The Martial Artists' Training Log

[bushido_man96]

Been a while since my last post here....it was a bad stretch for about a month. Finally, things came around, and I made it back to the gym.

7/10/2023

Strength Training

Squats: 45x5x2, 135x5, 185x3, 225x5, 225x5, 225x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 85x5, 115x5, 115x5, 115x5.

Starting over...again. On the last two sets of squats, I had a little lightheadedness after the racking the bar. Going to monitor this going forward, and if it continues, change my rep scheme.

TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Black Belt Class. My schedule has rotated, so back to class, too. It was a self-defense focused class tonight, and we worked on knife defenses. I focused on redirecting the attack and controlling the weapon hand, then counterattacking with lots of strikes to take the bad guy's focus off the knife.

7/12/2023

Strength Training

Squats: 45x5x2, 135x5, 185x3, 205x5, 205x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 85x5, 120x5, 120x5, 120x5.

Deadlifts: 135x5, 185x3, 225x1, 275x5.

Lost so much on deadlift (and didn't have much on it to begin with). The long road lingers ahead....

TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. T-shirt Class. I went through forms, white through high blue belt, and they went well. I haven't forgotten them, at least. The body was sore and didn't want to move much, but getting some work in was good. I broke the class up by helping a young student with his deadlift technique, and then the CI was working on a palm heel smash breaking boards. He's working up to concrete slabs. I was tempted to join in with him, but will likely need to work up a bit.

[bushido_man96]

7/14/2023

Strength Training

Squats: 45x5x2, 135x5, 185x3, 230x5, 230x5, 230x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 85x5, 125x5, 125x5, 125x5.

7/17/2023

Strength Training

Squats: 45x5x2, 135x5, 185x3, 205x1, 235x5, 235x5, 235x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 85x5, 110x3, 127.5x5, 127.5x5, 127.5x5.

I had thought about adding pull-downs back in, but I was truly gassed after that final squat set.

TKD Class: Black Belt Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Tonight was a forms review night, which I was ok with. If there were any issues with a form, we did it again before advancing. White belt through middle brown belt. I had good power throughout, and was a little sore in the arms the next day.

[bushido_man96]

7/24/2023

Strength Training

Squats: 45x5x2, 135x5, 185x3, 205x1, 225x5, 225x5, 225x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 85x5, 105x3, 125x5, 125x5, 125x5.

Barbell Rows: 95x10, 95x10, 95x10.

A jumbled schedule at work this week, so I missed a few more days of training.

TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Black Belt Class. We have a tournament coming up this weekend, so after doing a brief warmup, the CI, another instructor and myself watched our black belts do forms, and then gave them critiques for tournament competition, things to clean up, space out, etc.

7/26/2023

Strength Training

Press: 45x5x2, 85x5, 105x3, 130x5, 130x5, 130x5.

Deadlifts: 135x5, 185x3, 225x2, 275x5.

The first set of presses made me question how much I loaded. Sets 2 and 3 went more smoothly, though.

TKD Class: T-shirt Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Rolled out a bag to do some bagwork tonight. Ended up toying around with 360 side kicks, and then jump 360 side kicks, along with the CI, who was asking about some technical aspects. Wore me out pretty good. At the end of class, we did some breaking with the rebreakable boards, doing a palm heel smash. I did two grey boards, then 3, then did 3 grey boards and one green board. Will keep working up next week, hopefully.

[bushido_man96]

7/28/2023

Strength Training

Squats: 45x5x2, 135x5, 185x3, 230x5, 230x5, 230x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 85x5, 105x3, 115x1, 135x5, 135x5, 135x5.

Barbell Rows: 100x10, 100x10, 100x10.

Kicking off a big weekend of TKD for our school this weekend. Friday night, we had testing with our association's grandmaster and his daughter (senior master) in as guest judges. And on Saturday, the school hosted it's first ever tournament.

TKD Testing: 6:00 - 7:30 pm. The black belts did a little bit of demo breaking at the beginning (I did not), with the CI doing his 6-board palm heel smash. The kids tried some new things, which went well. Other than that, we had several white belts test, and one green belt tested. Our adult white belt impressed the GM so much that he jumped her in rank to high orange belt, which was pretty cool. She's pretty technically sound for a white belt, so I think it's a good call. At the end of testing, the GM had our three teenage black belts do their first-ever round of three-for-all sparring, while two second degrees did a regular sparring match (it was a father-and-son match, so always fun).

7/29/2023

TKD Tournament: 9:00 am - 2:00 pm (including teardown time). I got in early to help with sign-ups and what not, then we had our black belt meeting, and then lined up as a group. Our CI and the Salina CI did some black belt introductions after our CI introduced the guest of honor, Grandmaster Yi. This was a small, interschool tournament involving the 4 KS schools in the association, so we had just under 50 competing, I believe. Next, we did a brief demo involving some basics and one-steps and three-steps (my and my partner, a very talented 4th dan, only did one-steps). After that, it was time to break off and go to work.

The formalities handled, we started the competition proper, and I spent the day center judging a ring for forms and sparring. I have to say, our school has always had a high standard for technique, and it has carried on since the instructor that founded the school has moved on. I have to say, compared to some others I've seen out there, our school upheld its reputation. We had a pretty good day sparring, too.

Good news that came out of this is that the headquarters school is planning on finally having another national tournament next year, around the same date we just had ours. This is a good thing, as the association hasn't had a national tournament in several years.

Overall, I enjoyed being a part of it, and enjoyed judging the rings. One of the other area CI's came up with a forms judging system that streamlined things pretty well, and once he explained the system, I rather liked the simplicity of it. Much easier than what I had done in the past.

Our CI is also looking at trying to host an open tournament at some point in the future, which I think would be a lot of fun, but will also come with it's own challenges. This was a good learning experience, and I expect some good things going forward.

[bushido_man96]

7/31/2023

Strength Training

Squats: 45x5x2, 135x5, 185x3, 205x1, 235x5, 235x5, 235x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 85x5, 105x3, 115x1, 137.5x5, 137.5x5, 137.5x5.

Barbell Rows: 105x10, 105x10, 105x10.

TKD Class: Black Belt Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Went through all the one-steps, then started on three-steps; I focused on the first two so I can start getting them memorized. After that, we sparred. Had three good matches, felt like things went pretty well, had some things working for me. Got pretty gassed at the last match. I did manage to to take a knee into the rump, and an elbow on the ankle, but it's all good.

[bushido_man96]

8/2/2023

TKD Class: T-shirt Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Ran through 16 forms today, from Chon Ji up to Choong Jang. A brief stretch at the end of class.

I didn't get to lift today due to not having transportation available at the time. Had to get some new tires on one of our cars.

[bushido_man96]

8/4/2023

Strength Training

Squats: 45x5x2, 135x5, 185x3, 205x1, 240x5, 240x5, 240x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 85x5, 105x3, 115x2, 140x5, 140x5, 140x5.

Deadlifts: 185x3, 225x2, 280x5.

I focused on taking the Valsalva with my mouth open, and that helped to not build up so much pressure in my head, which tends to be compounded by the Meniere's. Press sets were heavy today. I see programming changes coming sooner rather than later. Since I missed Wednesday's workout, I tacked the deadlifts to the end of this one.

[bushido_man96]

8/7/2023

TKD Class: Black Belt Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Today was a Ho Sin Sul day, and we worked on fun defenses. It was a good review for me, and the students had some good questions and considerations as part of the class. We started class with Do-Kang 2, and prior to class I went through Chon Ji, Dan Gun, Bo Chung, Se Jong, and Yoo Sin hyungs.

Missed strength training again today; having more issues with Meniere's flaring up, and we were down a vehicle again due to a dead battery.

[bushido_man96]

8/11/2023

Strength Training

Squats: 45x5x2, 135x5, 185x3, 205x1, 245x5, 245x5, 245x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 85x5, 105x3, 115x2, 142.5x5, 142.5x5, 142.5x5.

Deadlifts: 185x3, 225x2, 285x5.

8/14/2023

Strength Training

Squats: 45x5x2, 135x5, 185x3, 225x2, 250x5, 250x5, 250x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 85x5, 105x3, 115x2, 145x5, 145x5, 145x5.

Deadlifts: 185x3, 225x2, 290x5.

Meniere's kicked in after the deadlift set. Had to sit down for a minute to gather myself. Things have not been good lately.

TKD Class: Black Belt Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Did a lot of Do-Kangs, which was good review, and also some three-steps.

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So, it's been a rough span. I've had a couple of episodes, missed a day of work because of one, and then I had one hit late last week while on duty. It was not a good thing at all. I have an appointment coming up at the beginning of September with the specialist, so maybe we can make some progress. I've been reassigned at work, so on day shift now, and the schedule is a bit tight.

8/21/2023

TKD: 4:30 - 6:30 pm. We had a booth at our local college set up, and we spent the time doing some demos of forms, one-steps, and board breaking, along with providing information for the Martial Arts Alliance, which includes our TKD class and the Aikido club/class. The Aikido students were alongside us, doing some of their own demos, too.

8/23/2023

TKD Class: T-shirt Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. I spent the evening trying to get Do-Kang 6 memorized. I've got the first 3 segments down. Did a few board breaks; a two-board palm heel smash (twice with the right hand, and tried the left hand...didn't go), and also did a downward hammer strike, right handed, twice. Broke well, but it felt like I was bouncing off those rebreakable boards. Stretched a little, and provided feedback for a few of our young black belts sparring.

[bushido_man96]

Alright, it's been a while. Health has not been good, and had to make a trip to see the specialist about getting things under control. I've not done anything since 8/23, and finally got back into some classes yesterday.

9/18/2023

Aikido Weapons Class: 5:00 - 6:00 pm. We opened the class with some Okinaga breathing, which was a very new experience for me. We did 4-cycle okinaga, and he would clap some small wooden blocks together to signal when to change. First clap, breathe in slowly; second clap, hold; third clap, breathe out slowly; fourth clap, hold. Holding after the exhale was new, and very uncomfortable. The cycles got longer each time, which added a new element as well. It will take some getting used to. After that, we did the first three jo awase. We did a bit of individual drilling, but then moved into doing them with partners, which was fun. The third one took a little while to get going smoothly, but it came together after a while. This pretty much finished out the class. This video shows the jo awase of Kobyashi Ryu, which the instructor said are done similar to ours. The first three are a decent indicator of what we did, but I felt like we were closer together. Another main difference was that we did all the initial strikes to the face.

TKD Class: Black Belt Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. That's right, double-dipping today! We did a forms review class, getting through all my forms, up to 4th dan, 16 forms in total. Since I hadn't trained in quite some time, I didn't over reach on the kicks, because I didn't want to pull something. It was a good review, and still a good workout. I had a few balance issues here and there, but nothing too egregious.

The idea of doing the Aikido weapons class stemmed from a coffee session that myself, our CI, and the Aikido Sensei had to talk about how the demo in the quad went, among other MA topics. It was a very enjoyable discussion, and as the conversation went on, the Aikido mentioned the weapons class he had, and the time falls pretty good with my schedule, so I told him when I got to feeling better, I'd go check it out. I'm hoping to keep it in my schedule, as well. I really enjoyed it. There were a few things I was clumsy with, but I didn't mind that at all.