Workout Recap - Week of June 4, 2023
This was an awkward week of training, which I mean in a good way; working on things outside of the usual comfort zone is how one expands and builds robustness. It's just frustrating at times when I know I can do things decently well in isolation but putting them together in a new way throws me off enough to feel clumsy and messy.
Monday
Muay Thai class
This class was focused on defending kicks and countering back with our own. I feel like I had good snap on my strikes overall, albeit I was somewhat inconsistent about that with my lead leg. In a moment of growth, I got some advice on how to be more effective with my shin checks, and it did seem to help me have firmer balance when I made the adjustments. We finished with high-volume low kicks and medicine ball slams, during which my partner asked if I was sure about using a 40-lbs. ball. I assured them that I could handle it en route to doing exactly that; admittedly, I needed a few breaks in the final quarter to catch my breath, but I dare say that I powered through it better than my partner despite probably being around half their size.
Tuesday
Muay Thai class
The gym was unusually packed this day, so there wasn't much room to move around, which made things feel even weirder than they should've considered we did a strange mix of drills. There really isn't a whole lot to say about it, other than it was probably partly showing off for a camera crew that was in for some reason. In any case, wonky as it may have been, it can be useful to shake up the mental space and still have to execute, so I wouldn't call it a bad class, just one where I couldn't tease out quite what the purpose of everything as a whole was.
Wednesday
Muay Thai class
In another thing we don't do often, this class focused on getting used to taking body shots head-to-head before transitioning into practicing delivering them better in padwork. I had some good exchanges, though when we're doing drills to actively get better acclimated to impact, it can be annoying to work with people who switch inconsistently between going light and going hard. Nonetheless, I feel like I handled it all pretty well; the gym's best boxer made me need to take exactly two breaks of exactly one extra breath during the round we did together, but I was able to tank everything else and fire back when it was my turn, so I'm satisfied with that compared to others who seemed ready to break down and give up.
Thursday
Muay Thai class
This class focused on low kicks, including a (general) good reminder to thinking about driving through the target to maximize impact. I was working with the recent newbie again, so I was trying to be very mindful of my form and footwork, which made it very annoying that I found my brain freezing on how to coordinate doing rear straight punch>lead leg low kick>rear straight punch. It came together when I was going through the motions during my shower after the class, which I guess is better than having been mystified by it entirely, but that's something I should be able to understand by now since I've done similar sequences plenty of times.
Friday
Muay Thai sparring
This week's trend continued in a fashion with this being a frustrating sparring day, though in this case the main culprit was that my mind wasn't quite meshed up with reality, so I felt like I was a half-beat slow on basically everything I was doing. For better accounting, I adjusted my goals going in to be to do at least three different types of head movement on entries each round and (for kickboxing rounds) to land at least three clean lead leg low kicks per round. Unfortunately, I flubbed up the second, though I did accomplish the first, so it wasn't a complete waste. On the plus side, I had a funny moment when someone tried to sweep me and my wrestling training must've kicked in because I based solidly to stymie the attempt and countered with pivoting out to bend them over in a standing armlock (despite wearing boxing gloves). All in all, it wasn't my best sparring day by any stretch, but I survived with no notable damage despite being off my game and doing a few rounds harder than usual, so that's a small win in itself.
