Sunday 11th November

Day two of this weekend was Unarmed Combat Boot Camp with Bret. Bret is scarier than Philip, partly because he's one of the guys at the top of the game and he really knows what he's talking about - it was he and Richard who taught Philip ten years ago - and partly because he is that particularly discomfiting combination, The Deadpan American. All of which combined puts me hopelessly in awe of Bret and turns me into a hopelessly clumsy arse whenever I have to assist him. I'm absolutley sure that Bret must think I'm a gormless simpleton, but at the same time he did write me a letter of support for my TTP application, so he must at least believe I have some redeeming potential.

So we began the day with Bret teaching us all the Unarmed techniques which we might never have been taught before, or at least might only have covered briefly, once, five years ago. Things we hardly ever use and would never teach to beginners. Then we moved on to some more familiar territory and things got a bit harder because now we had to demonstrate each move and do it properly. These were all techniques which we use regularly and perform almost without thinking, only now we have to do everything with pinpoint accuracy whilst our every motion is scrtinised by Yoda for imperfections. Then it got really scary, because in the last part of the day we were each given three or four of the most commonly used techniques to teach to the rest of the gang. This meant not only getting it right ourselves, but having to think about how to teach it to someone else. With the someone elses being Bret and Philip. Who weren't smiling much. And then told us all the things we'd done wrong. Which were legion. Any genuine teachers who may be reading this will I'm sure by now be wearing that slightly smug, slightly condescending smile that we've all seen on teachers when they watch other people who aren't teachers try to teach something really really simple and find themselves flailing around in a vat of sticky inadequacy. To all of you I say this: Yes, we know it's really hard. No-one said that teaching anything is easy. Except maybe Geography, which as we all know can be tught by PE teachers in between doing PE. But just you try teaching something that, on the grounds of your successful application you are supposed to know how to do blindfold, to a big, dour American Jedi Master and his seven-foot, black-clad, Undead-17th-Century-swordsmaster underling and see how easy it is.

Suffice to say that each of us left DSL this evening wondering what the hell we were doing there, as we clearly knew nothing and would never be able to speak in front of a roomful of people again. Tonight there was no pub, becasue on top of everything else, I found today that I am in the grip of the Winter Lurgey.