I'm sore today.
With Carrie's health issues and life as I know it, my attendance to my Muay Thai class slipped.
For class 3.5, I went to the first half of a class one night to put in an appearance. I had to leave when things got underway, but I felt it was important to make the effort to show up. The gym child care only goes until 8 PM and class starts at 7:30 PM on Mondays. The lesson of the day looked like it was going to focus on advancing punches and the required footwork. I picked up a pointer or two, collected my son, and vamoosed.
Carrie's back to 80% now. Shane started to go down for his nap just before noon today.
The timing was perfect.
If I left as Shane went down, in theory he would sleep for almost the whole time I was gone. Carrie gave me a thumbs up and I went for it.
It did not take long for my trouble sensing instincts to tingle. When I arrived, there were only three other students. Two I recognized as advanced and the other had the biceps of a man who works out. Coach walked up to one of the advanced guys and said, "Got a cup? Mouthpiece? Good."
I wrapped up and joined the circle for stretches. We spent much longer than usual. My trouble senses were flashing "DANGER! DANGER!" Coaches don't spend extra time stretching, because they want to kill time. They do it because they have a surprise and they don't want injuries.
Coach's surprise?
It was a cardio day. A mother and daughter combo showed up for class just in time for the festivities.
We started with speed jump ropes. Five minutes. It doesn't sound like much, but if you're not used to it and you do it right you'll feel it. Next, we grabbed weights and had to shadow box holding them. This also doesn't sound like much, but if you do it with an honest amount of intensity you'll feel the effects of the exercise. Mitt work with partners followed. Punching is obviously tiring, but holding the mitts can drain you some too. Try holding your arms out in front of you for two minutes without dropping them when you've already been working them out some. If you're honest and do the work asked of you, you will feel it in your shoulders.
That was the warm-up. The best part of class came when the coach assigned station work. Each pair would rotate through three stations. Two were heavy bags and one was the coach geared up with pads. The goal was constant work. Coach had a timer set for two minutes. When the 30 second mark hit, a bell rang and it was barrage time. Constant 1s and 2s. No breaks allowed. Then, when the round ended, everyone was allowed a 30 second break....after push-ups. If you've never done an endurance sport, this may seem sadistic. The coach was asking for everyone to pour everything they had into a 30 second blitz with constant punching. Once you were out of breath and your arms were sore, you were offered a short break but only after you banged out some push-ups.
If there was only one round, this wouldn't be worth writing about. We did 12.
The toughest rounds of all were those with the coach. He worked you the whole round, made sure you did your push-ups the right way, and then stood you up to do it all over again.
The good news is, I learned a few new moves working with him! When I work with him, Coach likes to be unpredictable. There's some repetition, but he frequently changes things on the fly to see how I react. Today, he asked me to do a 'teep.' I had no idea what he was talking about.
The teep is push kick. You lift your front leg and thrust it straight out into your opponent's abdomen to push them back. The coach did a quick, light example and his toes stabbed straight into my gut. I moved back, winded. Then it was my turn. Coach had me do a lot of teeps to set up a leg kick or to maintain my 1 range.
Other than that, I learned how awkward I can be defending. The coach had me defend at one point. He came at me throwing slow punches and leg kicks. I was supposed to bat down the punches and check the kicks with my knee. I was only able to focus on the punches or the kicks at one time. I could not keep track of both. At one point, I automatically launched a low block (from Tae Kwan Do) at a kick. Coach grinned. "That would be bad! There's the old martial art instincts." The smiled dropped. "Don't do that." Blocking a kick with an arm leaves your face unguarded from a punch plus a good kick can break a forearm.
Class ended with a sparring match between the two advanced students. They were told to "go 20%" and not hurt each other, but you could tell it exhausted them. It was fun to watch and learn, though. I went home sore and happy. There's a nice shiner forming where my ankle meets my right foot, my shoulders are a little stiff, and I'd do it again. I feel like I've improved a fair amount in the handful of times I've been to class. The only way to keep getting better is to keep going and it's a lot more fun to get in shape while learning something than it is to just do basic exercises.
I need to keep working on the basics, but I look forward to when I can learn about clinching. I wonder how much my wrestling and jiu-jitsu background will help.
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