A kick to the head...

This was another Krav Maga brown belt test. This class ranged in age from mid-twenties to over 60; all of them tough and well-trained students! The test involves a review of about 18 months of Krav Maga curriculum, including self-defense tactics, about 6 different combinations of kicks and punches and a couple of tests of endurance. You have to run a mile and complete 75 push-ups; 50 of them non-stop. After this, they sparred for about 30 minutes, changing partners every minute or so. You sleep well at night after a workout like this. More stills and video are here.

Black belts

We watched a recent black belts award performance at North Attleboro high school. Students and instructors from America's Best Defense, a group of martial arts schools in Massachusetts. This is where we train in Krav Maga. Pictures here were taken with the new Canon 5D II, include stills and video. The lighting was fairly low, so the stills were almost all shot at ISO 6400. The lighting quality could have been better. There was virtually no front light on the faces of the people on stage.

Board Breakers

Video was shot with the Canon G9. This is a simple camera to operate in video and the auto-focus behaved surprisingly well. Video here