Walking Before Kicking

I was speaking to Teacher after the kids class; commenting on their various performances during testing.  I pointed out that many of the kids had trouble with side kicks in that they had poor balance.  I speculated that they maybe hadn't developed enough to do those kicks.  Teacher's response was:

"Hell, most of those kids have only been walking a couple of years;  of course it's tough!"  

I hadn't been to class for over a month and maybe more so I was a bit nervous (when am I not?).  I wanted to protect my slowly healing shoulder and I knew my general fitness was pretty low due to being sick for the last month.  

However, the class had a slow relaxed pace since we have a new gal attending (Frenchie!).   This brings our regular class to the awesome number of four while the kids class has stabilized at 20.  By the time this kids reach the age to participate in the adult class we'll all be too old to take hard falls.

We did two advanced techniques that were worth noting.  The first was our standard arm lock but with a twist I wasn't aware of.  By placing the forearm into the interior of the elbow (the pit?) we found out that the ulna (thumbside) acts as a lever against the nerves on the top of the forearm of your opponent.  Pants wettingly painful.  

The second was a spot behind the knee.  In a close tussle you can drive you knee into that spot with a twist of the leg and the other guy goes flying just to get a way.  Teacher dropped me in a second and then pressed down on the spot further.  I thought I was going to shit myself in an attempt to get away. Good lesson learned.