Workout Recap - Week of December 3, 2023
We did a fair few atypical things in the classes this week. I'm not sure how much of it was for getting one of the fighters ready for a match on short notice, trying something different, or whatever other reasons, but I thought it was a nice change-up to break up complacency.
Monday
Muay Thai class
This was a padwork day with a focus on kick defense and countering after an initial probe. I could feel straight away while putting on my handwraps that I was going to have a low-energy session, but I still pushed through it to have a performance that felt generally solid. That was a reassuring display how much my performance floor has risen during my time training, which is an important development for what I would potentially be using my fighting skill for, but there honestly isn't much else for me to say about it.
Tuesday
Muay Thai class
This class was a mix of head-to-head drills and padwork, with the former switching rapidly between drills (instead of the kru's usual approach of doing each twice), presumably to help keep our fighter from getting too comfortable. We did a couple drills on sweeping after catching a kick, which I sucked at as usual, but I was doing to well enough to drop the newbies I was working with, which is a satisfactory result for my purposes (in the sense that, if I ever caught a kick for real, that probably means it was from someone who hadn't trained enough to learn how to throw them without a major telegraph). The kru said I cooperate too much when newbies try to sweep me, but that's honestly more a matter of my balance not being good. Anyway, I did get a nice, intense round in with our fighter, where I was pleased to keep up despite them seeming to go at me harder than they usually do; whatever other faults I might have, nobody can question my grit reasonably. Overall, it was a fun class and probably about as useful for me as one with kick-catching can ever be.
Wednesday
Muay Thai class
This class was back to just padwork, but we used a wider variety of pads than usual and even mixed in some bagwork. The first few rounds were mixing boxing with knee strikes, which I always enjoy, and we finished up with a six-station drill gauntlet rotation. During that, one of the padholders complimented my stamina, and I felt compelled to dial back my power on my last station to avoid slamming that partner back into a wall with my front kicks, so it was a class that left me feeling pretty good about my general athleticism.
Thursday
Muay Thai class
The kru was away for personal reasons this day, so the equipment shop manager took over running the class and had us do a cross-training mix of padwork and calisthenics. It was very tiring while doing the rounds, but I was also recovering well enough during my breaks to grind it out all the way to the end; another little mark in favor of my stamina, even as I continue to have constant fatigue from sleep difficulties. I didn't mind that this class was a different sort of challenge, but stuff like this also makes me glad that most of the training at this gym focuses on actual fighting work instead of cardio kickboxing, because I don't think I'll ever have a reason to do burpees in between every few punches in a real fight. Granted that it still felt more reasonable than the absolute time-wasting we sometimes did at the other gym I'd tried; at least things like burpees, push ups, and jump squats are useful exercises, unlike duck walks or crocodile crawls; but there's a reason I gave up on the Muay Thai classes there so quickly.
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