Mizblog

TJ’s Saturday morning class started with me having my orange belt awarded and Alex having his green belt awarded. We had a couple of new guys in the class, and a few old faces. I felt kind of lonely. We started off running around and then playing shoulder tag. Mixed in a bunch of calisthenics and group exercises. Then we got drinks and MMA gloves.

First technique was bursting right punch. We did that a bunch then went to focus mitt combos and bursting punches. I jammed my right thumb on an uppercut and it ruined my day. Last time I had a right thumb injury was 2015-10-01 and it lasted 7 months. Now I get to start over, huh?

After that, we did gun from the front. Redirect, Control+Attack, Take-away. RCAT. It wasn’t too hard for me, except for the takeaway part.

Saturday morning I woke up at 3am, fevered, chilled, weak, and aching everywhere.

At 6am I woke up again, drenched in sweat. My fever broke. I was so relieved. I had resolved that I was going to test even if I was still sick, so I was glad that the illness was getting better. I’d just keep going until I collapsed, either way.

The workshop started at noon. We lined up on the big mat, bowed in, separated orange belt testees from green belt testees, did a quick warm-up, and then the other orange belt testees and I went into the back room with Brandon but no windows and no fans. I was pouring sweat almost immediately. I joked with Jeff that I was like a Rain Bird, spraying sweat in all directions.

Brandon started off by explaining that he was only going to do about half of our orange belt workshop, and then someone else was going to come in and finish us off. This turned out to be a big problem later, but hopefully we’ll get to that. We started with chokes against the wall, and Brandon was showing us that you put the side of your face to the wall.

I had the hardest time with punch/kick defenses + counters. Especially 360 defenses with a counter. My blocks tended to use my fists instead of an open hand, and the counters were often open hand pokes instead of punches. Yikes! Even in the test, I was terrible and made lots of mistakes.

My easiest moves were the kicks (stomping kicks to the front, side, or back; with or without an advancing step) and the ground work (mount stuff, some guard stuff). I was able to rip through that stuff easily and powerfully. But we didn’t get to the ground stuff until the last 2 hours of the 5 hour workshop, and we weren’t taught the ground stuff by Brandon. We had a surprise instructor and tester coming, and it turned out to be Kim. She taught us all the ground stuff, and tried to fill in the stuff that Brandon didn’t cover (based on his notes).

At 5pm we were done with the workshop and we started the testing. I was 2B and Josh was 2A, meaning we were partners for the test.

TJ’s Saturday morning class, and it was a big one. 12 people on the mat, including some noobs. I came in still nervous about my sore oblique.

We started with some jogging around, shadow boxing, shoulder tag, and stretching. During shoulder tag, Ray hit me up to partner with him. I also got to play tag with Ronnie, Mike, and Nicole.

After that we got our MMA gloves on, grabbed a partner and some focus mitts, and started with a recognition/strike drill. Both Jeff and Mike asked to partner up with me, but I had to decline because Ray had already grabbed me. I felt like the popular girl before prom. It was odd.

Elbows into focus mitts were tricky. Also, Ray is a lefty so I got a little bit of practice holding for southpaw. But I’m getting ahead of myself. We did a second round on the mitts with elbow strikes, and then a third round of punch+elbow combos. Different.

We did knees with the kick shields, and I did a Thai clinch for the first time ever. Ray showed me the fundamentals. It felt less comfortable than the normal standing side control of Krav Maga, and offered a different kind of control.

After that, we teamed up into groups of 3 for a final drill – focus mitts punctuated by kick shield opponents bumping and drawing strikes and knees. Somehow we’d lost 2 students, or maybe gained one? Anyway, I was an extra so TJ paired me with the “heavy hitters” – Alex, Andrew, and Ronnie. Alex started, and he was throwing hard shit at the kick shields. Multi-spinning-kick combos and the like. I always jammed him with the pad so he wouldn’t kick me. Andrew didn’t take time to put his gloves on, and he hurt his thumb a few times on the mitts. Ronnie worked hard and you could tell it was all he could manage just to finish the time. I was the extra, and TJ knew it, so he made all the other groups pick someone to go twice so I could get my turn. Thanks, TJ. My turn was alright, but I did land a wild left side kick on Ronnie’s pad that slid up and touched his neck. He threw his head back and staggered when my foot got up there, and it looked to everybody that I’d sent him flying (not really – it was a weak and sloppy kick that slipped up a sweat-soaked kick shield, and I pulled it rather than following through with it). That ended the class.

So I felt popular at the beginning and respected at the end. Someday soon I’ll look back on this class and think I was the butt of a joke, but for now it’s very edifying.

TJ’s Thursday morning class. I came in worried about my left oblique, which had been strained a week before and was still convalescing.

Warm ups went fine. I teamed up with Andrew, a burly and friendly Asian guy who’s a yellow belt still trying to recover his skills after a layoff. I did Thai pads with VERY light kicks.

We did kick checking too, and I tried to go very light on those as well.

For the defense move, we did choke from behind with a pull, which is basically “pluck while you spin around and kick them in the groin.”

TJ’s Thursday morning class. I arrived earlier than TJ and spent some time sitting outside and putting Vaseline on my left small toe. It was sensitive and red after the last class so I thought it might be on the verge of blistering up again. After he opened up, I got about 10 minutes of stretching in before class.

We started class with shadow boxing, and I was already warmed up so I got right into it. Good movement and combinations were coming out of me, and I felt pretty confident. TJ mixed in various calisthenics (push ups, sit ups) and shoulder tag, then moved us to medicine ball drills. Two-handed passes, one-handed passes (first right hand, then left hand), overhead passes with squats, push up passes, seated sit up passes, then crunches alternating with having the medicine ball dropped on your belly 5×5. I paired with Jeff, who was nursing a tweaked ankle from the previous night’s class. We finished with stretching.

Then we gloved up and donned Thai pads. I held first, and Jeff was gimpily kicking with his sore ankle. We ended with 10 kicks each side, and then we switched. Sometime while I was throwing kicks, I wrapped my foot around the pad and tweaked my ankle. It didn’t bother me much through the rest of the class, but it sure did bother me later after I got home. I can’t remember if it happened before or during the final 10-kicks-per-side flurry, but I sure was surprised to see how slow I was at those kicks. Got to get faster!

We then moved on to kick defenses with the hands. You always use the right hand for low kicks and the left hand for high kicks. I was bad at this, as it was literally the first time I’d ever seen these maneuvers. I seemed to pick them up quickly, but later they went away in the stress drill. Anyway, we added counters and it was all new to me.

Then we went to the back room to finish things off. We did kick absorption in the thigh, then a drill where we combined all those kick defenses in a sequence of attacks. I moderately sucked.

Christian’s Tuesday morning class was the first I can remember where I went in and came out 99% uninjured.

We started running back and forth, then worked in shuffles, lunges, shadow boxing/advancing, punctuated by paired striking (palm strikes, knees).

Next was slipping punches, then bobbing and weaving. We worked it in with boxing gloves, adding the evasion moves after throwing a combination.

Last we went to the back training room, where we practiced chokes against the wall (from front and then from the back). Then Melissa was awarded her yellow belt (she tested on Saturday and was apparently devastated for the entire weekend).

TJ’s Saturday morning class. I came in worried that my cold was going to bother me, but it mostly didn’t. I was able to swallow the mucous I was generating.

Typical start-up but with shoulder tag, then bitchslaps with covering, transitioning to duck/roll/counter drill.

We got partners and gloves and focus mitts and did simple combos. Then we transitioned them into duck/roll/counter drills with the mitts. Finally we did a little boxing sparring. I did alright despite taking a few shots. I probably landed more than I absorbed so that’s good.

The self-defense bit was headlock defense from the ground. It’s basically kesa-gatame, but the defense is to frame against neck and hips, then hook their leg and slip your head out from under, strike, stand, and escape. Jeff had conceptual problems with it but it was very easy for me.

Christian’s Tuesday morning class, and my first since vacation, started with an intense cardio circuit. Then we went over all the elbows, then did some clinch and knees. Old man Mike was my partner and he’s seriously merciless with his grips in the standing side control. My skin was pinched uncomfortably.

For the self defense portion, we did bear hugs from the front with space. They’re the same with arms in or out so that was an easy refresher. After that we did from the front without space, arms free. I need to work out the footwork for that. It involves a head twist takedown and I need to remember to move my leg out of the way of their falling body so I don’t get my knee ruined. I had a close call with Mike right after Christian reminded me to do this. Oops.

Christian’s Tuesday morning class and my last chance to train before going out to Indiana for GENCON 2016. We started with a jump rope and mixed 30 seconds of rope jumping with 30 seconds of combatives or pad holding.

Then we got into combinations. Advancing punches (left then right, then left+right), groin kick + left+right punches, round kick + 1-2 punches, then #1 elbow + 2x knees. Finally we put them all together in a drill.

At the end we did baseball bat defense, and again we had about 5 minutes and Christian rushed it and we barely got to practice at all.

TJ’s Saturday morning class started normally with some jogging around, inside shuffle, outside shuffle, backpedaling, lunging, and waving our arms around. Spread out shadow boxing, pushups, shoulder tag with new guy Blake, squats, more shoulder tag with Blake, crunches, shoulder tag with Jeff. Then we stretched out, got a sip of water, and gloved up for focus mitts.

Jeff held mitts for me, and I thought I did okay. Only a couple of screw-ups. We were supposed to work Blake in, and I don’t think we did a good job. After that, we put on headgear and did some boxing sparring. I sparred with Jeff, Scott, and TJ. I did decent on that as well.

Gear away, kick shields out. Started with side kicks to a low pad, then a higher pad. I had to hold the pad really low for Jeff, whose flexibility is not so great, and he was having groin stretching issues. After side kicks, we went to back kicks, then stepping back kicks, then turning back kicks, then jump spin back kick. Jeff hits really hard with his back kicks, and one time I didn’t brace properly and took a hard shot right through the pad and into my gut. Not serious, just woah. I kicked harder. One of my turning back kicks lifted him up off the mat. We both even managed to land all our jump spinning back kicks without injuring ourselves or each other, and that was a happy surprise.