Workout Recap - Week of May 18, 2025

Light week this go around due to the statutory holiday on Monday. The break was probably good for me, frankly, since it gave a chance for some lingering irritation to heal.

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Tuesday

Muay Thai class

This was a head-to-head defense day, as has become Tuesday tradition of late. I mostly worked with different partners compared to the last couple of weeks, the results of which suggested that maybe the signs that I was going too hard at times weren't entirely a problem from my side. Multiple of my partners this day seemed to be inspired by working with me and asked for advice about the technical details of what we were doing. A couple of them also said afterwards that they thought I was a good teacher and appreciated my patience in trying to help them. It was a nice boost after the last few incidents had left some doubts about how much I belonged here.

Wednesday

Muay Thai class

The guest kru was back again, and setting aside the details of the drills we did, he was again trying to nitpick me about extending my neutral guard. I finally replied that I'd tried it and didn't understand the benefits compared to my usual close guard, so it didn't seem like it was a good fit for me. He got huffy instead of giving a real response, so whatever, that was the end of it as far as I'm concerned, and I'm fine with moving on to getting more meaningful critiques from him in the future. Aside from that, I was feeling a bit off from mainstream reality in general this day, so I did only the one class rather than dragging down training for any of the fighters competing this weekend.

Thursday

Muay Thai class

As the last day of classes before competition day, we did some offense>defense>counter practice in padwork. They were mostly scripted drills, but we also mixed in a little reaction training towards the end with the padholders getting to pick which strikes they would throw. It was fun stuff, even with my balance being wonky at times since my brain was still a bit out of phase, but I think I handled it reasonably well under the circumstances (frankly, that was part of the reason why I'd volunteered to partner with one of the gym members who was diagnosed with MS recently, so that I could flow with them while making sure my simulated strikes were safely avoiding their head rather than going with someone who'd want me to hit them and potentially cause an injury if I went overboard on accident).