partnered with her and while we did this I noticed the size of her fists! I know I don't have the biggest hands, but hers appeared to be close in size to mine. I enjoyed this until we went into block, block, punch drill. She doesn't mind making contact and she put those mini-hams right into my floating ribs. Ouch! Damn upper cut from tiny people.

She took off at half-time, so Teacher worked with us on a move I don't remember ever doing before. Attacking into an attack in nothing new, but he fused about three moves into one. We would lock out the same side attacking arm, coming over the top and grabbing behind the elbow. At the same time we'd have to reach across with the other hand move the head of Uki around and get the palm under the jaw line. By this time Uki is off balance and with the rear leg we'd slide into a slightly deeper zenkutsu and Uki goes over easy. From there we can go into an arm lock or elbow lock.

In conclusion small children with big fists are dangerous to lower ribs and I had some backsliding on the apology problem. I said, "I'm sorry" about twelve times.

I'm on vacation for the next week. Visiting Parents in the East.