Tomorrow sees the commencement of the "Missing Chi-Dan-Sau" seminar.

 

A foundation training of Chinese Wing Tsun, Chi-Dan-Sau perfectly encapsulates the art's unique character. Chi-Dan-Sau focuses on training each arm to be able to react instinctively, effectively and independently against an opponent's attacks. This seminar will focus on teaching numerous material that has never been taught before in Western Europe - from different levels to parallel and diagonal attacks, all aspects will be covered.

 

This seminar is called "Missing" because Chi-Dan-Sau is a whole part of the Wing Tsun system that ...

Today is the election for the London Mayor and regional local councils. What and who you vote for is a singularly personal choice, but everyone who is registered to vote has an obligation to do so.

 

In our increasingly busy lives it is easy to dismiss this as yet another inconvenience, but nothing could be further from the truth. With people currently fighting and dying across the world to have their dreams of fair and free elections realised, it is important to appreciate how lucky we are. You only have to read the daily newspapers to realise what it would be like if we did not have such opportunities. I strongly advise you not to waste this possibility.

 

Being the Easter weekend, I thought it appropriate to write about some of the extraordinary parts of our Guinness World Record.

 

I will start by mentioning the teachers. Not only did they have to train like everybody else, but they also had numerous other tasks to perform at the same time; from ensuring that all participants, witnesses, timekeepers and stewards were signed in, to keeping track of the continual videoing (with 3 video cameras), their tasks did not stop throughout the event. This is testing enough in normal conditions, so you can imagine just how much harder it got as the hours progressed. Professional, calm and efficient, they were simply outstanding.

 

It was perhaps one of the most remarkable civilian events I have ever been part of. To start with, nearly 50 students took part with ages ranging from 11 to an amazing 65 years old. These were joined by specialist Commandos who were granted leave from their duties and operations to take part for 12 hours before returning straight back (driving a 16 hour round trip in the process). We then had soldiers from the British Army officially witnessing and timekeeping the whole record, camping out in our rear training room in-between shifts. And this is before any of the remarkable events took place…

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It is now less than 4 days until the World Record event for Help for Heroes begins and the anticipation is steadily growing. For many of those taking part it will be the first time in such an event...

 

I would like to thank the many people who have supported us with kind and generous donations. We have set an ambitious target of £20,000 – so if you haven’t already donated please do support this worthy cause. Donations can be made securely online: www.bmycharity.com/JulianHitchMaseMain

On the 31^st March (in about 18 days…) our schools will be attempting to break our Guinness World Record for the longest ever martial art training. Training continuously for 36 hours, we have set an ambitious target of £20,000 to make a significant difference to those injured in the Armed Forces.

 

This promises to be an exciting event, with a number of highlights. Starbucks have very kindly agreed to support the event – providing free water, hot and cold drinks and food. We will have members from the Territorial Army witnessing and timing the record, and excitingly for the students, we should have elite commandos that I teach taking par ...

The knife defence seminar has indeed commenced in style. With each day there is new focus, technically and theoretically. From key identifying factors, to developing instinctive physical responses this journey has started in earnest.

 

One of the interesting facets of knife-defence is that it also puts into sharp focus (no pun intended) the effectiveness of empty hand techniques. Techniques, concepts and motions that are of dubious usefulness without a weapon are now shown up clearly in the ‘spotlight’ of a blade. Faced with a knife there are no second chances, with only a slight misjudgement having fatal consequences. Realism in training in this area is undoubtedly lacking across the martial arts.

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