Teaching the Shredder...

[Bret]

So, I bought the Shredder, and after having to wait for customs to deliver it, it FINALLY arrived... !!! I wanted to work with it a bit before I responded with my thoughts, so, I got to work with my training partner/business partner (one mean girl let me tell you). And we trained it pretty hard for a week. (I absolutely loved it, but I was curious 1. if my students would, and 2. how effectively I could teach it having only been doing it for a week [I am, for the record, a fairly quick study]). Then we started teaching it...

Wow...

I was truly AMAZED at how quickly two particular groups of people picked it up. Women, and men with no previous training. Most of my students have almost no training, a few are trained in Krav Maga, and none have much traditional training to speak of. They ones with no training picked it up instantly and looked like pros at the end of night one. I even have a couple of them starting to work multiple attack scenarios after day two.

They LOVE it. I did not have A SINGLE NEGATIVE COMMENT from anyone!!!

I started them by making them watch most of the tape with Rich showing how it is done (They loved his... "colorful" word choice and how aggresive he is. I preach hard aggression non-stop to my people, so when Rich did the same thing, they felt right at home.) I would stop the tape, ask if anyone had any questions, make sure they understood it, then practice a bit what we just saw. Finally, at the end of the night, we had them go for it.

It was incredible. We don't have any head gear yet (start-up biz with not much $$$) so we had to tone it down a bit, but even as such, we had a couple scrapes and scratches, but overall, no injuries. But hopefully soon we'll be able to get a few headpieces.

Also, I started a new class I call combat concepts where we do such things as awareness, de-escalation, and a few things I found to be real gems in Rich's book "Total Defense of Self". Once again, a wildly successful class.

Rich, my students love you.

-Bret (An opinion from someone just starting Senshido and always very skeptical of new "amazing" things).

[Chad Power]

Way to go Bret! As someone that also introduced this concept recently to his students I felt the same before I trained it with them. We had the same responses that you are getting from your people, and I can tell you, it only gets better as you work it.

Keep us posted as to how your training progresses!

[malevolent preacher]

Bret, Ilike the fact that you are skeptical... shows a desire to apply critical thinking.

You see, when you teach it, how people with experience are trying to learn "on the wrong level" and beginners grasp it in 30secs...

Glad you liked it!

[Richard Dimitri]

Hey Bret, good to hear man, thanks for sharing that with us. It is most people's experience with the Shredder when they get to teaching it.

Glad to hear your students took to it well. Keep up us posted on the progression.