We went to the gym tonight , I warmed up on the crosstrainer ,

then we headed to the weight lifting area when I noticed something new , something I had seen in one of Amy´s videos, the TRX Suspension Trainer! Ah I went straight to it and tried,  I just love it and I am gonna get one!

We worked most on shoulders and biceps tonight, then we  went over to the situps area,  there is a situp “machine” that just kills the stomach after just 7 repetitions! I can´t do a lot of those but it is just a question to push it a little bit more every time.

Then  I asked Micke to help me with stretching, it is getting better but there is a tremendous amount of work on this one and that is not new…

Then I had to try the TRX Suspension Trainer again before we left  🙂

Tonight´s training was painful but this is the way it should be , so you feel it working !

Tonight I thought I would add some drills that I should do more often

I started warming up with jumping rope

Footwork :  going forward on a straight line covering the whole room then backwards a couple of times, right and left lead . I also worked on side steps ,  using right and left lead as well.

Shadow boxing:  focus on the correct footwork and speed  coming back in on guard  , doing series and combinations.

Series of jabs

jab and cross

cross

jab cross and hook

hook

the Kicks:

I actually only worked on hook kicks tonight, I tried some series of fast ones

Paper drill: I put the paper into place and worked on the famous paper drill:

I worked on jabs for a while and added all punches following the rotation and movement of the paper, trying to keep appropriate footwork , correct technique, power and speed

Statical training:

Keeping the position up,  trying to stay in balance ,  Hook and sidekicks. I noticed my leg  was too low so was my upperbody, especially in the sidekick position.

I decided to do some stretching,  first on the floor and then I attached a rope on the top of the bag , I attached  my foot on one side of the rope and pulled the other side.

I was not really happy with this one,  it did not hurt enough. I have to find an adjustment to that exercise so I can feel it working.

I did some more statical leg training and went on the floor to stretch again until it hurt too much to go on.

Then I was done with the sesssion…

Micke Told me I´d better be in Top Shape before the summer… I guess I will have to work even harder… 🙂

I am just finished with my session tonight.

I started warming up with some jumps and steps ( some that I stole from Amy´s videos 🙂 )

then some footwork, right and left lead,  forward backwards and sides .

I started with a serie of jabs on the bag,  30 with right lead,  30with left.

Same thing with cross , and same with hook and finished with back fist.

Kicks : hooks , series with front right leg and then front left

same with sidekicks

– 30 pushups

– biceps work with weight

– Then I attached the” rubber band thing” to the door handle and worked on jab cross until it burned like hell

back to the bag with same exercises, jab and cross and hook right and left.

hook and side kicks, right and left.

I finished with taking off the gloves and worked on jab cross hook and kicks on the bag with less power to pay more attention to the technique and feel the movement.

I just have to say it is when you work on things that you realise how much you need it. It means as well that the learning process never ends,  anytime I get better at something I notice something else to work on and this is good,  I reached a level where I can feel and notice the details and know what is needed to get better. This is the beauty of JKD, dedication and self discipline will pay off. I really am proud of myself even if I think I am not training enough.

AH , well this training session today did not start the way I expected.

Micke asked me to hit the bag to see how my technique looks like.

After a couple of minutes he says to change side, using the left lead, ah the famous left side , my famous worthless left side, no seriously !

First of all I was totally lost, no flow no power no form nothing ! talk about feeling like crap!  And Micke´s comment confirmed it: ” what the hell is this ???”

I use to train the left side but not in rounds on the bag, standing on the left lead and using all combinations feels unnatural and seems the body just wants to go back to the right lead. I found myself thinking, not knowing which hand to use and my God It felt like I was  back to 6 years ago,  OH NO I won´t let that happen !

Then I did the techniques in the air, kicks:  hook side and front, punches:  jab cross hook uppercut ,  and same thing on pads.

Then I tried to hit and kick Micke  going forward and backwards  still only using the left lead …

As a result I was told to train the left side only , for the whole coming week. 

I went back to the right side and hit the bag again,  I feel lighter and have a better flow.

Then I worked on hook kicks in the air .. that is where I got a comment which I did not realise or believe at first , Micke said:

 ” your kicks start to look like mine ”  WHAT ??? wow this is huge  and that makes my day !

I have another point to work on, during the past weeks I tried to work on my position and tried to have a better alignement and stand better, I tend to bend my upperbody forward, I need to stand more straight. When Micke told me it was a big mistake to look down I realised that is why I am not standing correctly, and if I look down I can´t see the kicks coming right at my head !

This is going to be the focus of this week, work the bag and all techniques on the left side and hit the bag looking up not down. I will draw a line on the bag to have a point to focus on when working on it.

We decided to go to the gym one extra time per week.

It feels good to alternate, I train JKD at home 3 times a week, two at the gym and sparring on sundays .

We talked about this never ending winter ( sick of it ! ) yesterday ,  it will be so good to be able to run outside,  ride the bike, run in the stairs and so on. We always are much more active when it is not like in Siberia outside !

As for the light, thinking that there is almost no night at all in the summer ,  it gives a great opportunity to do more things, I really look forward to it !

This is the point , get to that stage where you feel what you´re doing is right or wrong.

I always decompose my  training and then put it all together.

I started with some jumps and steps to warm up .

Heavy bag :  serie of straight leads , then I added cross and then hooks.

– combination of all three adding uppercut and backfist.

I go on with kicks, first hook at three levels of hight,  low regular and high, first one after the other, then all three together ( without droping the foot)  as usual this feels better on the right side, there must be some kind of misconstruction on my left side or I am not correctly assembled  🙂 ah no seriously this is lack of training , no secret, I need to spend more time on the left side that´s all, no excuses!

I did some footwork, back and forth ,sideways, bob and weave and added the straight lead and cross, yeah again, cross needs more work. This is where I had a revelation ( or did I ? ) the straight lead start to look and feel pretty good , hm is it because I focus like a crazy person on it ? the answer is yes of course,  the more you train the better you become, again this is no advance brainsurgery,  this is training. Ah I amuse myself sometimes, as if I just learned how it works !!! I just heard it at least a thousand times from Micke, but the role of a student is to start thinking by himself , you can hear something one million times if you don´t get it you are done.

so I spent more time on cross, took it again on the heavy bag , alone and in combinations…

I did some weight exercises and used the rubber thing ( still did not check what this thing is called ) , then I went back to footwork

then 50 pushups in a row ( ok the last 10 were not that deep  but same here , when I started I could barely do  10 and  the five last looked ridiculous, now I can say I do 40 real ones and 10 funny ones at the end, but I will get them to look good I can tell you that ! )

Go on with footwork again , adding the punches.

Situps on the balance ball,  I did 50 but it did not hurt enough…

Footwork again

Situps , I tried to find the most painful position and I did 30

and another round with footwork and 30 situps.

I finished with the wristroller, I am not bragging about this one, it is killing me every single time. I did three time and I was done.

some stretching and that´s it for tonight .

I have focused on several details the past weeks, yesterday I worked on footwork, kicks and straight lead.

I do the footwork back and forth in my living room, then move it to my training room in front of the mirror to see what it looks like, then I add some shadow boxing before moving to the heavy bag.

Straight lead:  as usual it has to come naturally, hand before foot and the proper body alignement , push the hip and get some power in it ! well if you train often enough you will get there, already knowing what you have to do and feel or look like is a good point, doing it properly with all that knowledge is the whole point and  it needs practise.

I train quite some time on the kicks, low regular and high on both sides ( hook kicks only) , then I taped some peaces of coloured paper at different levels on the bag  to give me  targets. While kicking I focused on keeping a straight line and the guard up. After a while you have to stop thinking at all, so the whole movement can get some better flow and natural movement.

After that I decided to try  some yoga , ( one of my friends gave me a DVD  for christmas) . Interesting at first but then I got borred by the lack of action 🙂

I started with jumping rope then  footwork and shadow boxing.

Then I decided to hit the bag , trying to get some flow.

I worked on the straight lead for a while, then cross hook and elbow, trying first to get the technique right and then add some movement around the bag with proper footwork and added bob and weave .

I tried to focus on the depth of the punches, retract fast but still go in with the punches.

Then I added the kicks , I was quite happy with all of them, on the right side, GOD that is so annoying not to perform the same way on the left side !  so I worked the kicks on the left side for a while.

I added some stretch and went on with high kicks on the punching ball, still the same problem and I am really annoyed !

That means only one thing, this need some more work !

I finished with a  serie of punches on the punching ball , with speed, moving around, blocking,  bob and weave .

Then I finished with stretching.

yesterday I worked mostly on footwork and kicks

I jumped rope for about 10 minutes, then some exercises,  steps,  jumps and finished with regular footwork

I still feel like an elefant  but doing that everyday I will loose that feeling I hope.

Then I put the punching ball in place,  a bit higher than usual to work on my high kicks , on both sides.

The position of my hands is having a life of its own, so I took that rubber tube thing and put it around my back holding the handles in the right on guard position, this is so tight my arms can´t go anywhere and this is actually a good thing to focus on yet another detail: keep the line straight during kicking!

I did this for a while and went back to it without the ruber thing, well no,  the arms are still living their own life so I put the thing back ( will have to check the name of that “thing” in the dictionnary ! )

and  I did the Bruce rope stretching again.. I wanted to tough it up a little bit by adjusting the rope higher up and I had to get on a chair first to be able to put my foot in the handle.. tricky ! but I have to do with what I have and the result is the only thing that matters actually.

I finished with the same stretching as last time against a wall and pushing myself forward putting one and then two mitts between my back and the wall.. It hurts like hell and I do that one minut or two until I start feeling sick or like I am gonna cry !

Well if this is not working at the end I really don´t know what will.. not getting any younger here, it is about time to get flexible  🙂

I was done but I added situps pushups and a bit of weight lifting to “really” finished the session ..

A part of training JKD is to be aware of what your problem is . Of course I don´t have only one… but apart from a real improvement on my footwork I have quite a big one, my movements are always restricted, I thought I needed more stretching for my legs  it appears the problem is also situated somewhere else !

Yesterday I started the session with the heavy bag,  concentrating on the technique on only a few punches and kicks.

I always decompose the movement for at the end put it all together but I was not very happy with that yesterday.

 Anyway,  I remembered I saw a video posted by Amy and wanted to try some of her exercises, I built what I thought would work with a rubber band put my feet in the handles and tried to position myself but the equipment is wrong so I could not manage but it gave me another idea.

I remember Bruce using a rope to hold his leg on the side kick position using the other hand to lift it. Well here comes one answer to the problem, while trying to position myself correctly with a good body alignement and lift the leg, I thought this would kill my legs but no I did not feel a thing, it killed my back and my hip.

I repeated on the other side and found the same answer.

Ok then, this will be another goal for this year, try to get some flexibility in there !

The more I evolve in the style the more I find problems, is that good ? the good thing is to be able to identify and feel when something is not done right, the other thing is to be able to know what is needed to get it better, so in a way yes this is good, and only confirming one thing, after 6 years I see I have so much more to do, I understand why some people cannot handle the style, it is such an amount of personal work and dedication. I work most of the time alone, Micke has given me the tools during the years and is still is teaching me as  we have our sessions but I would not be at that level if I did not work by myself as well, there is no way, a great deal of discipline is required,  it is good I have time on my hands 🙂

I stretched even more on the floor trying to get to the legs as much as to the back and hips.

I finished with some JKD pole and wristroller, talking about killing something, I definetely killed my arms with those two favourites.

I feel sour today but I like the feeling, it means I worked where it is needed, now I just have to prepare for my session of today.