Tag: Muay Thai

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.

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.

https://youtu.be/XbcnnC-Rjn0

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.

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.

Saturday Striking… Thai 4 count and South Paw stance

1.5 hours of Striking class. I have had a really busy week and I really needed the sleep. I worked till late last night and was up till 12 am. So I slept in and missed Krav today. I am glad I did. My body needed the sleep.

Today in Striking class we worked on the Thai 4 count. However, to mix it up our instructor Kru Krysta Scharlach made us do it with right lead leg. Meaning in the South Paw stance. Just like in Kali, when you have to do something on the side of your body that you don’t normally work with it melts the brain. For instance if you are right handed and you train and make yourself write with the left hand. You have to stop, slow down, and consciously force yourself to make the moves. It is weird to try to force your self and watch your partner go through the same problem. In my case it is my brain telling me to throw my hook with my right hand instead of my left hand. Doing this you will notice several things, or at least I have noticed these things for me:

  1. Your punch, in this case the hook feels less powerful, and it is because you are not rotating correctly. Your body is used to throwing the hook with the left hand and you know how to throw your body into the hook.
  2. Your brain will say to throw a hook, and you will automatically with muscle memory try to throw it with the left hand. The problem with that is the way your body is positioned you will not have the power or the torque with witch to throw it properly so it will feel off.
  3. When you start to throw the hook with your left hand, and realize you are doing it, you stop, so you see yourself and your partner make a jerking motion stopping yourself from throwing it. As your brain says “no no no use your right hand. ”
  4. Because of the jerking motion you end up doing you lose some of the flow you have.
  5. When you go back to your original stance, in my case Orthodox or left lead leg. It takes a minute for your body and brain to sink back up, but then it feels right and you can throw in your hook in a more accurate way. It makes you hyper aware of your body and its movements.

It was a great class and I had fun. We all went out as a group to get tacos at a local taco bar, and it was great fun. The waitress had to bring many carafes of water cause we were all sucking down the water after our workout. We tipped her well for being so understanding, and putting up with 12 of us thirsty people.

Keep being awesome and get out there. Move your body, and do the things you love. Thanks for reading.

P.S. I was talking with one of my friends. I wanted to let people know that I post my info on workouts, my feelings, and such about my workout journey, not to fish for accolades. I am documenting my journey. I hope it does not come across as fishing. Don’t get me wrong like anyone it feels good when people say nice things to me and an about me. But I feel like it might be helpful for people to hear/see that they are not the only one that struggles through their journey. I am not perfect, never will be, but I will try to be the best at everything I do. I try to give 110%, but there are days when I can’t. My body says no, and I am becoming better about understanding that. I am becoming stronger, faster and a little better all the time. =)

Thursday Muay Thai and Kali…Left Thai 4 counts, Punyo Sumbrada, and a blooper

I just finished 2 hours of Muay Thai and Kali. I had a great time and caught a blooper, see below.

while I had a great time. I was having a hard time holding pads for my partner. I was not great. Toward the end I figured it out was able to hold for her. Holding pads or feeding pads is a skill in of its self. Holding pads well will make your partner look like a bad ass. We worked on the Muay Thai 4 count left kick, cross, hook, then right kick. Then we worked on the Muay Thai 4 count left kick, cross, hook, to left kick again. We also worked on the 1/4 step posting our hand on their shoulder and landing a left kick into their mid section to a cross. We then did a 1/4 step posting our hand on their shoulder to knee and right elbow. It felt good when a girl who had not worked with me in a long time, was amazed at the strength of my kicks. She said they were great. Much stronger than the last time I worked with her. Yay!

In Kali, we worked on something I have never done before. Punyo Sumbrada is what it is called. This is one of those days where Kali just clicked. As soon as I was shown it, and we worked a few reps in slowly I had it down. I knew it, and was able to do it pretty well with good flow. This was one of those nights where I was not having a brain melting problem. It all seemed to click. I was able to change from feeding the 1, 3, and 5 attack angles. In turn receiving the 1, 3, and 5 attack angles, blocking punyo attacks, and then also disarming, using the snake disarms.

It was fantastic. Here is a video of me working on the Punyo Sumbrada. =) It feels good when it clicks.

https://youtu.be/PVHKRI3GUkY

And then there are funny things that happen. These are contact sports/arts so there will be contact and sometimes the camera man gets it too. I was laughing so hard. It did not harm the person, just startled them, the stick landed in their lap, and knocked the phone over. Here is the video.

https://youtu.be/N7YAMjvM23w

Thank you for reading, and have a great day!

2 Workouts… HIIT run, core…Muay Thai Trigg 10, Boxing 20, conditioning

So tired and dead, did not get off the floor to take photo.

I don’t often post about my Wednesday workouts. Just because they are the same as Monday or Tuesday. However today I had a great day! It kicked my butt in every way and I am going to feel it tomorrow in core, legs and arms. I am dead!

Workout #1: 42 minute HIIT run and core workout. 22 minute HIIT run. I got a twelve minute mile in woot.

V ups single leg
V ups double leg
Flutter kicks 
Kick back alternating leg

Workout #2: 1.5 hours of Muay Thai practice training. I left a puddle on the floor. We worked on the Trigg 10, and boxing 20, then did conditioning rounds. Regular conditioning rounds where we do three kicks on right three kicks on left and 4 knees then we push opponent away. After doing that a 4 times I finished off with. Two sets of 3 minute rounds. I did 56 kicks and 35 knees. I will need to get to 60 kicks and 40 knees a year from now if I want to do the Rank 1 test.

Here is a bonus video of me doing the boxing 20. When I stay more static for the first two sets my form and flow is much better. When in the last two sets I aggress I tend to square up my feet and lose my stance, and my flow gets choppier. We filmed so I can see it from an outside perspective.

https://youtu.be/jlQnyBPClE8

So yay! Two workouts in. I am tired, and going to be sore tomorrow, but pushing now will give me results in the future.

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you have any questions.

Tuesday Muay Thai and Kali…Thai 4 counts, snakes and vines oh my!

Today was 2 hours of Tuesday night training for Muay Thai and Kali. I had a blast in class, and although I think I am horrible compared to my class mates I am still showing up and trying every time. All I can hope is that if I keep showing up I will get better. My coaches/trainers and some of the other class mates that study with me, also say that all we have to do is show up and put the time in.

In Muay Thai we worked on the Thai 4 count. Right kick, hook, cross, to left kick, and also the right kick, hook, cross to right kick. Below is a video of me doing the Thai 4 count. I need to pivot more, I need to keep my left hand closer to my face. You can see when I don’t pivot correctly on my second set, that I hurt my foot on the pads a little. (It was slapping pain, I caught the edge of the pad.) Muay Thai is very much a skill set that when learning it is self correcting. Whether you working the bag, or you are kicking Thai Pads. If you kick them incorrectly it will hurt your foot. Not necessarily in a bad way, but will sting, cause a bruise or it can mess you up depending on how badly you hit the pads or bag.

https://youtu.be/O0GvCDULh8Q

In Kali, we practiced snake and vine disarms. These are not something you really wanna do with a knife, but when some one is attacking you with a blunt object or a stick these are effective. If you do it right. I have a lot to learn and am not great at this at all. Here I am practicing Kali, snake and vine disarms. Equal sign disarms, and plus sign disarms are the vine disarms that we worked on today. A vine disarm is one that uses a tool to help you disarm in this case we use our stick to create a fulcrum to remove the weapon from our opponent. The snaking disarms are the ones where we wind our arm around theirs and trap the weapon. In snake disarms we do not use another tool to create a fulcrum, we use our own bodies to trap the weapon.

https://youtu.be/izZckB6jT1s

You made it to the end, so thank you for reading. Let me know if you have questions. I must now shower and go to bed. I have an early morning, and it is almost midnight here.

Thank you Kru Krysta Scharlach, and Kru Kristen DeBruycker for great classes.