Workout Recap - Week of January 1, 2023
It felt good to be back to a full week of training, including sparring again.
Monday
Muay Thai class
I must've been slacking too much over the holidays, because my stamina was bad for this class. That said, I feel like I kept up some decent snap during the first few rounds, so that's a promising sign that my body mechanics are contributing more and more to my performance rather than relying solely on athleticism. I also noticed that my balance during my offense is getting better, and I was consistently recovering quickly enough to defend when my padwork partner sprinkled in some surprise counter shots. It wasn't my best class by a long shot, but if this is where my floor is now, that's encouraging for future development.
Tuesday
Muay Thai class
I made a point of doing burpees throughout the day to help tune up my system after running out of steam in the previous class, and that seemed to pay off with having much better stamina this time, albeit still with some regression to overcome. Perhaps in part because I wasn't so exhausted, I also continued to notice improvements in my balance (though still with considerable room to get better), and my snap was keeping up mostly through to the end of the class. A good bounce back, if nothing else.
Wednesday
Muay Thai class
It's a good thing that my stamina has been recovering rapidly to where it used to be, because this was a day of pounding out multiple kicks, with a focus on sustained pressure and chasedowns. While my energy level was fine, my form was not; I noticed that I was being lazy at times about not pivoting hard through my legs/hips, so while I was getting snappy hits against the pads, the power was lacking. It can be frustrating to keep playing whack-a-mole with technical errors, but hopefully the overall baseline is continually improving, and if nothing else, at least I'm noticing the mistakes and trying to be mindful about addressing them rather than committing them blithely.
Thursday
Muay Thai class
Head-to-head defense drills were the order of the day, and I made it a point personally to also push myself to return shots quickly after defending and to finish my offense with an exit step and/or pivot, since I want to build up those habits. The competitive fighters seem to be growing comfortable making things harder on me during these drills, too, whether it's throwing their shots with more force or being more evasive of mine instead of just shelling up. It added an enjoyable angle to things, one of them was a good sport about it when I caught them on the face during an attempted punch slip, and another gave me some useful advise about how to reduce my telegraphing on my left round kicks. It's a little unfortunate that I'm going to take a break from this gym after my membership expires at the end of this month when I'm starting to gain some acceptance by the clique, but given a little bit of unimportant drama that sprang up, I wouldn't be surprised if those two things were connected, too.
Friday
Muay Thai sparring
Finally back to sparring after the holiday disruptions, and it felt good. A couple of the fighters came at me harder than most of my previous rounds had been, but I hung in there, did my best to stay engaged defensively, and still tried to get in my own offense when I could (taking quite a few counter shots in the process, but that's to be expected given the difference in skill), so I feel like I earned the post-round fist bumps. My goal was simply to keep up pressure, particularly after kicks; admittedly a poor goal due to being hard to quantify, but I got complimented on my relentlessness, so I'm counting that as having achieved it. One of the senior fighters also gave me some useful advice on when I'm tending to compromise my guard, so hopefully that helps me take more hits off of my forearms instead of my head in the future.
Comentarios