OMG!

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There are things that really make me mad, like when this body refuses to do what I say !

After my own training yesterday night, I read a book on flexibility for martial artists. It appears that no matter what I say,  that my body is not flexible because this or that…..,  is pure BS. You can be flexible,  it depends on how much time you put into stretching and how effective you make the training. I heard Ted say he was not that flexible when he started, it is not a question of age, it is like everything else,  a question of training.

I made myself a new training schedule today, adding more stretching and more technique and footwork.

It looks like this:

Monday: Own technique training, footwork and stretching

Thuesday: Private lesson with Micke

Wednesday: Own technique training, footwork and stretching

Thursday : Gym or run or bike ride

Friday : Own technique training, footwork and stretching

Saturday : Rest or TRX

Sunday: Sparring session , Group training

The days I train by myself always include footwork, I start with warmup and finish with stretch. I train both shadow boxing and on the heavy bag and add static training.

Either than flexibility, I am going to try to improve both stability and flow.

Tough it up Girl !

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I asked Micke for a technique session yesterday.

we trained footwork, punches kicks and combinations on pads,   ended with situps, back training , stomach hardening and stretching.

it was hard and tough, Micke says he was very pleased by my ability to take it , especially keeping a good form during the exercises.

It did not feel quite good because I felt so exhausted, but I was determined not to quit.

The main problem yesterday was balance, that was bad !

I will focus on technique for a while as I see I have some work to do in this aera, some details are in the way of me becoming better, flexibility and balance are huge problems and I need to fix them one way or another.

THE CLAW !!!!!!!!!!

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Participants, Micke, Nicklas, Gina.

Ah , well this Sunday  training session was all about I what do wrong ! 

I am not complaining this is good because I cannot notice it all when I train all by myself, I asked Micke already to give me one extra technique session in the week because of that, and after this Sunday it seems I need it more than I thought.

Training by myself, I pick bad habbits and one of them (which I have had all along) is the CLAW !!!

The Claw is me having the left hand open and it looks like I am waiting to pick up something , I don´t know. Micke kept repeating it the whole session:  ” THE CLAW”  so I closed my fist and now I can´t get this out of my head so yes it works.(For those who don´t get the joke, this is out of Liar Liar with Jim Carey )

This session was all about technique  exercises on pads and on the heavy bag.

Footwork back and forth on a line, then footwork” sparring” : no punch or kicks just using footwork. then we tried to step on each other foot, hit each others hand, all this using appropriate footwork.

we worked on the legs strength and I finished with statical training.

Then I asked Micke to help me with stretching.

It was a great session, as usual. I am just not in a good state of mind these days, I hope this will get better.

if you ain´t gonna puke …

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you will definetely feel it the next day … Yeah let me tell you I have pain from my neck down to my legs, not unsusual that is the beauty if it, always something that you´re going to remember for at least a few days.

Anyway I thought I would tell a little more about the training from yesterday. It was not my day, I did not do much right and had no energy, I guess it happens

First , free warming up, I kicked the bag.

We started with light sparring,

– using only the punches.

–  using only kicks

–  using it all .

All three again with another partner , no breaks.

Light sparring is a bit different, no protection means no hitting the head or the groin ( too bad 🙂 ) In my case I feel restrained and the technique looks awful, we open our hand when we see an opening for head strike , but there is no power in those either, yeah as I just said this is light sparring. I need to work on that.

I felt good on my feet but here again when I focus too much on something the rest does not look good. I learned over the years that after long hours training it will come together but training the right way and often is the only way and if thinking too much about one thing  is affecting other things, means I train wrong!  ” DON`T THINK!!!! FEEL…” 

We did some grappling, changing partners. I did not get down once,  this is good.  I took Niklas down tough but I think it was an accident…

Exercises on pads,  going forward on a aproximately 6-7 meters length and back :

– using jab

– same thing with cross

– then hook

– hook kicks and finally side kicks- no break

I completed it but struggled with the energy level at the end. My sidekicks felt like crap.

Then the boys carried each other on the back and made small jumps up 10 on each sides

I lifted a piece of wood as the lightest weight around was 62kgs and I could not lift him on my back.

PS:  Congratulations Remy who lifted some heavy weight (102kgs ) I was impressed , good work!

Then we did some statical training, I remember Will asking ,” what is this ? ”  I don´t want to brag too much but well let´s say not many could do it…( nothing to brag about anyway, my legs where not high enough!)

Then we finished with pushups and hands up for Will and Gina who finished this race brilliantly  AH 🙂

Old feelings

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First of all I want to welcome Will to our training sessions, I met him for the first time today, I think he is very serious and dedicated and we hope he will come to more sessions from now on.

Remy and Nicklas were there too today, we had a very intense session full of heavy activities. Micke is very good when it comes to make the sessions great and not like a routine, always bringing new things and exercises at different levels of difficulty.

I was talking to Nicklas today, he says he feels like he lost everything because he hasn´t trained for a month, Nicklas has been sick and I told him he had to give it some time because it is normal to feel like this at the beginning.  I had the same attitude myself expecting  too much but the training process is long , nobody becomes good overnight.

I myself don´t feel good right now, not a lack of training really because I train more than ever but I got some personal stuff going on that are messing with my head and I feel insecure and vulnerable. It does not show in my training according to Micke but in my attitude.

I talked to Micke about that yesterday, he told me what he thinks, what  is good and what I have to work on to make the weakness go away, a lot of things that I already know  but somehow when it does not feel right , well it does not. I did not let this negativity affect my training today. I have to say it helps to have great training partners, the atmosphere when we train is very special, just because we are all on the same page,  all of us take it seriously and have great respect for each other.

I had some times when I felt really bad about myself  but this time it makes me want to train more, just because I know that I reached some kind of acceptable level and it would be really stupid to let bad stuff that happen in life destroy that. Let´s face it JKD is most certainly the only thing I have accomplished in my life, I am not getting any younger so it looks like it is the path I am supposed to take.

RUN!

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last night session at the gym was quite interesting. I started with 30 minutes on the crosstrainer and I have to say I don´t feel this is tough enough anymore , I have it on highest level and try to push to high tempo but still…

Anyway I lifted some weight,  worked on biceps, shoulders and did some situps and pushups exercises on the TRX.

I worked on the legs for a while as well as I need to tighten up this aera a little (!) …

After one and a half  hour I thought I was done but when I went pass the treadmill I thought I would give it a try. I ran only 2 kms , it took me around 10 min, Ok not a record but I never run on that thing, it makes me dizzy when I get down, I prefer running outside,  it feels much more natural to me. 

Anyway the point here is that I felt I did more workout in 10 minutes on the treadmill than I did in 30 minutes on the crosstrainer , so I may do that again 🙂

when I came back home, after I got myself something to eat, I did a bit of footwork and shadow boxing.

Jkd training is at tonight´s program.

I see my upper body is getting some nice trained shape but the lower aera needs some work tough ! 

I need to get stronger legs this is important for my kicks and the stomach aera is under construction as well because it is NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

Bruce Lee Lee believed that the abdominal muscles were one of the most important muscle groups for a martial artist, since virtually every movement requires some degree of abdominal work. Bruce always felt that if your stomach was not developed, then you had no business doing any hard sparring.

 

one step further

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After 6 years I apparently earned to know one JKD secret. Micke showed me today and I worked on it by myself tonight.

I tried with and without and repeated it again and again until I felt the difference, quite tricky at the beginning because I am simply not used to it but I think this will help me get better because this makes a huge difference.

and no I won´t write what it is,  in case you are waiting for it 🙂

…

I also worked by myself tonight, I am just finished with it.

I started with The TRX , God that thing is killing me ! I Like the army version, no girls in shorts in this one , and real exercises for tough guys … and girls  🙂  Anyway,  I did program number two and the problem with it,  is that after I was done I wanted to do more, so I started program number one but I actually stopped after the leg exercises.

I did some footwork for quite some time and trained on kicks on the papper drill.

The main focus tonight was to keep a straight line, a little earlier today Micke told me it was not good, so I worked on it tonight.

A bit of stretching and I am really done for today …

getting there!

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tonight I started warming up on the heavy bag .

then some footwork alone and integrating punches.

I trained on the straight lead for a short moment tonight as some more work needs to be done on the other punches .

I trained in front of the mirror for a while , only on cross and hook, trying to keep a good alignement , a proper footwork and seeing how that looks is actually very good, then I did the same without looking and tried to feel the movement.

Then I went to the heavy bag with gloves

I did rounds of cross and rounds of hooks

then back in front of the mirror

I also tried this with the papper drill, it is kind of tricky  on the papper but  a very good exercise!

I ended with a couple of rounds on the heavy bag, without gloves. ( this is when you feel even more when you hit wrong ! )

The more I trained the more I felt I was getting there, it felt better and  it looked better than before.

Finding the right  footwork/punch combination until it becomes ONE, takes time and requires hard work and a lot of training, no secret here…

I train more on footwork than ever before, here we have an answer to some questions anyway…

extras

· 1 Comment ·

I got myself a TRX, I took the army version and tried the program from the DVD as soon as I received it. I am amazed by that product, I really like it. The exercises are really fun to do and very hard for some of them. What I like most is the way you feel the body is working really hard, and then you got the message even clearer the day after … the muscles in my legs just killed me for three days!

I could not do some exercises, this is good it gives me goals to achieve with it.

I will go to the gym tonight for some weight lifting and then  the usual crosstrainer or I may try to run instead, we´ll see.

I don´t think Micke will follow tonight because the Dragon is healing right now… 🙂

Ups and downs

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I wrote in a previous post that I was proud of myself, that´s good because it is not the case everyday. I use to joke about things that I am bad at , not today.

Of course the correct state of mind is to accept your defeats and accept that you are not the best at everything. I am certainly not the best at everything and I liked to say I passed that level where you feel like crap, like I do today.

But the difference with before is that today,  I am turning this one into a positive matter,  in a way.

Micke came to my place today for our sparring session, I was told to use the left lead and that is when everything just fell apart in my head and in my JKD. At first I thought well OK,  I trained on the left lead this week we´ll see how I manage, but then I got hit in the tibia because I had a too slow and too bad  footwork , it hurt like hell but I went on, and then I got punched right in the nose because my helmet grid is too wide and Micke´s fist  just went through in the middle. It hurt allright,  but I had worse before  so no big deal but  I felt  upset and  I left the room and went to isolate myself for a couple of minutes. I was  upset with myself for feeling like I did 6 years ago. Then Micke told me we could stop and I said no, then we went on sparring  but using the right lead.  I got  hit more but it did not feel the same way,  I have  more confidence and no fear when I am in my comfort zone.

So what shoud I do from there ?  Train more things I am not comfortable with. Of course there is no way I ´m gonna use the left lead  if I have to use my JKD in the streets, but in some situations I may have to and this is why I should train it, and because I cannot allow myself to be afraid of sparring using the  the left lead or in  any other situation ever again.

Micke really pushes me, when it comes to training I am not considered like a girl and this is good, this is why I am where I am today and this is what helped me get passed the  stages from the beginning . He pushes me because he believes in me and in my potential otherwise why bother. The truth is  I owe him my level,  being hard on me makes me tough and let´s face it, if I have to use my skills one day in the real life and make it out alive,  I will have one person to thank for that.

JKD is tough, it is a fighting art, I am being pushed to my limits and I would not want to train in any other way.

 So this is one serious post today I don´t feel like joking at all, I have some work to do.