The Road to The CIC part 2 of 2

Day 6

Officially halfway there! Today we do a dry run of the test and work from P1 to G1. We stop occasionally to review techniques that aren’t as crisp as others and make a list of techniques that we need to drill on their own. But were mostly flying through things and were realizing that most techniques are becoming extremely natural and reflexive under duress.

Marcus is all smiles with the progress we’ve made and were not going let him or ourselves down when it comes down to the wire. We’re hitting hard and the moves are really flowing now… then we got a little too cocky and we hit a speed bump. My turning soft break fall needs work. I think it was partly our arms being worn out from the beating we all took the past days and taking advantage of the mats. Marcus fixes it by encouraging us to try it on the asphalt and shove each other down to perfect out techniques in a realistic context! We didn’t mess that technique up anymore after that. We ended the day with small group training so we could work the techniques we all had individual problems with.

Day 7 – Lecture Day! Or so we thought…

We begin the day with lectures about teaching and other Krav Maga related topics. It was nice to get closer and learn a little more about our fellow CIC participants. But the lectures are short lived and Marcus decides that he will use the day to try and destroys us!

We do all sorts of new drills that I’ve never done before. We do ‘Get Ups’ by the numbers which means person 14 does 14 ‘Get Ups’ and 13 does 13… and so on down to 1, then we reverse it so 1 is now 14 and the order keeps on going. While we’re waiting for our turns we are shadow fighting and going over everything we’ve learned from P1 to G1 non-stop then do it all again with a partner. Then he finishes us off with 40 minutes of squats on command with arms out. And that was all before lunch!

After lunch we start off with teaching practice. Then it’s straight back to getting wrecked! They lock us in the training room and turn up the heat and make the gym like a sauna so that you couldn’t even see through the front windows! It quickly becomes one big sweaty mess where the mats are almost impossible to walk on because of the amount of sweat pouring off us! After a few hours we finally come to the end of the day and every single person is drenched but we were all still smiling. What a great day!

Day 8

More people are showing up today for G training and their instructor re-certifications. It was great to see and meet some of the other instructors from all over the country and see how everyone’s Krav Maga fits their body type. The instructors intensity is high right off the bat but what they don’t know is that Marcus is planning to break them down.

We continued on with our training and review from where we all left off. Marcus is on us for a lack of scanning and we keep reminding each other to stress prevention. We get a lunch break but we keep it really short so we can get back to training. We drill everything until our brains start to hurt and stray and Marcus can see were starting to over-think and become sloppy so he sends us packing and tell us to hit the road so we can get a good nights sleep before the first day of testing!

Day of testing!

We arrive at 9am and everyone is buzzing with excitement. We do some review with some of the instructors outside until noon and we go on a quick hour break (which goes by way too fast) then we head back in to start the teaching phase of the test.

Guess who gets to go first? Yeah – this guy! I don’t know why I was surprised by this because as soon as I locked eyes with Marcus I knew it was going to be me. My technique was defense against a straight stab. Yes! This is definitely a technique that I feel very comfortable with. I also get to teach some cool knife games! I finish and feel confident that I did a good job and we move on to the next person and push through the day. Everyone else had fun teaching and killed it! I’m very proud of everyone but now it’s time to get ready for the real test.

I am not going to go through everything in the test systematically and tell you how my inside defense was, or how hard I got punched. Testing, just like Krav Maga, isn’t something that you can easily describe. You have to experience it. It was all or nothing and I dived-in head-first.

I never truly got it before today but I can now say I understand what you get out of every test and it’s wonderful. It’s one of the best and hardest days and it fulfills more than a need for some patch. It’s a culmination of countless hours of hard work, blood that’s been sacrificed for a higher cause and sweat that’s been shed to lighten the immense load that you carry with you daily.

Just thinking about how amazing the day was sends electricity down my spine. It was a 10 hour test and there were bonds forged this day that will never be broken and memories that will never be forgotten. We got pushed past the breaking point and fought our way like Spartan warriors back into the fray. Was it easy? HELL NO! But when is anything in life that’s worth doing easy? This was one of those moments in your life where you have two choices. Either, give up and tell yourself that you can’t do it, or you can take all of the nerves and emotions and let them flow through every fiber and movement of your body. Let the training guide you and shut off your mind and just let go, because it doesn’t matter anymore. You’ve either put in the time in training or you haven’t. Whatever happened outside of class or training doesn’t matter anymore when you pass through that threshold. It’s now or never. Who wants to come dive in with me?

Josh Greenwood (G1)