Mizblog

My first class back after the holiday closure and renovation. I had strained my shoulder on xmas day, but it was mostly all better by class time. Still, I was apprehensive because of how easily I fell apart in the past.

The studio has two new rows of pads that extends toward where the big desk used to live (it’s smaller now) and the back room was extended out by one pad. The walls were painted a serious green, and some of it had been dripped on the pads. I heard they were still taking down tape when the kids were warming up on Monday afternoon. And there’s more to come!

Anyway, we started with shadow boxing, then shoulder tag, then running around. There’s an extra 6′ of mat to sprint now, so it gets a lot more difficult in the warm up. Still, I handled it, but I was a little out of breath and shaky.

Focus mitts and gloves, did combos with bursting cross punch and mixed in 360 defenses. Burst and 360 would factor into the later knife defense.

So, knife defense. I still horribly suck at punching with my left fist while blocking with my right hand bladed. We addressed the problem of “training scars” by donning a right boxing glove and throwing/landing actual punches to the knife wielding attackers. It motivates the attacker to duck the chin and bite down on the mouth guard. It does rattle the brain a little bit, but we weren’t throwing heat. Ronnie forgot to tuck his chin once and caught one in the nose. No blood.