My knees, shins, and elbows are bruised and bloody. I'm completely exhausted, and can't be bothered to do anything "fun" tonight other than go to sleep.
The last four days have been brutal and are taking their toll physically, but at the same time I have been really enjoying them and am so glad to be here. I'm slowly getting back towards having top notch conditioning, and I think by the end of next week I will be able to go all day without feeling like I'm going to die. We shall see!
Some random things I have learned this week:
- Striking is hard. With most of the noobs I have sparred with it hasn't been that big of a deal, I can usually block okay here and there and get a lot of good strikes in. On the other hand, today I sparred muay thai with a guy who had a lot of boxing experience and it was a totally wicked experience - he just peppered me constantly, pop pop pop, anywhere I moved to block he just threw them in somewhere else. I have really good kicks for a noob but my punches and defense, not so much. Note to self, in a fight with a good striker... grapple!
- The grappling/MMA training has been totally awesome. Much more exciting to me than the muay thai, but that's only because I'm picking it up much faster and easier. I really like drilling the techniques and learning them and I've been amazed at how easy it is to learn and pull off (when drilling of course) some moves that I thought were pretty complex. Then there's the reverse side of it, which is finding out how to use moves to escape situations that I didn't even realize were happening when I watched fights (and I've got a pretty good handle on things, I thought). It's really opening my eyes up to my favorite sport, which is excellent.
- The good, really top notch fighters are sick. Sick conditioning, sick skills, it's all amazing. I've watched a few very good guys train and even been able to see some of them spar and roll and it has blown me away. I knew in my head they worked hard but I honestly don't believe I'd ever be able to push myself that hard physically. Any little part of me that thought "I could do that!" has died. ;) Maybe if I had kept wrestling through high school and college and learned to train properly before becoming desk bound... alas.
- I am really beat up. In additional to bloody shins, knees and elbows, my shoulder joints are both swollen, my right elbow is badly swollen, my right knee is swollen and possibly tweaked, I dislocated a toe on my left foot (the one I have previously broken), my neck is torqued from a crazy armbar, my calves are destroyed from all the bouncing on my toes, and I have blisters and tears all over the bottom of my feet. We sweat so much here that our feet look like we're taking a long bath when we train, which keeps them soft and just shreds them up.
Looking forward to chilling out a bit tomorrow and only doing some rolling from 12-2, then nothing on Sunday. Hopefully that will give me a chance to get a bit of recovery.
The last four days have been brutal and are taking their toll physically, but at the same time I have been really enjoying them and am so glad to be here. I'm slowly getting back towards having top notch conditioning, and I think by the end of next week I will be able to go all day without feeling like I'm going to die. We shall see!
Some random things I have learned this week:
- Striking is hard. With most of the noobs I have sparred with it hasn't been that big of a deal, I can usually block okay here and there and get a lot of good strikes in. On the other hand, today I sparred muay thai with a guy who had a lot of boxing experience and it was a totally wicked experience - he just peppered me constantly, pop pop pop, anywhere I moved to block he just threw them in somewhere else. I have really good kicks for a noob but my punches and defense, not so much. Note to self, in a fight with a good striker... grapple!
- The grappling/MMA training has been totally awesome. Much more exciting to me than the muay thai, but that's only because I'm picking it up much faster and easier. I really like drilling the techniques and learning them and I've been amazed at how easy it is to learn and pull off (when drilling of course) some moves that I thought were pretty complex. Then there's the reverse side of it, which is finding out how to use moves to escape situations that I didn't even realize were happening when I watched fights (and I've got a pretty good handle on things, I thought). It's really opening my eyes up to my favorite sport, which is excellent.
- The good, really top notch fighters are sick. Sick conditioning, sick skills, it's all amazing. I've watched a few very good guys train and even been able to see some of them spar and roll and it has blown me away. I knew in my head they worked hard but I honestly don't believe I'd ever be able to push myself that hard physically. Any little part of me that thought "I could do that!" has died. ;) Maybe if I had kept wrestling through high school and college and learned to train properly before becoming desk bound... alas.
- I am really beat up. In additional to bloody shins, knees and elbows, my shoulder joints are both swollen, my right elbow is badly swollen, my right knee is swollen and possibly tweaked, I dislocated a toe on my left foot (the one I have previously broken), my neck is torqued from a crazy armbar, my calves are destroyed from all the bouncing on my toes, and I have blisters and tears all over the bottom of my feet. We sweat so much here that our feet look like we're taking a long bath when we train, which keeps them soft and just shreds them up.
Looking forward to chilling out a bit tomorrow and only doing some rolling from 12-2, then nothing on Sunday. Hopefully that will give me a chance to get a bit of recovery.
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