Mizblog

Christian was our surprise instructor this Tuesday morning. Not sure where TJ was, but I didn’t see him later in the BJJ class either. Probably working. Hope he’s okay.

We started by dragging out a heavy bag and spacing them out. Then we did a square around the bag, facing the mirror, in fighting stance, being careful to not cross our feet up. Next time around we faced the bag, throwing combatives at it and focusing on the footwork. We mixed in circuits of front kicks, ground front kicks, ground round kicks, and ground side kicks with sessions of circling (or square-ing) the bags and ramping up the simultaneous combatives during our movement.

After that I was gasping, and we did our stretch out. Then water and mouth guards, because it went right into headlock from the side defense. The first bit was holding a tombstone pad dangling for the striker to pivot and bitch slap it. SMACK! Then we put it together with the turn-and-tuck, pivot-and-strike-and-reach-over-grip part of the defense, then the pull-the-top-elbow-straight-down-while-gripping-their-face finisher. I tweaked my right knee as I was going down once. It doesn’t really hurt much, but it does feel weird.

After practicing the headlock defense a bit, we did 25 (solid) sit-ups before we moved to the back room and learned+practiced the sit-up-sweep. I practiced with smaller Matt, and had trouble hauling myself up onto my hand (instead I just leaned up onto the elbow, which doesn’t yield as much leverage). Still, I find this sweep to be a natural move for me.

At the end we did shoulder-hip-lateral-crawl to really continue the core blast. Oof! I expect to feel that one tomorrow!

Christian taught this Saturday morning class. We had to grab a tombstone pad, put it on the ground, and move around it in fighting stance (either squares while facing the mirror, or circles while facing the pad). We alternated various footwork drills with paired tombstone striking. Palm strikes, hammer fists, elbows, front kicks. We mixed in some shadow strikes with the footwork movement around the tombstone pads.

We paired up to do shuffling front leg front kicks, then we moved on to bursting back leg front kicks.

Mouth guards in, getting hit in the face drill. Andrew messed me up. Elbows to the ear, knuckles to the eyeballs. Not very nice. I was much nicer to him. Christian pulled his typical “switch drills before 2nd guy goes” after Andrew ripped my body with uppercuts under my sore ribs.

Next, focus mitts on and straight attacks on a moving defender. Inside defenses and movement drill. Andrew did well. After that, combos and outside defenses. I did okay, but I took a focus mitt to the eyeball once and that also sucked.

Finally, we did gun defense from the front. Redirecting to live side, pin it to the belly while striking. Redirecting to the dead side, both hands on the gun for control while counterattacking. We then took it outside to do a live drill, and that’s where it ended.

TJ’s class on a cold and rainy Tuesday morning. Went in feeling good and optimistic. Left my BJJ gi in the car though. Forgot my rash guard.

We started out with the jog warmup, shuffle, backward, then lunges halfway around the mat, then sidestep squats halfway around the mat. Oof, getting me there.

Then shadow boxing to warm up. Suddenly, shoulder tag! Knee touch tag! Gang shoulder tag! Exciting stuff.

Get a drink, put on gloves, get focus mitts, and do combos with a no-hold knee as a finale. I had a group of 3 (me, Thomas, and Matt) and we did pretty good on the mitts, even though we often forgot which knee to throw. Didn’t matter, the hold was the same for both.

Gloves off, pads away, kick shield up, and we did front kicks up and down the mat. This time I was with Dave (who TJ kept calling “Jeff”) and that guy is terribly uncoordinated with his legs. He’s like my brother Matt, who has to do a stutter step to get his body moving in a coordinated way. He’s also very solid and it’s difficult to defend his chokes. Anyway, then we did front kicks back and forth across the mat, and then scissoring knees. After that I held pads for him and Yas, and we did round robin throwing front kick, scissoring knee and then flavor combatives to conclude the phase, throwing the pad to the attacker to hold for the odd man out.

We ended the class with a review on pluck choke defenses – from the front, side, and back. After training on each by itself, we then put them all into a stress drill. One person stood in the center, eyes closed, while all but one of the remaining students peppered him (all males in this particular class) with focus mitts. Eventually, the last student would apply a choke, and the center man (!!) would have to open his eyes and do the defense. I felt very natural at these choke defenses, and I guess I did them okay.

Christian and TJ have switched Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Christian was there to make me pay for all my months of infirmity. The first 15 minutes of the class was made up of two cardio circuits, repeated 4x each. I thought I was going to die. Then we did a combat circuit involving 1) turning hammer fist and combatives to a pad holder, 2) ground kicks and get up, and 3) pluck practice (the rest part that Jeff and I got last.) After the ground kicks, I nearly had to crawl across the mat to station 3. I’m going to be paying for that one for a while, but it feels good to have done it, and I don’t think I’m too injured from it.

We focused intensely on basic pluck choke defenses today. I helped coach Yas from a limp hand squid to a somewhat fearsome counter attacker. Christian said I was a beast at this, for which compliment I thanked him. David is a big monster, and he gives you nothing when you’re on the receiving end of one of his chokes. Yikes! He lives near me too, I guess.

The end was a drill with one person in the center and the rest hitting and kneeing them, occasionally stopping to apply a choke, which the chokee would have to defend and then go back to being punched. I was 3rd, and it ratcheted up in intensity to the last (Jeff).

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.

TJ taught the last morning KM class of 2016, and I was there! Standard warm ups, then round kicks to thai pads with Josh. We practiced high round kick blocking and low round kick checking. Then we put on shin pads and had some round robin kick sparring.

At the end, we moved to the back room and practiced gun defense from behind.

TJ’s Saturday morning class was my first taste of Krav Maga this month after a series of infections and illnesses kept me off the mat for weeks. I felt awkward and heavy, but TJ was surprised to hear that I was free from injury coming in.

Started with shadow boxing and shoulder tag. The usual. Went to some thai pad stuff, some front kick stuff, and at the end we did gun defense from the front but with a redirect that left us on the live side. Control was with straight arms and tucked chin. Counter attack was kicks to the groin. Take away levers the gun back toward the elbow to break the grip.

EDIT: I was very sore for 4 days afterward, but sustained no injuries!

TJ’s back, and he taught the Saturday morning class. Warm up was the usual shadow boxing and shoulder tag, but we also added in calisthenics like 20 push ups and 30 squats. Had some all-on-one shoulder tag as well. Then stretching, then focus mitts.

Focus mitts were jab, slip, hook, knee to start, then jab, slip, hook, liver shot, cross. Or something like that. Then we swapped out the left focus mitt for a kick shield, and did jab + round kick combos. We even practiced simultaneous punch + kick front/back.

Christian taught this class, and it started with mouth guards in. We paired up and punched each other slowly, relying on our inside defenses to keep us from contact to our vulnerable areas. Jeff reminded me implicitly that I need to make my abdomen shorter while in my fighting stance, because he hit me in the stomach several times, and my elbows did not extend low enough for the inside defense to block them.

We added focus mitts to this little process, and it was hectic. I ended up briefly in a 3-way group with a guy named Matt, whose mouthpiece was so big he could not talk at all.

After that, we got kick shields and did front kicks with ball of foot. First from fighting stance, then from neutral stance, then from neutral against an advancing opponent.

Finally we did defense against downward knife stab. 360 block while simultaneously punching, slide the blocking hand to a wrist grab and keep it pressed behind their back, establish standing side control and deliver knees and groin kicks, then turn the knife under, in front, and towards their body, wrapping their wrist forward towards their chest, and using that leverage to disarm the knife.

Christian taught my first class back after an absence of over a month. I was very apprehensive, feeling out of shape and weak. My few short attempts at exercise have resulted in a tweaked back, so I’m expecting an avalanche of pain. But my previous injuries have mostly healed overPeople were generally glad to see me after my long break.

Christian had us pull out a heavy bag, a medicine ball, a kettle bell, a jump rope, and a kick shield. We then started class and got busy on the equipment. We were throwing odd combinations of punches, which I felt super awkward throwing. 2 straights, 2 hooks, and 2 upper cuts. Then jump rope, then left straight, hook, upper cut, followed by right straight, hook, and upper cut, then back to the left. AWKWARD! Anyway, jumped more rope, then … blablablah. It sucked. I hurt my toe trying to climb the heavy bag with my feet while my hands were on the ground. Ouch.

We stretched, then gloved up and did multi-punch combos with focus mitts. Jab, slip, cross, liver punch for the first round, then jab, slip, cross, liver punch, hook, elbow strike, and pivot.

Then we got a tombstone and did 2 kick combos. Left groin kick and right round kick, then right groin kick and left round kick. Next combo left push kick right round kick, right push kick left round kick.

Did some inside defenses and 360 defenses. Hurt my left thumb a little on this one.

Did gun from behind. I accidentally elbowed Ronnie in the face.