Tag: Striking

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. =)

Saturday Muay Thai and Striking… entry, rhythm, and JKD (Jeet Kune Do)

I sit here writing this after a 2.5 hour training session, we also just refueled with some delicious Thai food. Because it is H’s birthday and we are celebrating. In most Asian families, long noodles are the thing to eat to ensure a long life. =)

I trained Muay Thai for one hour before our striking class. We worked on entries to get in and land our punches. We were working our range management. I am very short, 5 foot nothing, and my range is very short. In a fight I am going to get up close and personal. Where a taller 6 foot person is going to be hit me from further away. I have to get in close. There are advantages for the taller person. They can kick and hit from further out, and I have to eat a hit or kick to get into their pocket. However, the advantages for a shorter fighter are to my knowledge I have a shorter range, which is good cause I can then switch up what I am doing faster than they can. I can change my range with moving a little bit. I can cover up my actions by putting interference in their faces and then kick them without them seeing my legs move if I am executing the move correctly.

In Striking class we worked on JKD (Jeet Kune Do). ” Jeet Kune Do, “The way of the intercepting fist” in Cantonese, abbreviated JKD, is a hybrid philosophy of martial arts heavily influenced by the personal philosophy and experiences of martial artist Bruce Lee.” Wikipedia

We worked on both orthodox fighting and south paw fighting. What this means is we had to change our stances. We had to change our lead leg. Orthodox fighters have left leg forward, and south paw fighters have right leg forward. We had to faint, high, and low jabs, then work on entries into and range management to get the crosses, hooks, upper cuts, and then lead pendulum kicks a.k.a. Nao Tek.

From a technique point of view, this is hard to switch up. When I an orthodox fighter has to switch up to south paw, or right lead leg. It takes all your mental acuity to just make sure your throwing a hook with the right hand and not a cross like you would with orthodox stance. We then worked on a pop the leather practice where we try to use the tools we learned in JKD to asymmetrically spar our opponent. It was a fantastic training session, and I had a great time.

I have rambled on enough. I hope you have had a great day. Talk to me if you have questions or thoughts.

Here is a video of me doing some training on the bag. I was working on some left and right kicks. As you can see I am a orthodox fighter and I have left lead leg.

Working on Muay Thai Kicks



Saturday Mixed Striking and Krav… boxing cover and respond, double Leg take downs

exhaustion

Today I was feeling over all okay. Just a general feeling of meh. I got enough sleep because after work, I finished work at 10:45 pm, I passed out. I had some bad news yesterday where a friend and former coworker died this week. I have shed tears but over all… just been meh. But my workout was a blessed distraction from current emotions. Maybe not a great coping method but it was nice to make my body exhausted and focus on something else.

Three hours and 50 minutes of martial arts training. I am pooped. On Saturday we wake up early (that is 8 am to get to the gym by 10 am) and as a family take Krav Maga for an hour. Because don’t you know… that is what normal families do. Learn how to take down an assailant together. After Krav I practice Muay Thai with my husband for an hour while we wait for our Mixed Striking class. In the Mixed Striking class we can cover anything from Kali, to JKD, to Wing Chun, to Panantuken, to Silat, and Muay Thai. This class we worked on Muay Thai boxing.

One hour of Krav we worked on our boxing, and slipping. We did jab, cross, slip, cross, jab, slip drills. We did jab, cross, hook, slip drills. The goal is to get smoother in your movements and keep from getting hit. We moved into learning transitions to the double leg take down. How to shoot your leg in between your opponents leg, lift them up after bringing your other leg up, and dumping them on the ground. This is the only class that the kids and I attend together.

Here are two videos of me working on the jab, cross, slip, cross, jab, slip, and jab, cross, hook, slip. If you watch these are taken after about 3 hours and 30 minutes. I am tired, and my hands are dropping, I am not guarding my face as well as I should be. These are things that I have to keep working on.


jab, cross, slip, cross, jab, slip, drill
Jab, cross, hook, slip drill

After Krav we worked for an hour on various Muay Thai techniques, including a catching a kick between your bicep and fore arm in a tight bite. You then lift the leg and push forward with so the person falls over. Also how to lean into the person and clench up, if they catch your leg.

Her is a video of me doing that to my husband.

catch a kick and drop opponent on the ground

Mixed striking class we worked for one hour and 50 minutes on boxing, cover and responding to a hit. My slips seem to be getting tighter. The movement is getting tighter. However, I am still going to the side a bit still. I need to do more of a forward head movement. Tight head movements where I get off the line are the key, so I am improving. Then we did asymmetrical sparring. Where one person does only jabs and crosses and your opponent does hooks and upper cuts. This forces us to figure out how to get into the opponents box, and get our hits in. Also allows us to know what kind of hit is coming and helps in training.

Here is a video of me working on what we learned in class. I normally cut the videos down, so that you only see one move/drill but this I left long so that you can see how we drill different drills. Again this was taken after I have been at it for over 3 hours and 20 minutes. I am tired, and have a lot to work on. What you are seeing is:
1) Parry an incoming jab, high cover, return jab at same time, cross, hook, jab.
2) High cover, cross, and high cover, jab.
3) Cover body shot, to opposite upper cut.
4) When you see us stop we are talking about what I am doing wrong, and how to fix it.

Linner (lunch-dinner) was had afterward, cause we were all pretty hungry, and now I am at home under my electric blanket typing this out. Its cold and I want to nap. =) Full hibernation is pulling at me.

Thanks for reading this far, have a great weekend. I am going to rest now. Leave a comment if you want.

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