Category: Fitness

Healthy Lunch… Veggie Noodles with Portabella “meat” Balls

I tend to eat more on the vegetarian side of things then the omnivore side. So my go to food will be a plate full of veggies. This could easily be vegan if you take the mozzarella out. This is gluten free if that is something you are trying to keep an eye on.

Today I wanted zucchini and yellow squash noodles, with portabella veggie “meat” balls, some basil and mozzarella balls. So that is what I made. This was so delicious and satisfying. NOM NOM NOM

I do not try to eat gluten free, but I notice my body tends to react better when I don’t eat to much gluten.

Recipe: Veggie Noodles with Portabella Meat Balls

Ingredients:

  1. 3 portabella veggie balls
  2. 250 g or 1 zucchini, and 1 yellow squash spiral cut
  3. 4 oz or 1/2 cup tomato sauce
  4. 5 mozzarella balls
  5. 1/2 cup or 8 sliced tomatoes
  6. 1/4 cup Sliced onions
  7. 2 tsp garlic olive oil

Directions:

Spiral cut the zucchini, and yellow squash. Cut the onions and saute them in the pan with 2 tsp of garlic olive oil. Add spiral squash noodles. Cook them just till they start to wilt. Remove the veggie noodles to plate. Add veggie balls to the pan and add sauce. Cook till cooked through. Add tomatoes to the sauce and balls. Place them on the noodles. Add the mozzarella balls, and fresh basil.

I did not add any extra salt cause there is plenty in the sauce and in the mozzarella balls.

Calories/Stats

Calories 408, Fat 18.2 g, Fiber 11.5 g, Carbs 35.1 g, Sodium 896.8 mg,

Protein 31.1 g

Thank you for reading, and I hope you get a chance to try this. It was delicious.

Gymshark… Review doo doo doo doo, Gymshark!

I am sorry I could not help myself. Really… baby shark doo doo doo doo doo doo… now its stuck in my head, and if you want to hear it, it is here. Baby Shark  I have kids, and work with other peoples kids and so I am subject to these things. Now you are too… sorry not sorry. Bwahahah

I ordered some clothing from Gymshark, cause I wanted to know what all the hub bub was about. So many of the “influencers” are talking about it, reviewing it and giving them great reviews for the most part. I am always on the look out for good gym equipment and clothing.

This review is not sponsored at all. It is completely my opinion and I purchased these items with my own money.

Let me say first and foremost, I am very happy with the quality of the items. They are made well, and perform perfectly fine. I paired the pants and the shrug with a UnderArmour blue tank top.

I bought two items one a shrug, and a black pair of leggings.

Gymshark Geo Mesh leggings in black. Retail for $55.00. This is the Geo Mesh Leggings. I paid full price. I bought a Medium.

Gymshark Pro Perform Shrug in black. Retail for $25.00. This is the Pro Perform Shrug. I paid full price. I bought a Large.

Ok now that is out of the way, lets start with how it performed. I used both of these for Muay Thai, and Kali classes. This was two hours long. I then used another day for my HIIT run and weight lifting workout.

Pros for Geo Mesh Leggings:

  1. Very well made. No defects in the items I bought.
  2. The fabric is very nice.
  3. It feels like you are wearing nothing. The pants are so comfortable.
  4. Pretty Design
  5. Wicks away sweat
  6. Has a small pocket
  7. Great length for a short girl

Cons for Geo Mesh Leggings:

  1. Does not pass the squat test, will show underwear, slightly
  2. Not a lot of compression, I would say the compression was very light. I don’t know if that means I need to get a smaller size or its just these leggings.
  3. Fabric feels very thin. Compared to other brands, and that may lead to less compression.

Would I buy them again? No, I prefer more compression, I have HIIT workouts I do, and Muay Thai is a lot of burst activity and I like having more support.

Will I have them rotate in my gym wardrobe? Yes, they are comfortable and still function just not my favorite. I like them, but not the best in my opinion.

Pros for Pro Performance Shrug:

  1. Fit me and my larger shoulders
  2. Wicks sweat
  3. Very cute design. (Which is why I bought it)
  4. Great cover up but not to much to over heat you.

Cons for Pro Performance Shrug:

  1. Fabric was not what I was expecting. It was coarser than expected. It felt more like a wind breaker material.
  2. The arms were weirdly long.

Would I buy it again? Yes, I like the piece enough that if they had another color I would buy it again.

Will I have it rotate in my gym wardrobe? Yes, I think it is cute and it allows me to cover up, while working out.

So I wanted to see what the hype was about. I like the company, I like the clothes, are they my favorite. No but they are cute and will serve me well.

The shipping took about a week to get to me. They have to ship from over seas. It was shipped with UPS. Each item came in its own bag, and had a very nice high quality tag attached.

I may be ordering a different pair of leggings, from them. However, not this particular type.

Thanks for reading again, and have a great day.

Saturday Striking…Pak Sao Da, Violent Rainbows, and a kick for good measure

I missed Krav today because I got home from work at 1130 pm. I was exhausted and really did not want to wake up. I decided sleep was more important. I only did 1.5 hour Striking workout today. We focused on JKD, or Jeet Kune Do.

Today we worked on dealing with a jab, and returning a strike. For instance we worked on what to do when some one was throwing out noise, or just crappy jabs that were not committed. We need to watch the body movement for when they commit to a jab and put their body into it. One way is the Violent Rainbow. Where when they jab you perry, grab the glove pull them in, and elbow them. I then like to grab a hold of the person and then knee them or kick them for good measure.

We worked on slipping the jab, and then hitting them with a gut shot. Coming up with a uppercut, hook, cross, and then a nao tek. Or what is referred to as a nut shot.

The hardest part is watching the other persons body, and realizing when they are actually going to commit to a shot. You have to do this analysis all while you are parrying incoming hits, and trying to avoid getting hit in the face, or kicked for that matter.

It seems to me that a lot of people do not realize how much brain power goes into these arts/sports. When you see a person get into the ring to fight it just looks like two people going at it. You don’t see what they are actually doing internally. You have to:

  1. protect yourself,
  2. you have to block hits
  3. you have to return hits
  4. you have to look for openings
  5. you have to also look for committed shots so you can use their momentum against them
  6. you have to learn to read people
  7. you have to look for minute shifts in their stance

These are are hours taken to learn, and so many more hours spent training your body to have a reflexive response. This allows for lightening fast reactions.

I am not at that level yet. I have to actively remember to protect myself/block, I have to consciously look for openings, and I am still studying people. I have however, seen times where I block as a reflex before I knew what I was doing. I have also returned shots/kicks, that surprised my training partner, that I did, because I have been training to get those in, when I get the opportunity to. I assume its my training starting to seep through.

One of these days I hope to have some skill. Alas for now I will just keep training. I had a great day, and it was a fun class.

I hope you all have a great rest of your day. As always thanks for reading.

Thursday Muay Thai and Kali…Conditioning Kicks, 7 Weapon Rotations

I had one of those bad days… you know the ones that are epic in their badness? I am not going to go into great detail here, but suffice to say that Company A that I purchased a good/service from, made 3 accounting errors in two days. We caught one yesterday and thought we dealt with it. We were understanding and were fine with their reversal and their apology. We wake up the next morning
to them having pushed through another duplicate payment. They tripled charged us for the same good/service. We don’t know why they did. Our credit union has a fax from Company A saying sorry we made a mistake, from yesterday. So we had to deal with that, and in the mean time even though they made a mistake we have to wait till those charges are reversed. It was not an insubstantial sum of money either. If it was I would have taken it in stride.

I digress though. It was hard to get into the head space to workout. It would not have been as much of a problem, but I had other things go wrong today. I came, I have shown up and I worked through the problems during the day and I have worked through my workout. 2 hours of Muay Thai and Kali.

Muay Thai – Conditioning Kicks

We worked on more Thai 4 counts. I worked a fantastic sweat and it was well needed. I did not realize I needed to just kick the crap out of pads today, and it was very cathartic. We then did conditioning kicks. We were supposed to do testing today, but due to the fact that one Kru was out of town, and the other got a horrible cold they postponed the testing till Tuesday. Hopefully we will do it then. I got to work with a friend that I had not seen for a while. She was impressed with the quality of my kicks. She was around when I had my horrible back injury. So she is finally getting to feel my true power in my kicks.

I need to remember to breath. I am getting gassed cause I am not breathing. That is why we make sounds, or make a chhhh sound. Where you put your teeth together and pressing your tongue to your teeth exhale.

I got to use my new gloves, and I will do a full review of them in a later post after I have had about two weeks to break them in and get a feel for them. But here is what they look like. Are they not pretty? But after my first use of them for this class. I love them.

Kali – 7 Weapon Rotation

Kali was interesting today. We had a guest instructor today, cause our Kru was out of town. He had us doing a number of things one of them is in the video below. Where we start with a cob cob, and pie pie, then high low high, and low high low.

The most interesting and hard part was when we did the full box drill but had to switch between 7 combinations of weapons and open hand. For instance we had to do the full box drill up to 20 moves:

  1. Open hand one stick
  2. 2 sticks
  3. 1 stick and one knife
  4. 2 knife
  5. Staff
  6. Double handed sword
  7. Stick/sword and shield

This was interesting, hard, and wonderful at the same time. I realize what he was going for. He wanted to get comfortable with using all of it and transitioning between the different weapons. We have done the full box drill 100 times before but we would focus on say double stick then double knife. This gave us perspective about distance management and also forced us to think through our moves, when you had a completely different weapon then the last time we drilled this.

It is 11:38 pm here, and I have to be up in the morning at 5 so I am going to stop here. I am tired, and had a rough day. But I am glad I got into the gym. I am glad I pushed through even though I just wanted to hide my head under a pillow and ignore the world.

If you have read this far, you deserve a reward. Lol…Get yourself a nice fru fru coffee, you know one of those $4 dollar ones that have some special sprinkling of spices on it. Yeah one of those, you have my permission. =)

As always let me know if you have any questions, or just want to say hi.

Tuesday Muay Thai and Kali…Kick High, Guillotine Choke Hold

My good friend DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Sorenes) set in again today at around 3 pm. Wee… this time thought it was my deltoids, biceps, and triceps. My hamstrings and abductors are a little sore. But my focus was on upper body so, it makes sense that those are more sore.

We did 2 hours of Muay Thai and Kali today.

Muay Thai- Kick High

I had a great day today in Muay Thai. Thanks to Kru Krysta for the fantastic class. The workout was hard, and fantastic. The conditioning we did where we did 20 kicks in a row, 5 on each side was amazing and while gassing, cause I was not breathing right, was amazing. I was having one of those good days where things were clicking. Where I have been training, and training, and it finally feels like my muscle memory is taking over. Even though I was sore I was able to do it all. As I am sitting here and things are cooling down, I can feel how sore I am and it is going to be fun tomorrow!

We worked on the Thai four counts again, this time with a teep first. We teep our training partner and then we have to chase them down to get the first kick in. What that had us practicing was our hop kick, and closing the distance. If you teep a person correctly it will send them back. When we work on teep to same side kick, to our punches to same side kick. We are forcing our bodies to practice and get better hip mobility. Which is key to landing our kicks correctly.

I got some really great compliments. I was working on our teep to 4 count, right teep, to right torso kick, hook, cross, to left kick. Kru Krysta came up to me and said “great job Tanya, look how high your kicking! A month ago you were not kicking that high.” I was working with some one that is nearly 6 foot, and I have to kick about just below shoulder level for me to hit his torso. We were continuing our drills, and she came back around, and Kru said “your kicks were looking great”. I was getting my rotation in on the ball of my foot, and my teeps were sending him back and I was chasing him down for my kicks.

Kali – Guillotine

After an hour of Muay Thai that kicked my butt, but was a blast. We went right into Kali. We worked on Silat again. Let me tell you when your triceps and deltoids hurt already, and some one does an arm control on you where they are putting the blade of their forearm into your triceps it does not feel good. We continued with learning how to smoothly take your opponent/assailant down. We also worked on how if they fight you and your move how to counter their trying to muscle up. We added something called the Guillotine Choke hold where you can either choke and cut off oxygen to the head thus rendering them unconscious and you can run away. Or doing the Guillotine on the jaw line, as a pain submission were they will stop fighting and want you to stop because the pain is unbearable. Then we did a variation where we do the full Guillotine with a thumb pressed into the hollow of their neck. This is also a pain submission, and if they don’t tap will also restrict airflow to the brain.

I have to remember to make sure to control the arm better. I sometimes let go of the arm, or stop framing against their neck with control of their arm. If I do that the assailant will then get out of my hold and then continue to possibly harm me.

I am super tired, need a shower, an need to rub down with Thai oil so I will stop there. Thank you for reading. Leave a comment if you want, and have a great day.

Weight Lifting workout for the week of 2/25/2019…discipline is a victory

Today is one of those days that it is hard to get everything done. I worked this morning, taught my kiddos their lessons, did my workout, fed the family, and now I have to go to work again till 10 pm tonight.

For those of you on you fitness journey please know that just waking up and dragging yourself from your comfortable warm bed, on those days when it is hard to do. That discipline that you have shown in that minute is a win. That is a force of will power you used, that discipline to just get out of bed is a victory. That can carry you through the rest of the day to make the decision to do your workout, then the rest of the week. Making the decision to go do your workout is a victory, celebrate the fact that you decided to go and work on improving your cardio, strength, flexibility, or anything. It is so easy to say no, I don’t have time, or I don’t have energy. What is harder is to stick to the your routine, and have the discipline to go out there and get it.

Here is the workout I did today, and I will do this for Wednesday and Friday. I have Muay Thai and Kali Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

48 minutes, A 15 minute HIIT Run and 33 minute Weight Lifting workout.

(30 second rest between sets, and 1.5 minute rest between exercises)

I look goofy after a workout.
  1. 15 minute HIIT run (2 minute warm up. 10 minute Run at fastest pace, 1 min active recovery run, lather rinse and repeat, then 3 minute cool down jog)
  2. Squat Thruster with two 20 lb dumbbells, reps 12, 10, 8
  3. Reverse Lunge with bicep curl with two 20 lb dumbbells, reps 12, 10, 8 (1 lunge each side equils one rep)
  4. Overhead Tricep Extension 30lb dumbbell, reps 12, 10, 8
  5. Lat Cable Pull Down 70 lb, reps 10, 8, 6
  6. Standing Cable Tricep Push Down 40 lb, 10, 8, 6
  7. Dead Bug Core, a.k.a. Alternating V UP, 3 sets of as many for 30 seconds. I was able to do about 18 per 30 seconds.

My arms are noodles today after this workout. Get out there and show the world what you got. Making a good decision instead of one that is easier is a victory, and that discipline will help you through out your life.

Enough of my rambling. Thank you for reading. Let me know if you have any questions.

Saturday Krav and Striking…Leg sweep, POP the Leather

So today I woke up not sore, but body was just tired. =) That is good. I put it through the paces last night. Two 5 minute conditioning rounds back to back is hard. 2.5 hours of Krav and Striking class training today.

Krav

Krav was fun, bright and early we got in. While working on some foot work we got to do a fun dump I had never done before. I actually took a video of this dump. We called it a sweep dump. Just by off balancing your opponent and then rotating along a fulcrum you can dump them pretty easy using very little force.

In this video you see a sweeping dump. First one is slower to get the steps/moves in. Second dump is more quick and more true to real life situation. I wonder what an assailant would think if they attacked a person and one second they are standing and the next they are on the ground wind knocked out of them.

This is called a 50/50 clench. Where I am controlling his left bicep, and he is controlling my left bicep. We each are controlling the neck head area. Then I step out, with my left foot, and with my right foot sweep his leg out from under him. I rotate him around the fulcrum created from my hip, and he is dumped on his back or side.

 I have to mention I that this was filmed after I threw my partner about 30 times. It takes a toll on them and this is not comfortable for him. So all the love to my partner for being a good sport, and letting me throw him a few more times.

Striking

In Striking we worked on dealing with hooks, either high cover, bob and weave, and returning punches. If the hook is coming in at you from the left side, we do an uppercut, hook, then cross. If the hook is coming in from the right hand side we do a uppercut, cross. We could high cover, or we could bob and weave. If we bobbed and weaved, we would get a gut shot into our opponent and then we would continue with the counter punches as above.

We then worked on Pop the Leather, or basically pre-sparing. We do this with both the advanced and junior students. Where we do controlled sparing type training. We are told one person can only do throw the hooks, and the other person has to counter them by, high cover block, bob and weaving. We then return or counter attack with a hook, cross, uppercut, gut punch. The original person hooking has to parry our counter attacks and not get hit. We suit up in our shin guards, gloves, and mouth guards and train. This is different than our usual sparring, where everything goes except elbows. Those are so devastating and if we land them we can do a lot of damage to our sparring partners. So we take elbows out of sparing, and a lot of times knees as well, unless we have belly pads on. By everything goes I mean we get to do what ever combination we want to. Our object is to get past our opponents defenses. Not to kill them or hurt them, but controlled hitting. =)

I am wiped out. I am tired and want to take nap now. But I have some chores to do. I may do some laundry and just vegetate now. Thanks for reading this far. Hope you are having a wonderful week.

Bonus Muay Thai Training…Synchronized Thai



When plans fall through, you have bonus Muay Thai training, or at least I did. I got 3 hours of training in tonight. I have to slather my arm in Namman Muay Thai oil. I will do a review on it in the future. But I digress… I am tired and feel accomplished.

I meant to be out of town, and I was going to see friends. However, the friend I was going to go with had a family thing pop up and I fully understand. Family is always first, it is the case with me, and I fully support them. So I got a bonus training day in. Woot! This was not a formal class but a time in the gym when I could work on my form, timing, and get ready for an upcoming test.

Warm Up:

  • Complete 3 sets of the following
  • 2 minutes of jump rope
  • 60 seconds rest
  • 2 minutes of shadow boxing
  • Bag ladder pyramid drills. You decrease the punches by 2 and the kicks by one on each side till you are only doing 2 punches and 1 kick each side, and start ascending again.
  • 20 punches, and 10 right kicks, and 10 left kicks
  • 18 punches, and 9 right kicks, and 8 left kicks.
  • Lather rinse and repeat

We all lined up at the heavy bags, and worked together on our ladder pyramid drills. One of our friends that was rolling in BJJ looked up and said, “woo hoo look its synchronized Thai. ” We all looked back and laughed.

Then we worked on right leg kick, right torso kick, and then a fake out right kick again that lead into a teep. This kind of kick to faint to teep is one of my favorite moves. I think it will be my bread and butter. I am short and therefore my range is shorter than others, so a lot of times I can create noise with my glove in their face, and then get a kick in without them noticing. This is similar, they are expecting a kick and then get teeped. Now I am not perfect at this at all, and it is going to require a lot of practice, but I love this kind of move. My feeder was amazed I picked it up so quickly. I have a lot to work on with it, but I find when it is something I find exciting, or fun to do I pick it up faster. =) Strange how we are like that.

We worked on the boxing 20. I have to get it ready for testing. I am still dropping my hands. I need to make sure I get my hand turned with thumb up to do my hooks.

We worked on knees, and a hop knee. My instructors tells us that everyone is bad at something. My bad thing is the long leaning knee. The one used to create distance between you and your opponent. I am just crap at that.

We then did two 5 minute conditioning rounds back to back with a 60 second break in between. First 5 minute round, we had to put the kicks in fast and the knees in fast. 3 kicks on on side, 4 knees, and 3 kicks on the opposite side. For the second round we had to do the same kicks and knees with all the power put in. I was gassed after the second 5 minutes. I hated them during it, and I hated the person feeding me, but that was just cause it was hard. But I did it, and I got it done. I kept my form consistent, and while I have a lot to work on still keep it consistent and being able to stay in the ring for 5 minutes each time is fantastic.

I had a blast and I feel accomplished. I got a great workout in while I was here. I was able to do two 5 minute rounds back to back that I thought I might not be able to do. =)

Thanks for reading again. I hope you had a great day. If you have plans and they fall through find something you love and take that time to do that.

Thursday Muay Thai and Kali…violent rainbows, and Silat Puta Kapala

Thursday Muay Thai and Kali, Thursdays are hard. The week is almost over, and I have had to deal with kids who are 9 and one turning 11. The 11 year old thinks he knows everything, and so does not need me to tell him anything any more. I had a great time at class, but man I come tired. I am not the only one. My class mates all come in on a Thursday and they all work, but you can see it on them too. Thursdays are just hard for everyone. Traffic around here is full of the “suck”. Fridays are a bit better, because if you have a regular 9-5 job, you know at least if you get through today you have a weekend. Not so much for me. I work odd hours and odd days, but even so Fridays are/seem better. Never mind the tiredness, we have Muay Thai and Kali on Thursday and I love these training classes.

Muay Thai…Violent Rainbows

Muay Thai today we worked on redirecting teeps into a sweep instead of a catch today. We then would work in a Thai 4 count. Sweep the teep, return a leg kick, hook, cross and same right side torso round kick. I got to work with a brand new student. Kru Krysta asked me to work with her. Its her first day, and would I work with her, because, “coming to a martial arts class with mostly men is very daunting.” Kru Krysta’s comment got me thinking. I had the same concern when I was starting out. I was scared to work with strangers, and stranger men. I have been abused in the past and it might stem from that. The fact that I don’t know how or what the person is going to react like when they get upset. I don’t know if the feeling of dread/worry about starting a class with mostly men is a learned feeling or if we just tend to flock to people/sexes we are most comfortable with. That is something I will ruminate on I guess. I of course was happy to work with her. We talked a bit during training, and she mentioned she had some bad times. I gathered what she meant and know that this training will help her confidence in those kinds of situations in the future. I know it has with me.

So I mentioned this in a previous blog post. Working with brand new students you take the power out of your elbows, punches, knees, kicks, and teeps. You are there to help them get a feel for the moves. Its our job to help them, and it makes us better in the long run. I remember my first day. I felt so uncoordinated. But even when you take the power out of the move you still work on your form. I got a compliment that my form on my kicks was great. Yay! *happy dance* I let her know I was happy to work with her. I broke a sweat a little bit. It was not the hardest workout, but you know what if I got a chance to make another person happy and have a good time it was well worth it. We were laughing and giggling like school girls while she tried to get the kicks in. It was good for her, and I. Favorite quote of the day is, “violent rainbows“. Kru Krysta came up with that one when she was explaining in detail to the new girl how to do a downward diagonal elbow. Downward Diagonal Elbows == Violent Rainbows

Kali… Silat – Puta Kapala

We worked on Silat again tonight in Kali. In my previous blog I talked about Silat. The short version is that it is an Indonesian form of martial arts, but used in Kali. We worked on take downs again, and I took some video this time of the moves. I went slowly on these moves for two reasons. 1) I am still learning this. 2) I do not want to hurt my partner. But the moves are catch jab, redirect cross power, elbow the assailant, knee them, step out, and rotate the assailant around putting their head were your left foot is. From that point keeping hold of the opponent/assailants hand you then put knee on belly, or arm bar them, and continue to attack. I like throwing, off balancing and dumping people. I am a short person and if your assailant is on the floor they are much shorter than me now and I can have the upper hand, or kick as it were.

Puta Kapala with knee on belly

Puta Kapala with arm bar



Anyway that is all for today. I had a great time. I got to meet a new person, and work with them. I hope she comes back. I got to learn some new Puta Kapala variations, and I had a blast doing it.

Let me know what you think about the reason females like me would be intimidated coming to an mostly male martial arts class for the first time. Or do you think everyone feels that way and it is not just females. Thanks for reading this far. Have a great night.

Tuesday Muay Thai and Kali…Teeps/Knees, Silat Take Downs

The D.O.M.S. (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) hit me at about 3 pm today. That is normal for my body I tend to get D.O.M.S. at about the 24 hour mark after an intense workout. Yesterday I kicked my butt with my run (I ran faster than I have been) and weight lifting workout ( worked on more weight and harder compound moves). So by 3 pm today my quads hurt, my glutes hurt, my shoulders, my traps, and my core hurt. =) I take that as I had a great workout, and pushed my muscles to their limit. All great things. D.O.M.S. are micro muscle tares, that cause inflammation, resulting in soreness and can be unpleasant but are not anything to be worried about.

With that said, it can make a person not want to move. That is a normal response. However, I believe that moving is just what you should do. I feel I heal faster if I do a workout, different than the day before that caused the D.O.M.S.. Here is a great article that talks about D.O.M.S.

Here are some ways to mitigate those pesky D.O.M.S.:

  1. Active recovery is my number one way, some say a light workout, but I say a workout that is different than the one that you taxed your muscles with is perfectly fine.
  2. Compression Clothing, helps keep the muscles in place and help blood flow to the muscles.
  3. Keeping the areas warm, like taking a warm bath, and if you add Epsom salts too that is great give you extra magnesium.
  4. Fluid/Hydrating to keep your body pumping in nutrients and aid in repairing your muscles. Your body needs electrolytes so give it a hand up. Coconut water is great for this.
  5. Sleep… it is the time where your body repairs your muscles the most. So get your Zzzz’s in.
  6. Massage/roll out muscles – Massage is great, but being a parent and busy all the time I don’t have time or face it even the money to get a massage when I need it. What I do instead is roll out my muscles with various rollers I have. Massage will break up the muscle knots and helps reduce inflammation.

However, I digress. This is about my Muay Thai and Kali. Today I started out sore, but we worked on teeping and knees and some kicks in thai. Our emphasis was on controlling oncoming teep, countering it, and then following up with elbows, knees or kicks. Catching teeps with gloves is a little tricky, then pulling opponent over so that you can counter with elbow and a knee into the face or chest. It was a great techniques class today. This was not a heavy workout day for us. Don’t get me wrong I was sweating, but I was not out of breath. We are working on technique and we always learn new things, or ways to make our bodies do what we need them to do. Perfect for after a hard day like yesterday.

Kali/Silat (we study Dan Inosanto Kali)

Kali we worked on Silat today. Kali is a martial art from the Philippines, and Silat is from Indonesia. Where Kali we work with weapons, sticks, knives, and open hand. Silat does as well, but seems to this novice to work more on dumping people. Getting them on the ground to control their weapons Using your body to counter strikes, and making your opponent pay for their digressions, by dumping them on the floor, and then you can submit them, or just run away. We had to catch a jab, parry a cross, slip the parry at the same time punch/stab into stomach, control the bicep, and put your foot behind the opponents leg and dump them by leaning in. The other was if they get out of that, we practiced sticky leg, where we followed up with controlling the arm for a ballistic break of arm stepping up and over, breaking their base, hooking their foot with ours and dumping them.

So we started out with practicing break falling. Break falling is learning to land on the pads and conversely on the ground breaking your fall and hopefully not breaking anything else. This proved to be the scariest thing for me. I had a huge back injury some 6 months back. A herniated disk, so falling on the ground is super scary for me. What if I hurt my back. Luckily my Kru Krysta Scharlach is a fantastic teacher and helped me. Kept and eye on me and understanding that I go really slowly. I worked with husband all night and he helped me go down slowly.

I kept in mind all the things we needed to do to protect ourselves. Tuck our chins, land on the muscles of our glues and shoulder, do not extend our arm to save yourself, because that could cause, shoulder/elbow/wrist injury. Slap our arm down to disperse the weight, then kick out our legs to stop momentum. I am pleased to say I did more break falls than I have in 6 months. I thought I might never be able to do them ever again. I am still going to take it slow, still learn all I can about the technique and the move. Here is hoping this is a good trend and I can keep working on this. Learning how to fall will allow me to avoid more injury. However, getting over the fear hurdle is a big part. I am working on it, and it is easier with trusted partners, and fantastic teachers.

Well that is all for tonight thanks for reading this far. Have a great night, and if you are in my area of the world be careful. We are estimated to get 6 to 8 inches of snow. Be safe and stay warm out there. Please let me now if you have questions or comments.