Go Granny!

Another article from Saturday's Winnipeg Free Press
"Seniors engage in high sticking By: Kathy Haight COMBAT isn’t the first thing you think about when you see someone walking with a cane. But older adults learned they make good weapons at recent Combat Cane classes at Atria MerryWood senior living centre in North Carolina. Cane self-defence -- or "cane-fu" -- is the latest trend to hit senior centres in the United States. Retirees practise whacking bad guys with walking sticks, while building self-confidence and muscle tone. In the Charlotte, N.C., area, the classes are still novel. While most seniors will never raise a cane against attackers, experts say the workouts increase heart and lung function as well as mental acuity. And as MerryWood residents learned, it's fun to wave sticks around like the Three Musketeers. "Do you mind if I knock your head off?" a grey-haired woman in a red dress asked a classmate wearing a hearing aid. The two squared off in MerryWood's dining room as martial arts experts taught 30 seniors how to go for the groin, throat and eyes. "Dot the eyes!" instructor Rob Hunter told his students. "That's our little figure of speech for 'poke him in the eye."' As some seniors sat beside their walkers and watched, more than a dozen others paired up for mock battle. "Oops," said Maud Kidston, 87. "You almost got me in the mouth." "Well, you'll want to do worse than that if you're in a fight," replied her partner Janet Fee, 72. Kidston is confident she could do damage with her cane if necessary. But she especially liked other tips, like shouting to show attackers you're no pushover. "I can have a very foul mouth on me if I want to," she said. Senior cane classes have grown in national popularity in recent years, says Nevada martial arts expert Mark Shuey, a pioneer of the discipline. He started teaching cane techniques to seniors in 1997. "People think a cane is a crutch," said Shuey. "But it's a great self-defence tool." -- The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.)."