Krav Maga Class 88: shadow boxing, thai pads, headbutts and their use in escaping the ground

It was a very cold morning. I got to class just in time, but their clocks are slow so TJ was still sweeping the mat. I told Thomas that I’d never felt less like coming to train, and then actually made it to class.

Warm up was slow, with lots of shadow boxing and some low speed calisthenics. I have a real struggle with push ups. I need to start adding those to my daily routine, so I can get stronger. Anyway, I got my sweat flowing and warmed up my joints.

After a stretch, we got gloves and thai pads and got right into a couple of two minute sets. Combos ending in knee and push away for the first round, and then combos ending in a kick for the second round. I held the pads first, and Thomas was my partner. My kicks were solid, my combos kind of sucked, and Thomas made it “interesting” by making up a bunch of awkward combos. I finished the rounds without dying.

We then moved on to headbutts. Forward with/without hold, side, back, and upward. Thomas and I practiced and we did okay.

After that, we did the buck+trap+roll maneuver, and used headbutt to escape if they were holding our neck after the roll. I found I like to do an elbow to the face, some punches down the gut, and then a few to the groin as I stand and make space.

The last drill was applying headbutts during the sit-up+sweep maneuver. Thomas never tried to put weight back on me, so it was always easy for me to land the sweep. However, on the next-to-last sweep, I came down and landed on my kneecap strangely, and it really hurt. Feels bruised, but hopefully not too damaged.

The high point of the class was when TJ was surprised that I only had an orange belt, and insisted that I needed to test for green belt. (!!!)

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