Last sunday , it was only Adam who showed up for training.

After I warmed up by running up the slope we practised a few techniques on mitts.

Then we went on to sparring where the point this time,  was to focus on the technique. The fact is Adam is so tall I had to adapt to his height and his range. This was actualy very interesting because I sparred in a whole other way, this was obvious that I would have difficulties to reach him with punches so I had to work my kicks more than usual and try to keep the distance.

I also found myself moving my head more to provide  him from reaching me. It felt good, better than the sunday before when I felt totally worthless.

But I should be able to use a good technique in all situations so I heard we will go back to the chicken coop this sunday and  I will have to opportunity to correct my mistakes there as well…

AH what a nice team we have there! participants of the day : Michel, Remy, Will, Micke and Gina.

We started with technique on mitts, first all punches in whatever combination just to feel it right.

then we worked on cross with retreat

and a combination of Straight lead, the partner tries to hit with the other mitt and  cross straight after the blocking.

all this was done using both sides.

I was working with Will, he hits pretty hard! my arms where shaking after the exercises just by holding the pads 🙂 but I could hold unlike when I train with Micke , it feels my arms are gonna fall down when he hits!

Then it was sparring time,  we took the level up a little trying to keep a good form but giving it all.

The thing with today´s training is that because of the heavy rain, we trained inside the shelter or  “chicken coop” as Micke likes to call it,  which is a very small aera and the awareness of what´s around is extremely important , I mean by that : try not to throw the partner or fall on the bench or something like that…

That was some pretty tough sparring out there,  great time!!!

After everyone has done that,  we decided to try a sitting attack : one person  is sitting on the bench and the other one coming right at him. We laughed a lot when Remy and Michel fought, they were shouting at each other,  the film is going to be great! This is such an interesting training that when it was my turn I requested to do it without protection. The reason for this is simple, while sitting on a bus or train , I don´t wear a helmet and I wanted to see how that would feel.

Of course against Micke there is so much anyone can do and in that position well , it looks pretty finished as soon as it starts, but I am a pretty stuburn girl and I did not give up easily. I loved this exercise, real life situations are important to work on because you never know if you gonna need it someday.

After all this Micke thought we would run the stairs but as Michel and I started we noticed it would not work because of the high grass that had completely covered it in the middle. So instead we ran up the “ski jumping” landing slope made of some kind of slippery plastic grass, this was fun ! then at the top I looked down and as Michel and Remy decided to run it down I told myself: NO WAY ! I took it on the side,  on the real grass instead but the guys went down not running because that was impossible but sliding on their behind!  I was called “chicken”  when I came down 🙂

we trained with Nicklas yesterday. first techniques on pads / mitts and then some sparring.

Nicklas had disappeared for a while and he was not feeling at the top but I have to say he´s got some good chances to be good at it, as for a beginner he has a really good form. this is the thing with JKD you don´t get away with only training once every 3 months or so…

I felt very low on energy and had problems with the flow. It happens sometimes. Micke says I need to accept it, no one can be at the top everyday all year round. I am better but I still have difficulties to accept this when it happens, I get depressed because I feel I kind of spoiled a training session for myself.

Anyway, we filmed the sparring with the headcam. Micke was carrying it on his helmet, he was keeping the distance more than usual and hiting also harder than usual. I did not feel good about this sparring at all.

I thought about it afterwards and actually the fact that Micke makes our sparring as real as possible, is for sure hard on us but on the other side, he is doing us a big favour: preparing us for what could happen in the streets. Of course we don´t only train that hard and for what ” could ” happen” but let´s get real about why we all train martial arts.