Archive Results for ' Muay Thai'
Mixed Martial Arts – Days Six and Seven
I’ve been pretty busy with work and some other personal things so I have had time to practice but not enough to post often. Anyways, here is a post that’s combined about last Tuesday(last Thursday was wet so we canceled), and Today(Tuesday).
Both weeks we worked on distancing and power. For distancing, we went with the focus pads. The focus pads are great for working on distancing with both the legs and the hands. There is that obvious sweet spot, for both the hands and the legs, right in between where you’ll be jammed because you’re too close or too far back and not able to apply enough power. We worked quite a lot on finding that spot, as well as going over routines that we can utilize at home to train our bodies in distancing even on the days we don’t have practice. For the legs, we do various kicks where we:
- Bring the knee up and hold for a second.
- Slowly extend our leg and perform the kick.
- Attempt to stop the kick right against whatever we are kicking at(punching bag, etc).
- Bring the knee back to it’s original position and hold for a second.
- Bring the leg back down to the ground.
This method allows us to be able to train our balance, strengthen our muscles, and enhance our distance judgment. The foot should always simply tap the object you’re kicking at, not rest against it. It highly helps your distancing ability because you can tell whether you’re too far back or not. Again, if you’re too close your leg will be too bent and you’ll be jammed or if you are too far back then if it was a real kick, there would be no power behind it. Make sure to work each leg, while switching up the type of kicks, so that you get the full experience.
To help us develop both our power and stamina, we worked on going all out against a heavy bag that another person can hold. The bag is quite big and sturdy so we don’t need to really hold back on it at all. We usually tend to do this after we’ve been going for quite some time so we are already warmed up, etc, considering our usual “class time” is roughly two hours. It’s a very simple concept though, we simply go all out for roughly 30 seconds or so, then it’s the next person. It goes back and forth from person to person(only usually two or three of us out there to rotate between), until eventually we’re so drained that standing is a task in itself. Even though this work out always kicks my ass, I love it because of how effective it is. Don’t mistake this for a misuse of energy, because this isn’t how we’d really fight. The exercise simply has one purpose, and that’s to raise one’s energy level cap. In a real fight, a lot less energy would be used and the idea would be to let the other person drain down their energy before you do, which doesn’t usually take long if they decided to try to go all out on you, as long as you can avoid the blows well enough.
Mixed Martial Arts – Day Five
I’m posting a little bit later in the week than I normally would because we ended up not having class on Tuesday because my instructor was sick. By Thursday he was feeling much better and all 5 of us (my teacher, me, and three other “students”) were able to make it to practice.
Anyway, as you might have noticed, I decided to change the title. While the core foundation of a lot of what we’re practicing is Muay Thai, we incorporate a lot of other Martial Art techniques into our routines. Thus, I believe “Mixed Martial Arts” is a better term. Even though everyone will immediately think of “UFC”, which I’m not too fond of, that’s really the best phrase for what we’re doing.
On Thursday, my instructor decided to switch things up a bit and let US choose what exercises we were going to do. We did a round robin type of game where one person picked an exercise, chose how many we were going to do of that exercise and then everyone did it together. We’re a lot different than most people, we don’t simply choose low amounts to make it easier on ourselves. We choose a number that we know we can do, but yet is definitely a work out for our body and then everyone has to do it as well. We did a lot of push-ups, as our instructor kept sneaking in sets of push-ups throughout the day in the middle of our training, and a decent amount of sit-ups. One exercise we did that you can really, really feel is jumping squats. When you go up in the squat, you jump up in the air and reach your hands up high into the air and then when you land, you crouch back down into the squat. Try doing a lot of these and see how far you can get. 
We did more light sparring and form/technique work than anything else. We worked a lot in partners, having one person sit out, and switching up every little bit since we had an odd number of people(5). One of the sessions, one person would latch his hands up behind the others neck and squeeze his arms into the persons neck to cause pressure. The one in the “head/neck” lock would then have to try to fight their way out while the other person kept the pressure on as tight as he could without inducing injury. Knee kicks were also allowed to be thrown, so I definitely threw a lot of those. 
We also worked a bit more on “self-defense”. You’re probably thinking, “Isn’t all of it about self-defense?” And while, in a way it is, the movements we practiced were more towards real life situations such as someone grabbing your shoulder, or starting off at a more aggressive pace where everything is sudden unlike in a spar or ring fight where you are expecting everything. We would have one person put his guard up, and the other partner would unleash punches at his head while the other person tried to only defend. Why practice only defending, sometimes? Well, if it’s sudden and somebody unleashes a fury of punches towards your head, the only thing you might have time to do is get your hands up to block as many as you can.
Anyway, I’ll post more articles soon enough.
Muay Thai – Day Four
This morning I had quite a hard time getting up and out of bed, and ended up being a bit late to work, all because I was so damn sore. I was/am still sore from my Martial Arts class on Thursday. Normally we usually go for about an hour or so. Yesterday, we took it to two hours instead. It wasn’t the length of time that has made me so sore, it’s what we had to do.
For those of you who don’t know what a Pyramid push-up is, it is when you do sets of push-ups. For instance, you do 1 push-up, then you do a set of 2, then 3, etc all the way up to 12. Once you’ve reached 12, you go back down to 1 again. Overall, it’s roughly 150 push-ups in total. My instructor decided we were going to do Pyramid “Everything” which steps it up just a little. First, you do 1 push-up, then 1 squat, then 1 sit-up, then 10 combination’s on one side, then turn and do 10 the other way. The combination’s varied, such as jabs then a round house kick, or a knee, etc. After that, you’d do 2 push-ups, then 2 squats, then 2 sit-ups, and then 10 combo’s for each side. We did this all the way to 12, then back down to 1 which is equals out to something like roughly 150 push-ups, 150 squats, 150 sit-ups, and somewhere around 230 kicks(we did all different kinds, we didn’t just do the same one’s over and over) on each leg since each combination always had a knee or kick movement at the end of some sort. One of the other “students” happened to lose his lunch(oatmeal, Mmm!) right afterward.
We took a 5 minute water break after all that, then we were back up and doing bag work. My instructor has two bags that we use for just beating on. One of them happens to be a huge bag, that takes a lot of the impact out of the blow, the other, erm, doesn’t so much. It’s lighter and thinner. There was four of us out there so my instructor decided me and him would pair up, and gave me the “lighter” bag. It’s funny, I think he enjoys kicking me almost as much as I enjoy being kicked. I can still feel the area where I took the blows, it’s pretty damn sensitive now. After the bag work, we moved onto light sparring. We sparred for roughly 20-30 minutes before I had to head back off to work.
All in all, it was one hell of work out, at least for me! My instructor says he plans on having us do this each time for now on, so I suppose I better get use to it real fast. If I were in shape, this series of work outs probably wouldn’t be so bad, but that’s not the case. I got a ways to go to be back in what I consider “good shape”. If anyone out there has any experiences of having done these Pyramid sets, or just having had to do a large amount of exercise for whatever shape you were in at the time, let me know how yours turned out, I’d love to here about it.
Muay Thai – Day Three
Today, there happened to just be three of us out there, the other guy couldn’t make it out for one reason or another. It was quite hot out at first, but by the time we were done which was roughly an hour or so later, it had cooled down substantially because the clouds came out. Overall, it was a nice day to practice though.
At first, we did some basic routines, working out by doing push-ups, etc to get our bodies “going”. After that, my instructor brought out a decently large training bag that is held in front of someone so they can just “bash” on that person rather than the focus mitts which are more for accuracy. Anyway, he had us practicing combination’s of jabs, knee’s, and side kicks. One thing I noticed that was quite funny though, was that the other guy out there with me(who has just started back in training as well), could throw a hell of a lot harder knee to the stomach with his left leg than his right leg. The funny part about that is, he says that he is more comfortable with his right leg and usually is “right sided”. Funny how things work sometimes. For me, I’m the “norm”, I kick a lot better with my right leg and hit a lot better with my right hand. My left leg definitely needs a lot of work. My left hand is quick on blocking but is shit at throwing jabs.
After the bag work, we went over a few simple take down methods, nothing too serious. The idea behind him getting us into knowing a few take down methods was that we could practice “break falling”. Break falling is essentially breaking your fall so that when, not if, you get thrown to the ground or knocked down, you are able to break your fall. By breaking your fall, you limit the amount of damage your body is going to take from the fall which gives you a faster recovery time to getting back to your feet.
We ended with light sparring like we usually do. For a while we just had the rules of “anything goes” pretty much, obviously meaning kicks, sweeps, jabs, elbows, etc. I got a couple good combination’s in on my teacher, with one in particular allowing me to land my kick to the side of his thigh. The worst mistake I made was when he brought a high kick all the way up to my face(I’m a bit taller then him) and I misjudged his leg length and the end of his foot skimmed my cheek. I’m trying to get back into the “dodging by only the thickness of a piece of rice paper” routine again.
Like I said before, my teacher doesn’t just teach Muay Thai, he teaches “What Works”. He’s learned various styles and takes from them and tries to apply them together. Obviously, no one martial art is superior to all others. So, during the very end of the light sparring we practiced over some of the “Wing Chun” methods of blocking, simply using only our hands(we chose to just use only the hands, in no way is Wing Chun limited to this). With Wing Chun, when two people are practicing it, it’s quite easy to tell who’s in control of the situation because of how much one controls the other movements, so to speak.
I’ve got a lot of work to do to progress further, faster. I’ll report again sometime soon.
Muay Thai – Day Two
Today, we met out at the same field that we did last time, but only this time two other guys showed up. They weren’t there last time because they couldn’t make it out.
One of the guys had been away from working with the teacher for about one month because of work and other things, but now he’s getting back into it. He’s a little bit shorter then me. I’m around 5’11-6’0, but he’s got his body into a lot better shape then mine because of getting back into training 3 months before me. His legs were pretty damn solid compared to mine. At one point, I was bringing up my back right leg, raising the knee for a kick, but he was already bringing his back right leg up towards my left forward foot so I quickly decided to use my kick against his so I didn’t take the blow. Sounds good, right? Only one problem, his legs are condition and mine aren’t…yet. Let’s just say, I felt it. 
The other guy is around 6’4 and had been in Martial Arts when he was young, and some boxing, but hasn’t really done training for quite a long while. He’s not in great shape either, but still better than me, because he said he’s been active in other stuff here and there. During some of the light sparing, me and him were practicing grabbing each others leg’s when we went off for a kick and sweep each other down but we brought each other down slow enough so it wasn’t that hard of a slam to the ground. It’s insane though, how big of a difference it is for him to be only that much bigger then me, and when he sweeps me I start off so high and fall so far, that I’d definitely be out of air(if not hurt a lot worse) had he brought me down with real force.
All in all, we worked on nothing but sparing today and it was fun as hell. It’s hard for me to get use to the real close combat with knee’s as part of the combo since I’m not honestly not very use to using my knee’s. A lot of my problems have to deal with not paying enough attention and bringing my hands down too much when I’m going in for a kick or a quick sweep. The problems with my sweeps seem to be that I don’t have the accuracy down of my leg movements and if you’re off just by a little bit, it actually backfires against you and makes YOU have an unstable balance and not them.
I’ll update you next week when we meet again! Everybody seems to be having a lot of fun!
Muay Thai – Day One
I’ve recently decided to get back into Martial Arts and start training again. Quite a few years ago, when I was younger, I use to be into different Martial Arts and was in great shape, but times have changed. At one point, I had injured my back, more specifically my spine, severely. So that, and the fact that I have a desk job writing code all day, so I don’t really get any exercise at all that way, has kind of put me off on the idea up until lately.
I had been thinking about getting back into Martial Arts but couldn’t decide what I wanted to study or how. I wanted it to be something “foreign” to me. Something I had never really done at all, something brand new. One day while I was in class(college) my teacher(who happens to be an ex-marine) happened to mention all of his past Martial Art experience and that he happened to know Muay Thai because he got stationed different places and had the opportunity to learn it while away from home. He trained under a specific Muay Thai teacher for around 2 years or so. Personal training goes a lot further then most places “group training”.
I later talked to him about what I was planning on doing and he told me that he was training people for free as long as they could fit in with his schedule. He trains only a handful of people per week so that the training can be effective. Big groups of “students” simply cause everyone to not be able to get that “personal” experience. His training is not what you would call “full fledged Muay Thai”. Most of the traditions have been stripped out because the fact is that any Martial Arts has two faces to it, the application and the traditions. The traditions can be neat and fun to learn, as well as required, if you plan on ever fighting in a ring with that particular fighting method, such as is with Muay Thai. The application remains the same either way as long as it’s taught the right way. All too often traditions are taught and application is left behind. He is also teaching other methods from his other Martial Arts experience but generally points out what is from what, just for my own knowledge and understanding.
I decided I’d go for it and so yesterday, I did. We met at a giant ballpark where no one was, since we did this during lunch time, and for roughly an hour or so he worked with me to figure out what level I am currently at so he can adjust the level of intensity of training I need to start at. To be honest, my level of fitness is very low. Anybody who knows me in real life can tell you I’m quite thin, some even think I’m too thin, but the fact remains that I’m just “out of shape”. Just being thin doesn’t mean at all that you’re automatically “in shape”, and thus that’s the situation I’m in.
We worked with focus mitts on jabs, knee strikes, and some kicks. After a bit of practicing, we’d spar lightly to get me used to what I had just went over, before going back to practicing again and repeating the process but with new combo’s. Since we were only sparing lightly, I only ended up with some bruises and scraped up knuckles. The problem is, at the current shape I am in, it’d be stupid to take it too much “harder” so fast. Once I build up my endurance, I’ll be able to go a lot more “hardcore”.
If you want to find out more about Muay Thai, click the link. That will give you a general overview of what Muay Thai is sort of about. For more information, look up Tony Jaa who has made two popular movies Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior and The Protector. The image displayed is of Tony Jaa. If you want to see a more traditional fight though, look up Rob “The Dutchman” Kaman.
Anyways, I’ll be posting more as my training progresses. I’ve got a long way to get back to where I was, but I’m enjoying it so much, the time will fly by faster than I think.
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