Sometimes we need to feel pain in order to feel alive. There’s a lot of ways for a person to go through such emotions: we could torture ourselves with hot spicy sambal, we could take up on extreme sports with all the adrenaline rush, and for some instances we could join a martial arts club.
I’ve been an on-and-off member of the Combined Martial Arts Academy for almost seven years now. I used to attend regularly, back when the Dojo was at the Pejaten Philips compound in South Jakarta.
But ever since I’ve gotten married, I have a daughter with a special case that needs special attention, I found it exceedingly hard to make time for the Dojo.
Today was one of those rare occasions where I got the blessings from my beloved wife to attend the training. And it was glorious. I’ve missed out on meeting my mat brothers and sparring with them for quite some time and thus I was bent out of shape.
The number one rule of the fight club is that we don’t talk about the fight club. But the CMAA isn’t just an ordinary club. There’s so much more to it…
The CMAA is the love child of Grandmaster Glen Gardiner. And under his tutelage we study a form of Arnis eskrima from the Cacoy Doce Pares System that originated from Cebu, The Philippines. Arnis isn’t the only thing we’re taught in the Dojo, as Sensei Glenn has a lot of other experience in different form of martial arts, and to go on discribing his background on martial arts would be a great dishonor to him, as this puny human’s blog couldn’t possibly bring justice to the awesomeness of his system that we seasoned students would call Glen Fu.
Sensei Glen is a military instructor by heart and soul, and he has taken up as his mantle of responsibility to train civilians, soldiers and bodyguards alike in the art of unarmed combat. And like most people from the military background, he cuts us no slack in introducing pain into our training sessions. And hence his usual mantra: “pain is just weakness leaving the body”. And when he has given us too much push-ups to go through, he’d say, “it’s just a number” in his heavy Ozzy accent.
Today, I had the honor and privilege to train with him alongside my other brothers that I’ve missed so much. We have brother Alim, Budi, Taufik, Harry, John, Ade, Agus and a new lad I haven’t gotten a chance to get acquainted with.
All of the brothers are well trained and some of them are instructors as well. So the skill level in this particular Dojo is intermediate if not advanced.
Among the training lesson for today was to do the combat roll with the Arnis Stick in our hands. Aikido practitioners like me and Harry had a hard time adjusting cause we were taught to roll with a different technique. Sensei Glen, patiently taught us how to do it correctly, and by patient I meant he didn’t hit us with a stick. Couldn’t say the same for Agus as he had a hard time doing the roll, and had to get whacked a bit for a good measure of encouragement.
After that we went on to train some basic Eskrido techniques, involving stick fighting locks and throws. The rolling training came in handy as it helped break our fall. I paired up with Agus. And we trained on three different throws: two with leg sweeps, and one with an arm lock.
Sensei Glenn makes it look easy as it’s like second nature to him. But for us beginners, we have yet to develop a decent application of the technique. With practice, overtime, our muscle memories will commit to it.
Sensei Glen then had to leave for some other matter, and left Alim and John to continue the training, and this time we were taught the sweet science of boxing.We learnt the jab, the straight right and the hook. And had a light sparring session afterwards.
I got to spar with one of the tankiest fighter in the Dojo, the seasoned bro Budi. And with around 20kgs of weight difference on him, I was easily smacked around. I did manage to land two straights to his face, but his retaliatory hooks felt like I’ve been hit by a bus.
Overall it was a good work out. And it deepened my respect for boxers and their form of art. When you’re only limited to using your fists as a pugilist, for offense and for defense, it really broadens your perspective.
And that comes to our conclusion and closing remarks:
I was deeply motivated by what John said after the sparring session was over. He said that if we train in boxing, and have a good sense of defense, blocking punches to our heads, and keeping calm under pressure, that calmness can be applied anywhere else, like in a board meeting, or when your work is piling up and the deadline is ticking, we’ll have the mental pressure for sure, but it won’t be anything like being punched in the face.
Ichsan Rahmany's 