MMA and me; day 68

Yesterday was quite exhausting. I went early so I could get an extra hour of work in, and the MMA class was rough. We started out with a ten minute cardio warm up that included jogging, push ups, sit ups, squat jumps, bear crawls, and a combination of all the calisthenics mixed in with sideways and backwards jogging. We went right into working on passing the guard, but with a wrinkle, we put on gloves and added punches from all positions. It's much harder to grapple, or I should say, much different, when someone is attempting to pummel you about the head and body. We did that for about 25-30 minutes, and then grabbed kick shields and sat on them. We then proceeded to do two rounds of working ground and pound from all top positions, mount, high judo, side control, head mount, and knee in the stomach. We'd go from all those positions, and with 30 seconds left in the round, we'd switch back to mount, and try as hard as we could to land power shots. Two rounds of that left me a sweaty mess, and grinning like a fool!

In kickboxing, we did a round of back and forth kicks with our partners. First person would throw a low 10, high 10, low 9, and then a high 9. Then the partner would do the same. Next round , one person would throw a high 10, which the opponent would block, and then immediately throw a low 10. After one round, the roles were switched. We then learned how to counter a low 10 with a lead hand superman punch. As you bring the leg up to check the kick, and pull your lead hand around the back of your head to protect against a possible high kick, you drop your lead leg behind you and snap the lead hand out. It's not intended to be a knockout punch, but can definitely daze or stun your opponent, which can enable you to follow up with something more damaging. Lastly, we added a low 10 to the lead superman punch, which I liked quite a bit. As you throw the superman punch, bring your lead leg (which is now your rear leg) out across your opponents boy, and lean into the low 10. I'm still not quite opening my hips enough when I throw my kicks, but I'm getting better. We ended with three minutes of planks, and it was on to jiu jitsu.

Grappling was all about guard variations. Full guard, where you have your legs crossed behind your opponents waist. High guard, where your legs are up either behind, or over your opponents shoulders. Super guard, where you have your knees just at their ribcage, and then scissor squeeze your legs to crush the torso, this does not feel good. Butterfly guard, where your feet are hooked inside their hips, and you pull yourself in as close as you can. Lastly, half guard, where you only have your legs wrapped around one of your opponents legs. We worked on getting comfortable with all these positions, and then we just worked on passing drills. One person would be in the others full guard, and attempting to pass. The person on bottom would try to do everything they could, to keep their opponent from advancing to either side control, or mount. After one round, we'd switch positions, and go for another three minutes. We finished off with 10-15 minutes of free grappling, and I was thoroughly pooped, but still grinning.