Pull the choke apart, simultaneous kick to the groin, elbow to the throat, headbutt to the nose, bite the neck

I left my house at 1:15PM for the Krav Maga center in West L.A. to redeem my 2-week pass and to attend the intro class at 2:30PM. But with traffic on the 10 freeway and accidentally exiting on Bundy south instead of Bundy north (Who the hell designs an exit to split into opposite directions anyway?), I arrived at exactly 2:30PM, which meant I was a few minutes late to class because I still had to change. But it went like this:

• We started by partnering up and playing a game of tag. Rules: You could only tag the shoulder. You couldn't block, but only dodge. Then switched partners.
• Some asian kid was trying too hard to be a hard ass, but looked like I could easily knock him out.
• Then it was a free-for-all with the game of tag.
• Then 5 push-ups, but an additional 5 until everyone was counting loud enough. Then stomach crunches and jumping jacks
• There were a lot of similarities to the Street Fighting course that I trained in in the Philippines with the footwork.

At this point, 1 of the teachers talks to me.

TEACHER 2: Have you done any other martial arts before?
RYAN: Yeah.
TEACHER 2: I notice you have a basic understanding of form. What have you done?
RYAN: Filipino Martial Arts, Capoeira ...
TEACHER 2: When you say Filipino Martial Arts, you mean like Kali?
RYAN: Yeah. [Teacher looks impressed]

Continuing on:

• "There's no jab-cross in Krav Maga. Just a knock-out punch. I'm not punching his face ... I'm punching through his face."
• Then we drilled punching the pads nonstop on our feet, on our knees, and standing over the opponent.
• "When we kick the groin, we're actually trying to kick [up to] the head ... the problem is the groin's in the way!"
• Then we drilled kicking the pads nonstop.

TEACHER 2: (at me) What I want you to do, since your form's good, is kick it harder and faster.

• We drilled clinching - in which 1 hand clasps behind the attacker's tricep and the other behind their shoulder - and pulling them into our knee strike.
• In real life, our finger nails should dig into their flesh when we clinch.
• Teacher #2 suggested keeping my foot pointed downward when I throw the knee so that it would launch like a spear.
• Since our hand clasping behind their tricep tends to be weak, our other forearm should stay strong against their chest, which also prevents them from shooting in.
• The counter againt a choke is to pull their hands apart with the same force as doing a lat pulldown at the gym, while maintaining forward pressure, and simultaneously kicking the groin.
• We were then free to improvise any combo after pulling the choke apart and kick to the groin.

TEACHER 1: I was at a bar once and I was wearing my Krav Maga shirt. And some guy comes up to me and says, "Oh, you're a tough guy, huh?" And he tries to choke me and I do this [palm strike to the chin] and that knocked him out!

Moral of the story: The purpose of every move in the combos we drilled was just in case the preceeding move didn't work. In real life, the 1st move is very possible to result in knockout.

TEACHER 1: And, no, I'm not a tough guy!

After class, I collected my 1-week pass (which they originally said was a 2-week pass, but the 2nd week was only redeemable if I signed up - classic Jewish). Then I hurried home to shower, eat and pick up Matt for the PWG show at Wrestle Reunion.

RYAN: I invented a new combo today when countering a choke: pull the choke apart, simultaneous kick to the groin, elbow to the throat, headbutt to the nose, bite the neck.
MATT: You see what that Twilight did to you!

The biggest challenge was finding parking. Finally, at the lowest level of the parking lot where there was barely any oxygen, we were forced to make up our own parking spot. We sat next to Chad who happened to have 2 seats by him. Peter and his friend remained standing in a corner. All the regular faces were there.

RYAN: (at Chad) You see that chick that we both jack off to.
Later ...
CHAD: I saw her. I was all accidentally bumping into people while staring at her!

Highlights: The Great Muta and Rob Van Dam. The end. Matt and I got McDonalds near his house and called it a night.