Workout Recap - Week of December 4, 2022
I'm not sure where my time went this weekend, but it was like I was chasing something constantly.
Monday
Muay Thai class
This class focused on continuing offense after typical "ending" strikes, like front kicks. Since keeping up pressure is something that I'd wanted to improve at, this felt fortuitous. I felt off with my lead leg front kicks, too, so all the more reason to work on them more. As an added bonus, I had a taller partner today, so my mid-sequence knee strikes were going up to chin level to reach the pads, which was also a nice new wrinkle to work on. All in all, I had a lot of fun with this one.
Tuesday
Muay Thai class
It was unusual to have a head-to-head defense drill day on a Tuesday, but it's always great to get this work in. I made a concerted effort to push the pace in terms of returning quickly after defending, which got one of the competitive fighters to compliment my stamina afterwards (if I didn't mishear; I overheard them saying it to someone else rather than to me directly because neurotypical people are so indirect). That was neat, but what was better was finishing off with a couple of rounds of freestyle exchanges. I made a few mistakes during those, but on the whole, I feel like I've gotten much better at reading strikes and getting something bony in their way. Granted, I still get overwhelmed when trying to do that at full speed, but there is a lot of improvement that I don't recognize because it's so gradual from my perspective.
Wednesday
Muay Thai class
Front kicks were today's focus, both using them on offense and responding to them on defense, with some other kicks mixed into the offensive sequences as well to flesh out the repertoire. The body mechanics of firing back with a rear straight punch after parrying a lead front kick felt very smooth to me, though in all honestly, I think programming the reflexes to do a rear round kick to the lower back or to the back of the knee would be better for my purposes (if not exactly sport-legal).
Thursday
Muay Thai class
More front kicking today, which was starting to feel better in flow, plus a drill station rotation gauntlet to finish things off. That was admittedly a challenge for me to keep up when it was my turn to go through it, but on the flip side, my station as padholder was just repeated left low kicks, and it's cool that I can tank dozens of those without feeling worse for wear now after I used to get bruised up for a week following a few rounds of them in a single class.
Friday
Muay Thai sparring
My defined goals for this session were to have at least two instances each of moving forward to pressure while catching my breath and of throwing out intentional counterpunches while defending, and I was able to do achieve both. It probably would've been a loss if I'd stipulated needing to land the counterpunches for that second one, but I'm aware of the significant skill disparity between me and most of the others who do sparring, so I try to keep things reasonably realistic. In any case, I had a good time with it, and a few of the regulars said afterwards that I've gotten a lot better compared to how I was back when I first started sparring in October. I also started doing more body- and head-level round kicks, which did get caught a few times (something I don't think I've had happen in previous sparring sessions), but I got a few to land, especially coming after a punch from the same side where I could obstruct their main defending arm. I think this was also the first sparring session where I got hit in the groin, but unlike a strangely-high number of the others, I wear protection, so the only reason I realized it had happened was because I heard the sound of a shin guard hitting another hard surface, and we carried on as normal afterwards. As far as my next sparring session, I want to keep the counterattacking goal and add on using footwork to take angles mid-offense at least three times per round.
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