What a quote to start the week on. “Don’t focus on kicking hard, you will just waste your energy.” Tony… This is such a Muay Thai mentality. In Muay Thai you are told that power comes later. It comes when you are throwing your strikes correctly. It comes when you are moving correctly. It especially comes when you are tired. Why does this happen? Its because your body is tired, so when you throw your kicks for instance, you will throw it in such a way that you don’t have the power to put it in hard. Hrm… Here let me see if I can explain it better.

What does not focusing on kicking hard do? Why does this matter? This seems so counter intuitive. I want to kick hard, shouldn’t I just kick hard? The reason is, this form of martial art is all about the mechanics of the body and how it moves. Instead of just using the strength in your muscles you use physics, and body mechanics. Anyone can put power in to a kick by trying to kick hard with your quads, glutes, and hamstrings. But how much harder can you kick when you use your leg like a bat on the end of a chain? You whip the leg with your torso like you would whip a flail with your arm. This lets not only the momentum that you can create with your muscles, but the huge amounts of force created since a small acceleration that happens at the center helps create a large velocity at the end of your leg.

The more tired you get, the harder you kick. Why? Because you are not forcing the kick. Your body is moving like you taught it, and your leg is going along for the ride.

Tuesday 10/29/2019 – 2 hours… Muay Thai, and Kali

There are some days after class that I sit here in front of the computer and have a hard time of thinking of much to say. Most of the time it is cause I am so exhausted I just don’t have the faculties to put to words what I am feeling. Sometimes I am so tired, I just don’t have much to say other than I just want to shower, and sleep. Tonight is the latter kind of night. So here is an overview of what we did.

In Muay Thai we were working on isolating jabs and kicks. We worked on traveling, distance management, and Thank you Tony for a great class.

In Kali we worked on panastas (cut and cover), funnel tapping and sticky hands, and Paula soot. Then we did a circle drill. It is hard to fend off a gang of five people. Thank you Paul for a great class!

Thursday 10/31/2019 – 1 hour… Muay Thai – Halloween

Well I have been trying to listen to my body. I have been fighting congestion a small cold that my husband brought home so I stayed home last night and rested. Today I went in and only did Muay Thai for training. Returning home early so I can rest.

2 years ago I would never have thought to go and train, or work out at the gym on Halloween. I am so happy I did. I love Muay Thai. I love the people. I love my Thai family. I am so happy I went.

My husband and I went int costume and Khun Kru Krysta went in costume as well. I trained the entire time in costume and it was awesome. I should wear wings when training all the time. =)

Here are some pictures I was able to get. I was a Muay Thaicorn!

Enough of that frivolity. =) On to the training. Today we worked on the Inosanto 18 count.

Khun Kru Krysta broke it down into three digestible parts. Where we worked them working on our form.

1. Striking drill part 1
2. burn out, lead knee, lead kick done all the way down the mat and back as fast as you can.
3. Drill part 2
4. Burn out, rear knee, rear kick done all the way down the mat and back again as fast as you can.
5. Drill part 3
6. Burn out, jab, cross, lead elbow, rear elbow done all the way down to the end of the mat and back as fast as you can.
7. Put part 1, part 2, and part 3 together and do the whole 18 count.

I don’t have permission to publish the entire 18 count here. I would never want to disrespect my teachers and the great Innosanto, whom I have had the pleasure to meet. So until I do. I will only mention part of one of the drills we did.

There was a small part where it seems my Khun Kru was watching and she said I had perfect form. She mentioned that it was really just great, and that it was not because of the wings. I was over the moon about it. The part I am talking about is a cross, a rear elbow, a knee, and a kick.

You know what was even better. I took the compliment as it was intended. I did not second guess her, or doubt my abilities. Yay… that is progress for me.

I had a great time today. I am glad we went home after though. I needed to just rest.

Friday 11/1/2019 – 1 hour… Muay Thai – Everyone starts out with the same tools

Today we worked on something called Hanuman climbing up the temple a.k.a. flying knees. We also worked on hop double kicks.

I have some… a form of a mental block. I often think I can’t jump or do some of these more acrobatic moves. I am working on it. I see it and think wow how in the heckity heck am I going to do that. Mental blocks are the worst some times. However, I still keep trying. Today was a day filled with those things that my brain says ohh heck no we are not able to do that. So it is a great learning time for me. Pushing me beyond what I think my limits are.

Tony mentioned that all people start with the same tools. What he meant by this is that, everyone has a teep, is taught kicks, knees, elbows, and punches. But not everyone processes it the same way. They may morph it to what works for them. The basic is still there, but they may get to it in a different way. He does not want me to get down on myself about not being able to do a move just yet. He says, “you will get there.”

Training:

1. Warm up
   • Skip knees on bag 30 seconds as fast as you can
   • Jab, cross on bag 30 seconds as fast as you can
   • Skip knees on bag 30 seconds as fast as you can
   • Jab, cross on bag 30 seconds as fast as you can
   • Skip knees on bag 30 seconds as fast as you can
   • Jab, cross on bag 30 seconds as fast as you can
   • Skip knees on bag 30 seconds as fast as you can
   • Jab, cross on bag 30 seconds as fast as you can
   • Jump rope for what felt like 10 minutes but was probably more like 5 minutes.
     

1. Rear knee, to lead teep, to walking lead knee
2. 10 kicks right side burn out
3. Parry the cross, to jumping knee
4. 10 kicks left side burn out
5. Lead teep, to rear flying knee (Hanuman climbing the temple), to hop double kick
6. 10 kicks left side, 10 kicks right side.
7. sparring

In training when he demonstrated the hop kick he said something that just clicked for me. Now this is not the first time we have been taught the hop kick, however, this is the first time that a light bulb went off and I understood the mechanics of it. He mention that at the beginning of the hop kick, to just pull the leg up like you are shielding, then put it down, and do the kicks. This may seem silly, like well of course… but for some reason my brain and my body did not understand each other. Today when he explained it like that, it felt like a puzzle piece just slipping into place.

At the end of the class not only was I doing the hop kicks, but I was also doing the Hanuman climbing the temple. I was doing it! Yay!

In sparring I had one of my class mates compliment me on my kicks. I am placing them well, and I am actually getting them in. We talked afterward and he mentioned that he did not know if I was just more relaxed in sparring or what but it was showing.

So yay today was a good day. I seem to have something to say today. One more day of training tomorrow and then I get a much needed. break.

Saturday 11/2/2019 – 2.5 hours… Muay Thai, Kali, and Silat -Asymmetrical Sparring, and Lead With the Heel

Woot today was a great day to train. H and I started on working the flying knees I am trying to get down. So we did that, and moved on to parry the cross to a jumping knee. We did this so I could get the leaping, pushing, movement down. Similar to the flying knee. The pictures above are of that training. I wanted to take pictures to see if my feet were leaving the ground and how far.

We worked on Kali, and Silat the rest of the time. Its getting cold upper 30 F, or lower 40 F. So we worked on Kali inside instead of staff class.

Kali –

Today we in Kali we work an asymmetrical heaven and full box with sword and shield. That was awesome. The main thing we had to work on was figuring out how to hold the shield to keep from getting hit. You might think ah whats the difference. However, there is a big difference in the way you angle your shield so that you can stop the incoming blow.

Today that is what we were working on and puzzling out.

Here is a video of us puzzling it out. We are not good at it yet, but we will keep working on it. It was fun trying to puzzle out the correct angles so that we don’t get hurt or hit.

Silat – Lead with your heels

We focused on the Puta Kepala, Biset Dolem, Sieko Kinjet (elbow compress), and then we learned a new very vicious or brutal way to end a fight. Put your heel on their chin, and walk through to break their arm.

Puta Kepala – you are redirecting your opponents head, you are facing them and using their moment put them on the ground.

Biset Dolem – you are facing away from your opponent, you control the body of your opponent taking moving their balance, weight and structure out from under them to put them on the ground.

Sieko Kinjet (elbow compress) – you are facing away from your opponent, and connecting hip to hip, you off balance them, and drive/compress your elbow in to their hip. This pushes them down onto the ground.

Once they are on the ground there are many things you can do to a person. You can knee on belly and arm bar them, or knee on belly and punch them. You can knee on belly and then drop knees into belly or face. When you drop the knee on belly, we started calling it knee on soul. You can return their knife to them or in them if they are attacking you with a knife. But the last one most vicious move we did was a… walk through to break the arm. You have their attacking hand or hand with weapon, you stomp their chin with your heel, keeping their shoulder up, then you hook your rear foot on their arm and walk through. This is not a compliance this is a break. This is a person is attacking you, and does not stop, you successfully got them on the ground and you still fear for your life, so you break their arm in hopes that they will stop trying to stab you. Here is a picture of me learning to do this in a very slow careful way.

It was a great day of training. I learned a lot. I worked on things I know. I was able to puzzle out things. Some days it is great to do that. Some days it is great to just move through the motions/strikes you know, and change it up. See how it feels to do it a different way.

Thank you for reading my blog. I am so amazed that you all read it. I started this blog to catalog my thoughts, and things I learned. This is a place I can look back and see how far I have come. I can see how much I have to work on still. I hope you all have a great weekend, and had a great week. I know I did. My respects to you and your family.