Holiday Training with Perry Kelly Sensei

Before the damage of the indulgent holiday meals could set in from the past week, Chris and I went to meet and train with Perry Kelly Sensei. Perry Kelly Sensei is a 4th degree black belt in Can-ryu, as well as a instructor of Muay Thai, Shamrock fighting, and Fast Combatives. Being a martial arts author/ historian with several books published, he had contacted me earlier this year having taken an interest in my book, Weapons of Opportunity.

What his impressive list of accomplishments doesn't tell you is how, over his decades of martial arts training, he has used an inquisitive and open-minded approach to training to intelligently and effectively integrate his multiple disciplines and training experiences for the purposes of martial arts competition and self-protection. Needless to say, training with him was a fascinating and educational experience.

Chris and I trained with Perry Kelly Sensei for 3 hours, which seemed to go by in a blink. He showed us some very interesting training methods and technical applications, many of which we had never seen before. A number of them, I intend to employ myself. Others, well, even if I would prefer to avoid using them personally, they were certainly effective and gave me things to think about.

The most important thing I took away from our training session was the confirmation that I should make the most of all the various opportunities to learn from the myriad of skilled martial arts instructors that are out there. As Perry himself said, even if you only take away a single concept that you can use and apply from a seminar or other training experience, it is well worth the time, money and effort.

We took away much more than a single concept, but far too much to tell you about in a single post. I'll cover 2 of them in my next 2 posts, one of them relates to MMA, the other to self-defense. The next post will be on the MMA concept, Dirty Fighting Tactics.