Mizblog

TJ’s Thursday morning class. I got there late and had to finish wrapping my hands during shadow boxing. I was upset because Sangeeta yelled at me for her not being able to remember the word “garage” and that somehow became my fault, and my dad’s fault. She was stressed and she was starting to blame me for her emotional state, so I tried to not take it personal. But it still messed with me and it was making me teeter between anger and depression.

Long arms served me well in shoulder tag. Dinged my right thumb and it didn’t hurt, so that’s a HUGE milestone.

Then we put on gloves and focus mitts and started throwing down combos. I’m getting better at holding mitts. I held for new guy and green belt David. He liked to throw a cross on the 4, so I held for that. I hurt my biceps throwing hooks again, but dinging my right thumb didn’t re-aggravate it, so I think I might be past that injury (finally!) We did lots of lunging punches.

After that, we geared up and sparred. One minute rounds with immediate partner changes. I started with Jeff. He was tagging me a few times, but he didn’t have his glasses on so I also was able to tag him a bunch. I really need to work on my head movement. Anyway, next I paired up with Thomas. We went really lightly. Then David. He’s short so I used my reach a bunch, but I was getting tired. Then Jeff again. I caught him with an upper cut coming in, and his nose started bleeding. I told him it was the first upper cut I’d ever landed in sparring. Finally, Thomas again. I caught him with a body shot that he said he really felt. It wasn’t that hard, but I guess it was a clean shot, and I didn’t expect it to land clean. That’s the thing about Thomas – he leaves the body open.

So I learned through repeated experience that I need to move my head around more and avoid getting hit in it.

At the end of class we learned stick defense. Make a ramp defense and a simultaneous bursting punch, control the stick arm, combatives, and take away the stick.