Yes, Punching Bags Are Good.

[abracanabra]

Ah. Feel much better now after a couple of hours of martial arts training. Drinking a peach-yogurt smoothie and then it's off to bed for me. I should buy some protein powder...or wheat germ...or something to throw in these to make them a bit better for me.

Regular class we went through our basics, which is very good, as I am a long way from smooth on mine--as an example, basic number 1 for me is
* triple-kick without setting the foot down: inside crescent kick, front kick, chop kick
* jumping high spin kick, low spin kick
* jump spinning inside crescent kick
* ridgehand, backfist, reverse punch
My problem is with jump spin kicks. Recently, I've been devoting what "martial arts study/practice time" I can scrounge up to going back over old notes, getting them in order, and refreshing my memorization of lower belt level techniques. Not practicing jump spins, which I need to do. Along with pretty much everything else. It's a bit odd that I enjoy so much something that I have pretty much no natural aptitude for, but there it is.

We worked on our joint-lock self-defense combinations, wherein I learned that yup, I've got some troubles getting my arm muscles to flex that way, but if I just remember to get both my arm and my stance low enough, things work. Then we hurled ourselves at mats for a while to practice our rolls: great fun!

The first class came close to wiping me out, but I stuck around for the boxing/full-contact-style second class, where we strap on the big gloves and the thick shin guards and work against the heavy bags and hand targets held by a partner. It's a great class for a) throwing techniques full out, b) learning how *not* to hyper-extend your joints, 'cause ow, and c) getting the most intense workout of your life. And though tomorrow it will probably hurt, right now it felt really good.

Also, I have figured out what happened with my website. A third-party coding script that used to be useful and harmless became useless and now has evolved to harmful. Fortunately, it was only used on the very old "bottom layer" of my website, which is still up simply because I haven't run out of webspace yet.

Comments

[erragal.livejournal.com]

I vote for protein. I just went to my first MA class in months and I'm wishing I had a bit more to fuel me through. I barely made it through the kick boxing.

It's cool to get some kind of idea what you're learning. In many ways the curiculum is similar and in some ways different. We start with grappeling and submissions. It got moved to first because doing it after kick boxing meant grappeling very sweaty people, and while good for training effectiveness was sometimes hard to demonstrate technique... and smelly.
We usually work one set of related concepts progressing in stages (Ex: takedown, then takedown and position, then perhaps takedown, position, and submission). Lucky me, my first day back we also had some limited sparring/grappeling which wore me out considerably. Next is when most people show up for kick boxing. After a warm up we usually do another progression of techniques (some basic punches, some punch combinations, combinations with footwork and positioning) then do a similar set with kicks. We work in pairs with pads and targets. Last, as the kick boxers file out, we work some weapons techniques and some hand and foot techniques against a partner. Sometimes including submissions but mostly stressing coordination and an opening suite of techniques.

Much soreness. Heh, pretty out of shape lately (and the elbows to the thighs in jujutsu didn't help).

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

Ha! Realized I forgot to mention the actual grappling in the main class. That was what we worked on after rolls--after running positioning drills, the focus was on shoulder locks with the head controlled with the leg, and then in actual grappling we were supposed to try and get the other person to tap out from an arm or shoulder lock or a choke.

Going after the inside of the thighs to break a leg hold? Or after pressure points?

[erragal.livejournal.com]

Yes! The drill was to break out of a closed guard... but pressure points sure help with that.