MMA and me; day 30

Man, I don't think I've had two Muy Thai classes in one week until this week, and let me tell you how rough, but still fun that is.We started out with skippies, which is just leaning against a wall with your forearms in a Muy Thai clinch position, and simulating knees to the body of a clinched opponent. Two rounds of that was pretty rough. After that, we went into drills with a partner, where they held a kick shield against their body, and you drilled it down the middle with a knee, as you pulled their head close with the Thai clinch. We then worked switch knees, which is exactly what it sounds like, you switch your lead leg and back leg, then hit with the knee that is the new back leg. If that wasn't enough, our final drill, was to knee with the same leg as in the first drill, but to never let it touch the ground. Whew! This is one of the few drills I can think of that is harder on the person holding the pads, then the person working offense, sweat city.

Jiu jitsu was all about working escapes from bottom side control. First was pummeling the far arm under their chest, and reaching over their back as you shrimp out to back control. Next was a similar position, but it involved countering the guy on top throwing a whizzer, and getting in as tight on them as you can, and instead of shrimping out behind them, pushing them either directly over, or backwards onto their back. That one took a few times, but it felt pretty good after several tries. Finally, we worked on pummeling the near arm in, if we couldn't get the far arm. You sneak the far arm over their shoulders, and the near arm under their stomach, and turn away from them, which is against everything else you learn, but it works. With the near arm under the belly, you keep reaching it over the back as you turn, and to the seatbelt grip with your arms, and voila! During grappling with my brother, we each tapped each other once, and I managed to get kneed in my nose, while he jammed his thumb into the mat. Overall, it was pretty damn fun!