Workout Recap - Week of November 12, 2023
I forgot all about doing this post earlier. My weekend was somewhat sleep-deprived, and I was a bit disconnected from reality yesterday, so I'm blaming the delay on those facts.
Monday
Muay Thai class
This was a fairly basic, grindy padwork class, ripping through a number of simple drills that were tiring by simple volume. Honestly, despite that, it felt like it might've been a shorter class than usual, but that might've also just been my imagination because I didn't pay precise attention to the start and end times. I suppose it's possible that feeling was from improvements in my general stamina, but it feels presumptuous to really believe that reasoning.
Tuesday
Muay Thai class
This was a head-to-head drill day to work on basic blocks. Partway through, the kru got fed up with having to correct some of the newbies for having loose guards and repeatedly reaching to block, so she had us switch to doing single shots with violent intent to make sure people were blocking properly. Personally, I don't blame her for that because I gave the same criticism to a couple of newbies during the drills, and they kept reverting to their bad habits even when I'd proceed to make them punch themselves due to reaching, so I had been getting frustrated with them as well. In any case, I did get in a few rounds with some competitive fighters and was able to keep up with them fairly comfortably despite the size differences, which felt satisfying. We finished up with a couple rounds of combo-for-combo exchanges (the next best thing to sparring, which I've been missing and hope to get back into before the new year, but I digress), and granted that I was working with newer people for those so I had a somewhat easier time of things, but I did impress myself with how much better I've gotten at reading incoming shots.
Wednesday
Muay Thai class
This was an intense, stamina-hating padwork day. We even mixed in some elbow strikes amidst all the punches and kicks, which I always enjoy. It felt like I did a fair job of keeping up my power through my fatigue (it probably helped that I got to work with one of my favorite pad holders, so I was motivated), and when we finished with weaving between low kicks and push ups, I felt a bit of pride at getting through all of the push ups without needing to kneel or take any breaks. More nice signs of general improvement.
Thursday
Muay Thai class
This was another head-to-head class, focusing on kick defenses this time. We started out with catching body-level round kicks and countering with a sweep, so I got to get the one that I was most shit at out of the way early. Sure, I do try to do the drills properly when we do them, but it's something that I don't expect to ever need in a real fight, and I mostly stick to low kicks for my own offense so I don't put a high priority on needing to defense against them either, and for some reason, I just can't seem to understand how to get my hips to turn well enough for a good kick on my opponent's plant leg, so altogether, it's a skill that I'm bad at and don't care much about fixing. I felt like I did fine with the other kick defenses, so I'm not broken up about inconsistent success being the best I might ever get with sweeps.
