Guro Laurence Sandum Kali Seminar – January 2017

Robin French with Guro Laurence Sandum and Guro David Farmer - January 2017

Kicking off what looks to be an awesome year of training in 2017, January saw me visit Guro Laurence Sandum’s academy in Witham, for one of his regular Kali seminars.

Guro Laurence is one of the highest level instructors in the UK under Guro Dan Inosanto, and is constantly further refining his skill set at the Inosanto Academy in Los Angeles. As such, I was eager to see some of the freshest material he’s been learning and polishing.

Guro Laurence started the session with some basic single stick patterns, which can be used in stick shadowboxing (carenza), as well as a follow up to other drills like abecedario and numerado.

Moving on to the third area of Inosanto Kali, stick and knife, Guro Laurence worked an open five-count drill, first with a female half triangle and then both a clockwise and anti-clockwise tiata footwork.

With this five-count in mind as an example follow up, Guro Laurence then worked through a stick and knife numerado pattern; steadily building up to a long pattern. I will drill this further, until it is much smoother, and then maybe migrate to a more freeplay approach.

The second section of the session switch focus to the second area of Inosanto Kali, double stick, staring off with the basic eight high six-count siniwali variations. I personally like this, as it reinforced some drills I already know, along with giving me some new variations to work on in my own practice.

Focus then switched onto the ordabis probing series; using a simple probing backhand shot, or shots, to set up a powerful follow up combination. I particularly liked this section, seeing the way that the drill would work well for stick sparring.

The final section of the day was the abanico-witik series; coordinating the variety of fan-type motions with simple ‘hit and retract’ shots.

At the very end of the session, Guro Laurence demonstrating some twirling drills, to help develop wrist mobility and ambidextrous coordination; something I resolve to do more off in the immediate future.

Thanks to Guro Laurence for hosting, and for constantly striving to develop himself and, in so doing, help me to improve!

Finally, special thanks to all the guys (and girl) I worked with, especially my long term training partner, Guro David Farmer.