Mizblog

Christian’s Saturday class almost started with me the only student, but Ronnie showed up at the last minute, and Diego continued from the Strikefit class prior. We got right into it by pairing up and punching a tombstone pad. Diego hits HARD! We also did legs-up toe touches (upper ab work) and front kicks (Diego is much softer at these) and lizard push ups and hammer strikes and lateral shoulder-hip mobility.

Then we broke for water, got our boxing gloves ready and put our mouth guards in. The first exercise was getting punched in the face. This is one I’ve done a few times. Christian used me as the example dummy. Then I paired up with Ronnie and he punched me in the face. He was better than Andrew because he didn’t put his knuckles into my eyeballs. Ronnie took my light punches with stoic resolve.

We then gloved up and did punch combinations for a few minutes, using our boxing gloves as focus mitts. I found out the hard way that my left elbow is still messed up, because every hook punch I caught with it caused me some real pain. I worked with it and it didn’t really get worse. We then added some evasions at the end. After a 1 or 3 we’d slip a straight punch from the pad holder, and after a 2 or 4 combination we’d bob and weave around a followup hook. Ronnie and I got after it, and we did a good job once we got into the swing of it. I even was able to take angles after some of the evasions.

At the end, we put on headgear and we boxing sparred. 90 second rounds. First against Ronnie, I found myself with a couple bad habits. First, I was flinching and trying to throw punches in while keeping my head averted and out of range. Dumb! Against Diego, Coach Mark told me to use my footwork to circle out instead of just leaning away. Last round with Christian, I put it together, but I wasn’t able to keep my chin down and see him at the same time. I’m resolved to adjust my headgear to ride a little higher on my head from now on, so I can tuck my chin and still see. Christian said I did pretty well at everything else. Pretty good head movement and footwork. Still tons of room for improvement.

After class, I was sweaty and beat. Saranya told me that she got 3 stripes on her BJJ white belt, so now she’s way ahead of me!

Well, Saranya and I are. And I’ve got an itchy face, a rash starting in my left arm pit, and the sniffles. Saranya has diarrhea and stomach cramps. Sangeeta stayed in Nepal to take care of family stuff.

Milan got us to travel to Nepal at short notice.

Saranya got her green belt last night.

TJ’s Saturday morning class was not one I approached enthusiastically. After a week of neck and shoulder problems, I was very apprehensive. But I had to take Saranya to her BJJ class so I suited up at the last second and took my place on the line.

I knew I was in trouble right away. My cardio wasn’t there anymore. The early jog around the mat was causing my left ankle to twinge and complain. I felt unbalanced during shadow boxing. Unbalanced and awkward. We pulled out the bags and did a circuit, moving from one bag to another, landing a variety of strikes on each before moving to the next. I did okay but was seriously gassing out on the second time around. Then we stretched, and I sweated all over the mat.

We gloved up and did Thai pad work. I teamed up with Thor (Eric) and had a good learning experience. Again, I was gassed. Very low energy reserves.

Gloves off, we learned ridge hand strikes. We also learned mouth hand strikes. These essentially both strike with the injured part of my right thumb, so I had to use my left, and it hurt my elbow and biceps. Very awkward.

We did vertical forearm defenses against high kicks and straight punches to practice for knife defense. Straight knife, and backhand knife defenses. Ended with a drill.

When I got off the mat, I just leaned my head on the TRX post to relax my strained neck muscles. Saranya was sitting on Ivan and crying because she’d hit herself in the eye with her own knee. We were both hurting. Eventually she wiped her face and calmed down enough that we could go home.

It started in a locker room, with yellow lockers 3 high on either side of the aisle. It had been a long time since I was there, and I wasn’t confident that I remembered my combination. Gwen Stefani was there, and she came over and started to work my combination, but I was dismissive and told her she was way off. Imagine my surprise when the locker opened!

Inside the locker were bags of nutritional supplements. I had L-Tryptophan and L-Phenylalanine in plastic bags, and some notes on how much to take. Gwen wanted to use a plastic knife to measure it out, but I looked deeper into the locker to try to find a measuring spoon or something.

What I found instead was an elaborate first aid kit, and what I slowly came to realize was a filthy skeleton. I was in shock when I realized that something dead had been stored in my locker, so when the skeleton started moving I was ready. I froze. The spine and pelvis popped up and started hopping around. Gwen and I shared a nervous chuckle, because it was kind of like a macabre puppet performance. Then it pulled itself together and suddenly became Sangeeta.

I confronted Sangeeta about how come I had just seen her bones and now she looked fleshy, albeit encased in something that looked like partial plate mail. She admitted that yes that was her, but she didn’t explain. I then asked her what my D&D dwarf priest would say if he met her. She got nasty and replied that things would start to go very bad just before that happened. I asked her if she was evil and she admitted “Well, yes.” Then she scrambled my brain and made me start chanting “La la la la” and running down the street.

At this point I still remembered that she was an evil undead creature. She was powerful but not too smart, and she thought I was completely dominated (and I guess I was, at least at the time.) I headed for the mall. I was going to see if there was something there that could show me what to do about her. I ran ahead.

Inside the mall, it was tricky to get to the section I needed, because there was a crowd of mannequins blocking the corridor. I managed to get around them, and found Sangeeta talking to a naked guy who was playing video games. Specifically, he was playing 3 video games at once. The main one was a DDR clone for drumming, and he was amazing at it. I barely paid attention to the other two games he was killing, because the drumming was so good. And that’s about when I woke up.

TJ’s Saturday class. Saranya’s class was before, and Brandon taught her since Christian is back on the East coast. My left knee was hurting, and I really had to consider whether or not I should train today. I finally manned up and lined up.

We started with shadow boxing, shoulder tag, and calisthenics. Then we had a game of flag tag, hopping on one foot. I was on team yellow. We won the first round, and then Calvin and I stalemated at the end of the second round so everybody but us had to do sprawls.

After that, we brought focus mitts and gloves out back to the tarmac, where we practiced combos on uneven terrain with the threat of cars coming past. I partnered with Mike again. Outside combos in the sun were different but not too uncomfortable. We added knees and kicks with thai pads too, and I didn’t have much problem except for one twinge in my sore knee.

Then back inside for self defense training. We did choke from behind first, but finished with an arm bar take-down. I don’t think I got the blade of the wrist on right, or the wave motion to turn the elbow. Got to work on that.

Then we did full nelson defense. It involves peeling the fingers off the back, with a samurai sword drawing grip. Use the finger to step out, throw combatives with the other arm, spin to get the finger bent toward the attacker, and then snap it down and continue the fight. Mike got my finger pretty good. I heard his pop, but he said it didn’t hurt at all. Anyway, that was the class.

TJ’s Saturday morning class. Started right in to shadow boxing. I did okay mostly. Partnered with Mike for the class.

Next we took turns running out to the speed bump behind the studio with a heavy thing, then came back in to do combos in thai pads. 3 rounds then switch.

After that we did boxing sparring. I didn’t land a whole lot but I didn’t get tagged a lot either, except by Susan. But I tagged her a couple good times too, so I don’t feel too bad.

Then it was gear off and back on the mat for stick defense. I got a group of 3, with Mike and Leo (who I barely remembered from BJJ class, and who complimented me on looking “thicker” than when we met) and we went 1 for 1 for 1. It went really well.

Finally we did a stress drill with stick and knife defenses. When it was my turn to defend, I accidentally punched Curtis in the face. Oops. Sorry, Curtis!

After class, I found out that in Saranya’s BJJ class, she was awarded “Queen of the Mat”. Congrats, Saranya!

Curtis’ Saturday KM All class. Saranya was doing her first ever BJJ class with Jasmine (we didn’t know it would be going on, so she didn’t bring her gi) while I was working.

Class started with shoulder tag. I accidentally poked my finger into Calvin’s nose. Sorry, Calvin.

Then, thai pads and combinations followed by a knee. I partnered up with white belt Mike.

After that we worked on inside defenses, which is great because I suck at them. Mike and I went slow and I don’t know how much I improved but I feel like maybe I did. We also did defense against straight punch to the body. Then we did one hand defenses against straight punches. Then we put on boxing gloves and headgear.

As I was getting my stuff, Christian yelled at me from the kids’ training room that Saranya knew how to pull guard. I yelled “Yeah!”. I’m so proud. :)

I got to introduce Mike to sparring. We started one handed, then switched who was one handed, and then went normal.

After that I sparred with Scott, Alex, and Renée. Scott got me a few times. Alex was being showy and elusive, so I just started chasing him around with punches (to the great satisfaction of Curtis). Renee and I traded some pretty good shots. She’d just come in and wail on me and get out, so I started trying to time her with uppercuts as she came in.

And that was class.

TJ’s Saturday morning class. I started with hand wraps. Typical jogging warm-up followed by shoulder tag. I was very careful with my right thumb. Susan gave me lots of sympathy (apparently she’s been hurt by Rick too) but Eric (Thor) chastised me for too much backing up. So I touched his shoulder and he touched mine and he was happier.

We did some focus mitt work. I paired with old man Mike, and he showed me some stuff and I got better.

The rest of the class was ground stuff. Getting up off the ground, and getting out from under the mount, and getting up from the guard. I really struggled with the nuances of getting up from the guard. I kept wanting to raise the front knee instead of the rear one. Gotta practice that.

Saranya waited for me, spending the hour doing 4 pages of Kumon and getting ahead of her KMX homework.