CMAG end of year tournament
CMAG had its end of year celebrations and grading on the 13th of December. This time we changed the concept from a traditional grading environment into a competition driven setting where students were required to demonstrate their self-defence skills in a high pressure environment with an audience. This was designed to test the students ability to transfer learned skills into real life applications.
Those students who weren’t ready to grade this time around were all invited to join in as competitors where prizes could be won and more importantly to have a bit of fun. By participating in the competition students also earned credits that will count towards their eligibility for one of multiple gradings scheduled for each calendar year.
CMAG is working towards real world self-defence scenario based training as our club members are developing the skills and self control to achieve this in a safe and respectful way. We want to thank all of our members for their support and positive attitude throughout the year that enables this to happen, and congratulate them on the progress they made.
Knife Defence Seminar
Our Knife defence seminar in November was well attended by our members, along with martial artists from 3 other clubs. The objective of the seminar was to determine if Martial arts in general and in this case CMAG has a role to play in addressing knife violence. To achieve this, the seminar was not presented as a series of moves or techniques to learn and repeat. Instead an Ecological Approach was used to separate fact from fiction. Some of the questions explored included, can anyone in the room actually successfully grab the arm of a knife (dummy knife) wielding attacker at full speed? Further, assuming this was achieved could anyone in attendance actually control the arm the knife and thereby the attacker? The seminar also focused on the proactive skills to avoid knife violence and de escalation strategies if confronted.