Workout Recap - Week of January 14, 2024
Why do I even bother?
Monday
Muay Thai class
This class opened with basic padwork before transitioning into fundamental head-to-head defense drills. I was kind of frustrated with myself because I was making simple errors that I should have ironed out by now. Maybe I'm just depressed.
Tuesday
Muay Thai class
This was an odd class. We opened with a drill station rotation gauntlet, which had people feeling creative with their drills (which is to say that about half of them made little sense). After that, it was padwork on sustained offense, which felt fine overall. Finally, we finished up with some clinch practice at jockeying for position, which was coordinated by another person rather than the kru. They had us start in a transient position, which felt odd to me, so despite typically liking clinch practice, I was checked out mentally (might be some carry-over from the previous day as well). That person also decided to use me as a dummy to demonstrate getting a good grip on the head for breaking posture, for some reason, which I was willing to play along with (I even did intentionally the newbie mistake of trying to swim my hands inside after having my posture broken to help the demonstration). I'd thought we were going to go on to also show a crossface escape as a better response, but they bailed when I started to do that, so it probably seemed like I mashed my hand on their face in a pique.
Wednesday
Muay Thai class
It was straight padwork for this class, though keeping with the week's apparent theme of mixing things up, we used different sorts of pads through the class. My energy level was kind of low, so I used it as a chance to focus on balance, smooth flow, and effective snap on my strikes. My front kicks seemed to be getting spicy, too, unless my partner was just playing along. We finished up with a longer calisthenic set than usual that I felt like I handled well, so that was a nice little boost for my confidence in my general athleticism.
Thursday
Muay Thai class
This class was dedicated to clinched knees, in differing quantities and combinations. I also got to work with a competitive fighter who I seem to have a good training rapport with, so it was doubly fun for me from the get-go. Apparently, I roughed them up a bit through the belly pad (I think their words at the class's end were along the lines of, "my stomach spent the whole time unsure if it was going up or going down"), which I had noticed and offered to ease back on my power, but they said to keep it up since it'd be good preparation for them. I was happy to oblige, though I did try to not convey my sadism outwardly.
