The Martial Artists' Training Log

[bushido_man96]

8/28/2024

TKD Class: Traditional Class: 5:30 - 6:30 pm. My head was a little bouncy as we started off basics. I'd land after stepping and doing a strong technique, and the room would jiggle. It got better as the class went along. Just had to make some adjustments.

Basics: I focused on getting snap from the hips. I feel I usually do this, but wanted to really zero in on it tonight, especially when stepping forward and backward in the back stances, where I find it tougher. I did have some issues with balance again.

Forms: Dan Gun and Hwa Rang. I then gave the brown belt some areas to focus on to get his form really looking like a brown belt's form.

One-steps: Assisted, doing low-orange belt. Mostly a memorization thing for him at this point.

Sparring: Watched and assisted/called out things to work on while moving around.

Kicking Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Started off with a stretch in The Rack, getting up to 140 degrees.

Forms: Gwang Gae, Poe Eun, Gae Baek, Se Jong, Yoo Sin, and Choong Jang. Balance was most of the issues tonight. That coupled with being pretty sore and fatigued through the hips. Then I did Do-Gon 6 and worked through all 12 three-steps.

After that was a long floor stretch. I finished doing repeat kicks with the wall for balance:

Round kicks: Mid-section x5 each leg, then set down. Mid/hi x5 each leg (so 10 total, 2 kicks = 1 rep). Mid/hi/mid x5 each leg. Mid/hi/mid/hi x5 each leg.

Side kicks: Mid-section, x5 each leg.

Front kicks: Mid-section, x5 each leg.

[bushido_man96]

8/29/2024

Strength Training

Leg Press: 45x10, 135x10, 185x5, 225x3, 265x2, 285x5, 285x5, 285x5.

Bench Press: 45x5x2, 65x5, 95x3, 120x5, 120x5, 120x5.

Lat Pull-downs: 135x10, 135x10, 135x10.

BJJ Class: 7:00 - 8:00 pm. Couldn't get the boys to go with me tonight; one claims he's tired from football, and the other had homework to finish up. It was just three of us in class tonight, so we did the drills in round-robin style. The first three "games" were kazushi based, standing, and the last three were done from a wrestling style top/bottom starting position.

1. For these first 3 games, he used tape to make a 2'x2' box on the floor with 4 quadrants. The person in the box had to keep 1 foot in 1 box, and the goal was to move the feet to keep balance without putting two feet in one box and without stepping outside of the box. Either caused a role switch. We had to maintain 2 points of contact with the hands/arms on out partner, and it was push/pull/drag/whatever to manipulate the other partner out of the box.

5 minutes.

2. Same drill, but the person outside the box had to get locked hands around the head, head/arm, arm, or waist, and then drive them out of the box.

5 minutes.

3. Same setup again, but this time if you got the person out of the box, you tried to get a takedown. The other person's job was to get back to the box. A successful takedown was role switch.

5 minutes.

I did ok on both aspects I guess. Inside the box is really tough because of the range we were limited to. When I was outside of the box, I noticed I would get too focused on tying up and trying to get hand position, but I was standing still and right in front of the person in the box. So I made myself start moving around more to get them moving. A gal with BJJ experience was in the class, and she hit a slide-by on me 3 times that got me out of the box. After the third one I finally defended it. I had her show it to me after, and it's the same move I'd worked on with the boys for wrestling. She also commented that I did pretty good, and asked if I had wrestled. I said no, just one year many moons ago and I was terrible, and just the work I'd done with the boys.

4. Ground top/bottom setup. Top person's job was to control the hips. Bottom person's job was to escape, reverse, or get to guard. If the bottom person did either, roles reversed.

5 minutes.

5. Same setup, but top person tried to get to a head, head/arm, or arm lock without getting out in front and letting the hips go free; staying behind the elbows. Bottom roll was the same.

5 minutes.

6. Same again, but this time the top person's job was to try to secure an arm, break down the hips so they were on the floor and usually to one side, and then to get a hook in with a leg.

5 minutes.

I struggled with controlling the hips and got my arms too far ahead. This allowed them to clear a hip and start standing up. They got out easy. When doing the game 5, it was clear to me that had the hooks been allowed I would have been caught several times. But I did get a little better at scrambling around and getting reversed. On my last bout on top, I was able to manipulate an arm to a two-on-one, broke the hips down, and got the hook in. So I seemed to progress somewhat, which was good. We had good discussions between each game, figuring out different things to help set up.

[DarthPenguin]

sounds like a lot of fun! Also good to be at a bjj class that uses some stand up - too many totally ignore it!

[bushido_man96]

sounds like a lot of fun! Also good to be at a bjj class that uses some stand up - too many totally ignore it!

I agree. That was something this instructor is pretty big on, and it seems we start every class standing and working on kazushi. It's a great approach.

9/3/2024

Strength Training

Leg Press: 45x10, 135x10, 185x5, 225x3, 265x2, 295x5, 295x5, 295x5.

Press: 45x5x2, 65x5, 95x3, 122.5x5, 122.5x5, 122.5x5.

Lat Pull-downs: 137.5x10, 137.5x10, 137.5x10.

[DarthPenguin]

yeah for us my class works a lot of standing (we have a lot of judo black belts too though so it can be painful!) and has wrestling classes too. From those of us who aren't judo black belts, and have been training a while, a lot of us are enrolled in a variety of judo clubs too to work on it!

 

It is good fun but i wish i had picked it up when a lot younger - starting judo in your mid 40s can be rough!

[bushido_man96]

17 hours ago, DarthPenguin said:

yeah for us my class works a lot of standing (we have a lot of judo black belts too though so it can be painful!) and has wrestling classes too. From those of us who aren't judo black belts, and have been training a while, a lot of us are enrolled in a variety of judo clubs too to work on it!

 

It is good fun but i wish i had picked it up when a lot younger - starting judo in your mid 40s can be rough!

Agreed!  Having my boys in there is fun, but my age shows when I go against them.  And my body doesn't recover like it used to.

 

9/4/2024

TKD Class:  Traditional Class:  5:30 - 7:00 pm.  Well, it should have been traditional class, but no one showed up, so it became an open workout.  I opted to do some more bag work.

Front Kicks:  15 variations, 5 each leg.

Round Kicks:  15 variations, 5 each leg.

Side Kicks:  15 variations, 5 each leg.

Total:  450 kicks.

I had a few thoughts as I went along:  Back leg (BL) switching side kick is odd, to say the least.  Trying to get around with the chamber tight is difficult.  The better option would be the switching spin side kick.  I'll be working on a reverse/spin side kick focused "class" in the future.  Also difficult were the BL side step to side kick and the BL side step #4 side kick.  There were lots of body mechanics involved in getting completely turned and not cheating the chamber of the kick along the way.  They are ok to drill, but don't really seem practical to do otherwise.  Although the switching side kick did not feel natural, the "switch, then kick" variation worked much better.  On the stutter-step side kick I found that the kicking foot could cross in front or behind and neither seemed to hinder the kick.

I've got a few variations to add to the overall totals moving forward, at least for the front kick and round kick.  I'm going to add in FL and BL "autobombs," which are the switching double kicks, along with a FL side stepping #3 kick.  The doubles are tougher for me to do now; my knees don't like all that.  But the younger students should do ok with them.

I finished the night with a floor stretch.  And ibuprofen.

[bushido_man96]

9/5/2024

Strength Training

Leg Press:  45x10, 135x10, 185x5, 225x3, 265x2, 300x5, 300x5, 300x5.

Bench Press:  45x5x2, 65x5, 95x3, 125x5, 125x5, 125x5.

Lat Pull-downs:  140x10, 140x10, 140x10.

[bushido_man96]

9/7/2024

Women's Self-Defense Seminar:  9:30 - 11:30 am.  The focus of this session was to cover striking.  We covered palm heel strikes, hammer fist strikes (both horizontal and vertical/downward), an eye gouge with the thumb, and a "tiger mouth" strike to the throat, then elbow strikes (horizontal and vertical).  We had lots of bags available for the ladies to strike.  We also covered "A-frame" kicks (front kick to groin), round kicks to the legs (against my better judgement, but not my choice), and knee strikes from a clinch.  We did some stomping kicks from the ground in a seated position (front stomp out) or from a side-on position laying on one-side (side kick).  We also covered standing up in base from the very beginning, to keep their eyes on the bad guy and not turn and give up their back.  We also opened with some preliminaries on what predators are looking for, how they are thinking, and things like that.  We provided information about reporting to law enforcement or speaking with advocates, information on seeking SANE/SART exams, etc.

Overall, a good session, but I felt like the pacing could have been a little better.  As the assistant, I didn't really have much input into that.

We had about 16 ladies show up, so it was a good turnout.  I hope the bulk of them make it back to session 2 this weekend.

[bushido_man96]

9/9/2024

Aikido Class:  Weapons Class:  5:00 - 6:00 pm.  Lots of jo today.  Warm-up with low-4, hi-4, and hi-8.  We also did jo-nage, for when either grabbing the jo or getting someone to let go of your jo.  It's basically using the weapon to do the throw.  The first one started with a sharp pull back, get the jo outside their hip, and then a sharp push forward and down while twisting the wrists back to get them to hopefully disengage and roll away.  If they stayed on it, the next step was to rotate the back end up and around to smack them in the face while breaking their grip.  The other one was a bit more complex, with a circular/figure-8 motion.  After watching it several times, it started clicking and I could see the spirals/circles and understood the point.  We did a few bokken striking drills, but most of them were kind of a game of Pete-and-repeat for the kids.

TKD Class:  Black Belt Class:  6:30 - 7:30 pm.  Opened with a brief stretch up to 130 degrees in The Rack.  White-Green belt one-steps (21 total).  All forms, starting with Choong Jang and working backwards to Chon Ji (16 total).  I had an oops in Gae Baek, turned the wrong way on some double blocks.

[bushido_man96]

9/10/2024

Strength Training

Leg Press:  45x10, 135x10, 185x5, 225x5, 285x3, 305x5, 305x5, 305x5.

Press:  45x5x2, 65x5, 95x3, 125x5, 125x5, 125x5.

Lat Pull-downs:  142.5x10, 142.5x10, 142.5x10.