week of 6/14/2021
In Muay Thai we generally tell ourselves and our students to be loose, and to be relaxed. While we also tell them to keep your guard up, cover your face, and be ready to counter attack.
Often times it feels like they are telling you to do opposing things at the same time. Like hold your breath and breathe at the same time.
However, there is merit to what they are saying. You should aim to be loose, relaxed, not tight and coiled like a spring. If you are tight, your strikes will be tight not flowing and not fast. You tend to telegraph your movements as well.
Staying loose and relaxed helps with:
- Helps with flow – You are smooth, your strikes are chained together and that makes you faster. You are then better able to land strikes on your opponent.
- Helps with reaction time – You are relaxed so you can react better, faster, and without having to uncoil
- Conserves energy – You don’t know how long the fight will go. Well out in the real world you don’t know how long the fight will go. If you are in the ring you know it will be on average 3 minutes. You want to only exert energy when you are trying to defend or attack. Staying tense the entire time is just going to tire you out. That is good for your opponent or your attacker.
- You want to be relaxed when falling – If you take a fall, are off balanced, and or thrown you want to be relaxed. If you are tight and try to brace your fall you might break something. You want to practice your break fall, slapping the ground to stop your momentum, while aiming to fall on the meatiest parts of you, butt/shoulder area. The only thing you want to keep tight when falling is your chin to chest to stop you hitting your head.
Try it out for yourself.
Tighten your fists into a ball, tighten your arms and your biceps and cover your face, now try to punch. You can certainly punch but it feels forced. This is because your mind is telling your body to keep it tight, be ready, stay clenched. If a strike is coming toward you or you want to strike, your brain has to tell your body to let the muscle loosen and strike. This takes seconds, does not seem long, but it is, it is the time it takes some one to strike you 3 or 4 times.
Now if you have your hands up to your face your hands are not clenched and you are not tight through your arms, and shoulders. If some one were to strike at your face you can deflect, defend and or counter strike much easier, because you don’t have to unclench. Your body flows in a more natural way.
I have seen this very phenomenon in brand new students. They are tight waiting for that strike, worried they will get hit, want to counter and attack. But their tightness is a detriment and slows them down so that they do get hit. In brand new students you can see their strikes coming because their body is uncoiling.
It takes a long time to learn to be loose. I still tighten up when I get into my own head, and worry about my performance.
In a striking martial art you will get hit. It is inevitable. It is necessary. It is part of the training.
So we try to stay relaxed in Muay Thai because we want to flow, react in time so as not to get hit, or injured, and to conserve our energy.
We were practicing Wing Chun and JKD on Saturday during our Kali class. We worked on trapping, passing, and striking. Wing Chun and JKD use firm/unyielding in opposition or in compliment to pliant/yielding strikes, or hard and soft techniques. The goal is being relaxed and then going into unyielding. You can use your opponents energy against them. You see similar themes in Muay Thai in the parry strike combos, and in the clench off balance drills we train.
How do you train? In your martial art do you try stay relaxed?
Schedule: This week, I unfortunately missed two days of weight lifting. As much as I tried, I had kids doctor appointments, and work got in the way. I wedged in what I could and then moved on. Next week should be similar, just making sure to get my weight lifting days in.
- Monday 6/14/2021: Mile Run, and Weight Lifting 1 hour
- Tuesday 6/15/2021: Muay Thai Training 1 hour
- Wednesday 6/16/2021: scheduled rest day
- Thursday 6/17/2021: Muay Thai Training 1 hour
- Friday 6/18/2021 : scheduled rest day
- Saturday 6/19/2021: 2 hours of Muay Thai and Kali training, Weight Lifting 1 hour
- Sunday 6/20/2021: Fathers Day in the U.S. we ran around and played soccer
My Martial Art Focus:
- This week we focused:
- We worked clenching, off balance, offence to entry into clench, and defence to entry into clench, defending against clench.
- In kali we worked on Espada y Daga, and footwork, block pass and trapping, wing chun
- Drills for this week:
Muay Thai:
1) jump rope
2) jab, cross, lead elbow, tie up
3) held pads for A
4) 50/50 clench, cross off balance
5) was clench dummy for A
6) jab, cross, lead elbow, knee, tie up, run skip knees, spin off, round house kick
7) held pads for A
8 ) defend the incoming jab, and cross, then tie up
9) held pads for A
10) escaping the full plum tie up, pushing face swimming, or posture up push elbows
11) was clench dummy for A
12) break fall practice
- Areas I need to work on:
- I need to work on my break falls, namely my side break falls
- Tighten up my footwork with clenching.
- I need to work on my entries in sparring. I am short and will forever be out of range if I don’t work my entries
- I need to work on my tells. I have a tell where I cock my shoulder back before I jab.
- Still need to keep working bringing hands back to my face after a strike.
- Problems/solutions:
- Practice break falls on the bed at home, or on the matts at the gym
- more practice with clench
- makes sure I have better head control of my opponent
Training focus: Weight Lifting and Running
- This week started a new 8 week program. 4 day split, 2 upper body, 2 lower body.
- First 4 weeks are time and attention focus, second 4 weeks are HIIT
Weight lifting: back and bicep focus
1) lat pull down- reps – 15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15
2) standing barbell row – reps- 10, 10, 10, 10
3) resistance band face pull – reps- 15, 15, 15, 15
4) seated wide grip resistance band row – reps – 15, 15, 15, 15
5)dumbbell bicep spider curls – reps- 12, 12, 12, 12
Nutrition:
This week was a cut week. I redid my numbers, and changed up my macro numbers. I did much better getting my protein in. I also made timers for me. This seems to be helping. I am meal planning, taking my meals with me and when a timer goes off I have my food there for me to eat. I am am generally only at most an hour behind my timer.
I averaged 130 g of protein, woot! Need to adjust down my carbs, and fats, but overall I did well with these new numbers. Yay!
Next week will be even better.
| MACRO AVERAGES | ||||||||||
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Average | Goal | Difference | |
| Protein | 142 | 185 | 143 | 116 | 80 | 155 | 92 | 130.428571 | 190 | 59.57142857 |
| Carbs | 167 | 145 | 273 | 168 | 246 | 148 | 212 | 194.142857 | 160 | -34.14285714 |
| Fat | 84 | 71 | 48 | 105 | 78 | 141 | 90 | 88.1428571 | 67 | -21.14285714 |
| Calories | 1992 | 1959 | 2096 | 2081 | 2006 | 2481 | 2026 | 2091.57143 | 2003 | -88.57142857 |
Well that is it for this week. June is a busy month for me. I know each of us have that month in the year where everything seems to converge. June is one of these months for me.
I can only strive to be better, do better every week.
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As always, Don’t Photo Edit, Just Go Get It!
Thinks with Spinks 