Wednesday 15 July 2015

Krav Maga Chania part 2



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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