Saturday, May 26, 2007

All kinds of tough.

I have been doing this fight training stuff for 4 years now.

I started with a mostly fitness class in '03. I learned muay thai combos and did some circuit style training that that class for about a year.

The trainer quit that class because his Real Estate business got too busy for him. Enter Brand X. Jeff Martin began teaching the class. He came in and there were about 6 students. The class was really difficult. In place of the circuit work he had us doing push ups, squats, bench dips etc. 15 minutes of "warm up" then he taught us the kicking, punching and foot work for 45 minutes. Everyone commenting that the class was harder than the one our old instuctor had us doing.

The next class there were 3 students. He thought maybe the students felt the class was too challenging, so he made it a bit less tiring. Next time the students came back they said they hadn't gotten as good of a workout.

"First they complain it's too hard, then they complain it's too easy!" LOL.

He taught us for a couple of months and then I went on a weeks trip, when I came back, Jason and Ricky were there. They carried on in the same fashion. Tearing us up on the "warmup" then teaching us technique while we were tired.

I never missed a week. I may have missed 3 classes if I was actually in the building.

I wasn't good. I was slow. I was uncoordinated. I was self concious. They told me I thought about it too much. "Don't think, just do it."

The hook was my bane. It took me a good year to even get an inkling of how to make my body do what the boys were telling me I needed to do. But I learned to punch HARD. The Fighting stance came to me after a while. I loved kicking things and I learned to be ferocious. No matter what they made me do, I did it. I pushed myself. I did the drills with them holding the pads and yelling at me. I glared, I swore, I sweated. They told me I was TOUGH. Persistent.

"Laura you may not be the best but you are the one who keeps coming back. Your persistence will make you better than them eventually."

One of the things we did would be a circuit, one minute of kicking a thai pad, one minute of squats or thrusters and one minute of punching the mitts. Ricky and Jason would hold. One day Jason was holding the mitts and I was punching really hard. His eyes fixed on mine and his face went...blank. I got pissed. He was giving me "the stare." I just gritted my teeth and started hitting harder and I said, you aren't afraid of me? That's not nice! I finished my round and things were over. He said, "You are the only one that doens't get flustered when I give you the stare. You just get pissed! That's cool."

During the year and a half I did get better. I wouldn't say good, but better. The class got canceled because they only had one and two students a week. I would have kept coming even if it were just myself. I did several times as a matter of fact.

It has been a almost 2 years since the class was canceled. Part two later

Monday, May 21, 2007

CrossPit 5/21/07

Really liked everything about class, especially how the hook felt, but should have started with Pack weight for the workout. I was counting punches wrong for 3 sets of punches and did 100 instead of 50 because I was only counting every other punch. grrrr.


Warmup: 4 laps, sprint one long side of the building. Shadow Box. Stretch.
Skill: Hook
Drill: 4 rounds Bas Ruten Boxing CD, partners hold focus mitts for alternating rounds. Concentrating on the hooks - work on executing hook as practiced during skill work.


Workout:

Big Dawgs
3 rounds
Hill Sprint
50 Hard Fast punches on Heavy Bag
Thruster x21 -- 95#/65#
50 Hard Fast punches on Heavy Bag

Pack
3 rounds
Hill Sprint
50 Hard punches on Heavy Bag
Thruster x21 -- 65#/45#
50 Hard punches on Heavy Bag

Puppies:
3 rounds
Hill Run
25 punches with good form on Heavy Bag
Thruster x21 -- 25#/15#
25 punches with good form on Heavy Bag

Monday, May 14, 2007

CrossPit 5/14/07

Warmup: 3 Laps, On one end of building do 7 sprawls on the other, do 7 jumping squats.

Drill: 4 rounds Bas Ruten Boxing CD, partners hold focus mitts for alternating rounds.

Skill: Guillotine, Sprawl + Guillotine, Sprawl + Knee to Head.

Workout: Fighting Helen

Big Dawgs
3 rounds
180 hard fast punches on the heavy bag
21 KB swings- 1.5pd
12 Pull ups

Pack
3 rounds
135 hard punches on the heavy bag
21 KB swings- 1pd
12 Pull ups

Puppies
3 rounds
90 punches w/ good form on the heavy bag
21 KB swings- light fluffy weight
12 Pull ups

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

CrossPit - 5/7/07

Warm up: 4 laps: Run first lap. On 2nd,3rd, and 4th laps sprint the first long side and run the rest of the lap. Shadowbox, fall down and get up, stretch.


Skill: Thigh kick, Round kick to mid section

Workout:
2 rounds FGB style
One minute of each exercise
one minute rest between rounds
on second round, A's and B's switch

A. Punch bag /B. Pull Partner w/Belt
Pull ups (both partners)
A.Mount and attack dummy-bag/B. Push Press 25-45 #
Clench with partner and drive forward(each person tring to drive their partner back)
A.Take down/B.Defend Take Down

Skill: Guillotine

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

CrossPit - 4/30/07

Warm up: 4 Laps, On one end of building do 5 sprawls on the other, do 5 pushups. Shadow Box. Stretch

Drill: Line up in one line and move ballistically on toes while, one at a time, each person rushes bag and performs 6 hard fast strikes (punches, knees, anything) then shuffles back away from the bag before jogging to back of the line. Line rotates through 4 times.

Skill: Fall down and get back up to fighting stance

Workout:
8 rounds
1 minute Ball Complex
-Stand with ball in hands
-Slam ball
-Squat down to ball and grip top of ball
-Thrust legs back into a sprawl
-Push up
-Keeping hands on ball, sit out with right leg, sit out with left leg
-Resume sprawl position
-Shuffle 180 degrees to other side of ball
-knees to chest
-clean ball
1 minute hard fast punches on the Heavy Bag

Skill: Burst in with lead knee + immediate left and right straight punches followed by Right round kick.