Workout Recap - Week of January 8, 2023
Wow, I'm not entirely sure what happened this weekend to make me forget all about posting this, but here we are. As I wind towards the end of my current membership at this gym, this was generally a good week. The future never entirely certain, but I expect I'll be back again, though that's a matter for a few months down the road from now.
Monday
Muay Thai class
It was hot in the gym this class, probably due in part to the unusually-high attendance. We were doing defense and countering drills in padwork, too, and putting those two things together made for a steamy, sweaty, stamina-draining hour. That all said, I think I held up decently, so I'm feeling good about my physical rebound compared to where I'd started out last week.
Tuesday
Muay Thai class
The previous class was an endurance challenge by happenstance; this one was one by intent, as we did lots of repeated punches, kicks, and knees. I feel like I kept going pretty well through most of it, but the workload caught up to me in the final round of constant repeated straight punches. Still, I felt not-terrible about the whole thing, which is better than it could've been.
Wednesday
Muay Thai class
Head-to-head defense drills were the order of the day, and as I've said before, those classes are my favorites (not counting sparring). We did a lot of basic kick blocking and returning, and I got into a lot of good rapid exchange flows. It was a little annoying that my left shinguard kept slipping out of place during one of those rounds, but I learned my lesson from having gone shin-to-knee a few times when that'd happened in a previous class and opted for a momentary pause to readjust it this time around. There were also a couple of rounds I did with competitive fighters where they said afterwards that I was doing well and much improved, which I'd guess was more likely than not meant sincerely, but at the same time, this is the second straight week where I'm getting that kind of feedback after these drills, so my suspicions remain. Not that it really matters either way, but given a choice, I don't want pity.
Thursday
Muay Thai class
This class was another stamina-drainer, focusing on knees, front kicks, and low kicks, with set-ups and follow-ups for them. At one point, we were doing round kicks to the body with a kick shield, and my partner said a few of my kicks with both legs were landing with enough power to give them a little sting in the ribs through the shield, which was very cool to hear. It also happened that people kept messing with the round timer for whatever reasons, so I think I did a couple of four-minute rounds. I don't mind that, honestly; I've done longer rounds when doing my solo heavy bag sessions, so I just had a laugh about it and kept working.
Friday
Muay Thai sparring
I think this was the first sparring "class" where I didn't do any repeated rounds with the same partner, which was great; I'd rather treat each round as a blank slate as far as what to expect from my partner than have the temptation to come in with an idea of their personal cues. My lone goal was to do a lead body hook>lead head hook sequence in each round, which I achieved, but I didn't like how much I was falling into doing just single- or double-attack sequences, so with next week likely being my final sparring session at this gym for now, I'm going to go back to one of my original goals and try to consistently go for at least three attacks whenever I'm seizing the offensive momentum. That said, my defense did feel much better overall, and aside from getting caught by a lot of guard manipulation in the one boxing round that I did, I think I was able to get some protection in the way of the majority of the potentially-substantial strikes I defended. Granted, I was still clearly bad enough that the competitive fighters were taking things easy on me, but I can feel some significant improvement from where I'd started. It'll be interesting to see how much of a difference it makes to go to another gym in February.
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