Self Defense Training
and Mask Making
Workshop / Gathering
November 12/13/14, 2004

Our weekend began with Storytelling around a campfire on Friday night. It was really nice to be outdoors under the Stars and hear so many wonderful Native Stories. Special thanks to Mike and Marcia Nelson Pedde for their thoughtful sharing.

After some Hot Chocolate, we crashed knowing the next day was going to be a physically taxing one.

Our Self Defense training began with a
vigorous warmup that included pushups, ...

Stomach Crunches, ...

Stretching, ...

and more Stretching.

Then we got into some basic moves. The first one was
how to protect your head and how to jab your opponent.

We learned how to properly deliver a kick.

Cezary went one-on-one with everyone to sharpen their skills.

Greg delivers a knee thrust.

Between Self Defense Training sessions, we went on an hour long blindfolded snake walk. It was really neat because, without your sight you are forced to amplify and really notice your other senses. The other thing that happens is you understand how much we depend on our sight.

After lunch, we had some fun outside participating in a unique
relay that challenged our balance and stamina. It was really wild!

Then we went back inside to do a little more
stretching before learning more self defense techniques .

We learned how to hold on to our opponent and stay in control.

We learned how to take advantage of our
opponent's mistakes and how to put them in an arm-bar.

To demonstrate how easy it is to protect yourself, Cezary
asked 2 people to try and make him tap-out (Give up).

Well, 2 couldn't do it, so 3 tried!

3 couldn't do it, so 4 tried!.

And finally, 4 couldn't do it, so 5 tried!

After about 5 minutes of wrestling around, we called it off without Cezary being pinned. The demonstration was more than convincing. Cezary had been able to hold off up to five opponents by following the simple concepts he taught us. Protect your neck and face, control your opponent's position and don't wear yourself out. Engage them smartly, have patience and take advantage of their mistakes by using the techniques he taught us.

We were also reminded that it helps to be in good physical condition to withstand whatever your opponent does manage to deliver on you and to have the strength, intelligence and attitude to be able to stay in and gain control of the situation. It was a really powerful learning experience, including the adrenaline rush that came with it.

Thanks Cezary for sharing your knowledge and skills. Thanks for helping us to feel more secure about our own self-defense should we ever need to use it. We know that engaging in a fight is the last resort and we hope we never have to use what we learned from you this weekend.

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The other activity we did was Mask Making. On Saturday we began our Masks and painted them on Sunday. Click here to see the Mask Making Pictures