Tag: Kick

Tuesday Muay Thai and Kali… Thai Test Leveling UP!, Silat Puta Kapala, and another take down.

Just a little sore from yesterday… Yay! My hamstrings are not happy with me, but that is ok. That means I targeted them and got a good workout in yesterday. 2 hours of Muay Thai and Kali training.

Testing for Green Band

Today was a great day again in Muay Thai. We had a Thai Test. What that means is we all line up and demonstrate our knowledge of the the Thai, Kicks, Elbows, Knees, Teeps, and Punches. Kru will say lead leg round house kick through, and shield, go. Then we have to demonstrate that we understand what she is saying.

We then worked on (Cross, Jab, Lead Kick), (Cross, Jab, Rear Kick), (Cross, Jab, Rear Knee), (Cross, Jab, Lead Knee), (Cross, Jab, Short Teep/Rear Teep), (Cross, Jab, Long Teep/Front Teep). This was a lot of fun. The Kru goes around viewing us and seeing what level we are at. What our moves look like.

After that we worked on the Thai 4 count. (Left/lead kick, cross, hook, right/rear kick), ( Right/rear kick, hook, cross, Left/lead kick), (Left/lead kick, cross, hook, left/lead kick), (Right/rear kick, hook, cross, right/rear kick). I am making it a point to say front or rear, because I was working with a south paw all night and his jabs come from the opposite side of mine, his hooks, everything is is different, and he has to think of it as rear kick, verses right or left. For him the rear kick is his left kick. =) So its a different way of thinking and it makes it hard to hold pads for someone that is opposite your stance. But you know what we both will be super proficient on both stances if we work together more.

Anyway… lets get to the point. I tested today. I was an orange band and was testing for green band. I got it! I passed and now have a green band. I leveled up! I am so happy. I was beaming, and Kru Kristen gave me a huge compliment, on how I bring everyone together as a family. Before I started she said “everyone did not feel like family, and now that I am and have been here. I draw them together.” I almost shed a tear, because that was so sweet of her to say. I was tough and did not get emotional and embarrass myself in front of the whole class. =)

This is the armband progression we are following.

Kali- Silat Puta Kapala and two more take downs I can’t remember the name of.

Kali was fun today, we worked more on Silat forms. We added throat gouging in, pulling the opponent off balance toward us, hooking our foot behind their foot and then simultaneously pushing them and sweeping their foot. Your opponent then falls backward and is in a prone position.

We worked on a move where we parry the jab, slip the cross, upper cut them, hit them in the genitals, then controlling the arm they used to throw a cross at us, we step forward off balancing them. Putting our leg behind theirs and lowering our center of gravity, elbow them in the stomach and then push them over our leg, right on their behind. I believe this is a version of the Puta Kapala that you use if they step with the inner foot.

It may say something about me, but I like moving a few limbs, countering an opponents move, and using their energy to dump them on the ground. One of these days I will get better and be more smooth about it. When it works it goes so fast and is amazingly easy. When I am not doing everything right it is more difficult, I have to muscle it. Then I know I am not off balancing my opponent correctly.

That is all. That was my night and as I sit here typing, I am eating a snack of Hot N’ Spicy pickle bites. I really was craving the salt.

Thank you for reading this far. Have a great night, and keep working toward your goals. I never thought I would be studying/learning Muay Thai, 2 years ago. You never know where you will be.

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.

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

https://youtu.be/PT8FUyC-BsI

Puta Kapala with arm bar

https://youtu.be/kWblvmCrTR0


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.

Thursday Muay Thai and Kali…Working with New Students, Full Box with all the Weapons

my crazy messy self after 2 hours of workout

Today is a good day! I was energized and raring to go to class. My teachers and I too have come to value working with new students. When we started and were new they kept reiterating that the senior students (which I am considered now… that is crazy) like to help the new students. Not only does it help the new students. But it helps us older students to help teach them, and lets us go back to the basics and review things we may have not been isolating.

So today we worked on the left leg or lead leg kicks. That is teeps, leg kicks, and torso kicks or round houses. I was working with a new person, and he seems timid. He does not want to kick or hit hard, and when he gets tired his form breaks down like we all do, but his was faltering more than I expected. I kept checking in on him to see if he was okay. He said he was, and that he was just tired. Today was hard cause he would move away from the teeps, and drill kicks we were doing, so it was hard to get my reps in. But I was able to get him kicking harder toward the end. Hopefully he will see that he does not have to be so nervous in future classes. We worked on catching the kicks again, but this time putting our knee and shin across and into the torso, while clenching up and framing so that your opponent can’t do anything and in the ring the ref would have to break you up. I got dumped by the new guy by accident but he was so afraid of catching the kick that he did not have my leg right and I fell on my side and hip. I hope that my back does not scream at me tomorrow.

Kali, we worked on full box. Using double stick first, stick and knife, double knife, single knife and then stick and shield. We used all the weapons at our disposal, and each change we made to our weapons brought new interesting variables that we had to change for, or exploits we could use more for with one combination than the other. For instance with double stick we had distance and could keep people at distance. Stick and knife we had to get up closer and see where we could cut the opponent all the while keeping an eye on that stick that has more range. Which weapon we used to check and trap changed as well. With double knife, we had to aim more for areas where cutting would not only cause damage, but we had to make sure to place them so that we could control the opponents weapons. Cutting above the elbow to control one knife arm while then simultaneously coming in with another attack. All very much fun, but brain melty.

I had a great day. I loved the workout. I love Muay Thai and I am growing to love Kali as much as well. I am icing my back as I type this up. I hope you are all having a good day, and continue working out. Get up get into the things you love to do. Live and love life. If I let my physical “limitations” stop me from doing things I would just be in the house, babying my back, and afraid to hurt myself. I have scoliosis as I mentioned in my Working Out Through Herniated Disk post. Listen to your body, but don’t be afraid to get out there and do things. Believe me it takes me a minute to quick check and tell myself, that I could just lay there waiting and worrying about getting hurt, or I can just go live life, and see where I can go. How far can I get?

I went to my chiropractor yesterday, to find out my hips were out of alignment and I had a dislocated rib. I live with back, neck, and lower back pain. So small things like that don’t tend to bother me. Till they accumulate and then they bother me. =)

Well that is enough rambling from me. Thanks for reading this far. I hope you have a great rest of your day, and talk to me if you have any questions.

Tuesday Muay Thai and Kali…Off Balances and Half Beats oh my!

I just completed 2 hours and 30 minute training.

1.5 hours of Muay Thai. For the first 30 minutes of my training, I did 200 kicks over a foam roller, and 100 knee number 3’s into a heavy bag. We then worked on basics again. It’s amazing even though I know these techniques I was having a hard time with them. It occurred to me when I was working on my jab, cross and then horizontal right elbow that maybe I am stiff cause of weight lifting yesterday. Or I just might be having an off day. We worked on entries after the jab, cross.

Then we worked on off ballances so that we could get range from opponent to get your knees in. We got to do the leg bump off ballance which is my favorite. I was asked to come up and demonstrate it to the class where normally I would hesitate and be embarrassed. But to my surprise as I sit here and think back on it, I jumped at the opportunity and to do the move on guy taller than me. I was able to execute it so fast and accurately that he almost fell over and my instructor was impressed. It’s a great off ballance for me cause I am short and shorter than everyone in our class. My instructor always says use what you have to your advantage. If you are tall use that if you are short use that. So I get in close and my opponents cannot see my hits coming if I am fast enough.

The mind bending Kali was also fun. We worked on off beats in Kali. Where we were performing standard six and adding a witik into it. I like the outside deflection witik and the lower back hand almost gunting type off beat. I messed up a lot, and you just have to keep going and pick up the beat again.

Shower and sleep is in order next.

Anyway here is a video of me doing it slowly cause I just learned it today and need to practice.

Again think you for reading and watching. Talk to me if you want. Let me know if you like anything, or want more information on anything I am doing.

https://youtu.be/ymfhMC7W6zg