qi-tah
Brown Belt
A freind of mine recently had a pretty scary experience with a kickboxing instructor in a nearby town (I live in rural Australia). She's been wanting to learn kickboxing for ages and was really excited about starting. But it only took three sessions for things to go horribly pear-shaped. The first i heard about the drama was when she showed up at my house looking seriously sore and confused... apparently she'd been told to spar on her third session with some hot shot experienced guy and the instructor was telling him to "put her on her ***". Now, sparring so soon sounds pretty wild to me, but as she went on, it became clear that the situation was so much worse than that: a) She didn't have a mouth gaurd in or a head gaurd on and he allowed her to spar, b) She had never been taught to fall properly, c) the "ring" they were sparring in was just some mats laid down over concrete and held in place by solid timber edging - no ropes, nothing to stop you falling out of the ring. You can guess what happened next - the hot shot guy swept her legs, she tripped and fell backwards heavily, arcing her back to catch her balance (as you might do as an unco newbie) and landed head/shoulders first on the mat. The scary part was, she landed only inches away from the wooden surround - if sh'd hit her head on that (or the concrete!) the odds are that she wouldn't be here at all! As it was, she was badly concussed and her neck muscles pretty bashed up too. Oh, and you want to know the worst bit??! He let her train the rest of the class and then drive 35kms home in the dark by herself! What a farking tool! Apparently since then he's shut up shop and gone underground... if i could find him i'd be reporting him to anyone who could listen!!