MMA and me; day 105

I'm back! So I was really sick last week (lost almost ten pounds!), but I got back to the gym yesterday, and I really underestimated how much I need that place to keep me sane. Love my gym fam, you guys rock!

In kickboxing, we worked drills including both low and high kicks. Of course, high kicks from me are relative, since I'm still lacking in the bendy department. Anyways, we started by throwing a low 10 and then a low 9, both of which were checked by our partner. It's important to remember to not only check leg kicks with your shin, but to also bring your arm on the same side up to your head and grab the back of your head with that hand, as you reach across with your opposite hand to help diffuse the kick. Next we did the same drill, but with high kicks instead of low kicks. Here, my brother and I had to go a little more slowly, mostly due to the fact that neither of us is great at getting our kicks up that high, especially since we both missed a week. The next drill was checking a low 10, and immediately throwing a low 10 in response. By the end of these drills, my shins were quite sore. We worked on push kicks next, first throwing a rear leg teep, then our partner would throw one, then a lead leg teep, then the partner would answer with one of their own. The hardest part of teeps for me, is finding distance, and extending my hips properly, but I was getting better by the end. Lastly, we worked on defense of the teep. Right before the foot hits your chest, you scoop the foot off to the side with the opposite side arm, turning them away from you, and, leaving them open to an attack. We finished with partner ab drills, and then leg throwdowns.

Grappling wasn't a shark tank, but something sort of similar. Everyone paired up with a random partner, and grappled with them for three minutes, and at the end of that, we switched to a new partner. We did this until we had gone with everyone in class. It was fun, and forced us to be judicious about how hard we went, because we went the full three minutes regardless of how many submissions were achieved. I tried hard to pace myself, because I wasn't sure where my cardio would be after missing a week. I felt good at the end, and only fairly sweaty. Good times, glad to be back in the gym.