After a great time with Dimitris
and his club in Chania, Crete on 24th June I was more than keen to go back for
another session. The turmoil of the possible Grexit from Europe
had been going on for a few weeks but despite the gloomy pessimism on Facebook
the only obvious sign of impending isolation from the Eurozone was huge queues
of anxious tourists at the cash points.
I came back 4 days before the end
of my holiday and caught a lift with Manolis, a former Brit who'd moved to Crete
as a child. A lot of the guys were already there warming up as we arrived and
Dimitris was enthusiastic, shaking my hand and telling me all about his time doing the KMG Combat Mindset & Mental Conditioning Course in Israel the previous week. The youngest
member of the club Mirto was celebrating her 17th birthday and had decided to train anyway. Emmanouhl, another practitioner also had his birthday so there were lots of cakes and soda laid out ready for
afterwards, a sight for sore eyes and something to look forward to, for any practitioner after a heavy session.
After the last time where I had
excruciating muscle cramps for most of the night following the training, I had
taken advice from people I trust, and glugged down about 3 litres of water and
eaten well during the day. Apparently it's not replenishment after training
that counts but what you put in beforehand. Your body loses vital fluids and
replacement takes time. The temperature in the gym was again around the 30
degrees Celsius mark and I had no desire to be doing the Ministry of Silly
Walks around my hotel room while stifling screams at 4am again .
We warmed up with the usual stretches
and running then moved on to the introductions on my behalf to the club members
who weren't there last time. We did some striking work on the pads and bags
around the walls of the gym and then we shifted to a work through of the
techniques used to escape from choke holds. This proved useful and at Krav Maga
Midlands back home, I had done a lot of this drilling. After various methods
were gone through Dimitris then demonstrated one I hadn't seen before. He got a
student to choke him with his head up close and no room to manoeuvre, the
attacker's body pressed up against him. He then grabbed the guys head and mimed
twisting it to the side. This would hurt like hell in a real situation and when
I was asked for my feedback I pointed out that the technique I'd been taught
was to lower your body weight, adjust your stance to balance and then force the
assailant's head backwards, preferably while thumbing their eye sockets.
Dimitris agreed that this was the established technique but added that this
method was for if the person had got too close for you to be able to
effectively utilise that defence.
After my misplaced machismo over
water breaks last time I made certain I was hydrated throughout the class and
got through 2 bottles by the time it was over.
Afterwards we had a small party at
the club for Mirto and Manolis before heading out to a taverna for dinner. This was
a really nice way to round off the training and I had a good chat with Dimitris
and club member Lefteris who had given me a lift to the restaurant. Dimitris
hadn't heard of Fast Defence and was intrigued by the video I showed him of the
Adrenaline 2 event in June. He quickly got in touch with Wayne Hubball via
Facebook with a view to finding out more. I suggested that next summer some
more guys from KMM come over to train with him and he was more than up for it.
After a lovely Greek dinner including a huge steak (not to mention a good few glasses of cold beer) we said goodbye
and I headed back to my hotel.
Really great time on the two
sessions and it was a privilege to see another country's KMG club and to train
with these guys. Can't wait to go back again and my thanks to Dimitris and all
the guys at KMC who made this such a great experience.
Ef̱charistó̱
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