Week 33

So 2011 has begun and with a painful bang. 2 days after training my left shoulder and neck are very sore and I am foolishly going to do some body weight conditioning after this post. We did 2 hours of sparring and I engaged too much in grappling but hey it was a fine workout.

During the session Martin stopped us all to talk about things we should avoid. For him and at the moment in our training they are

1. Don't turn away when hit

2. Don't duck.

3. Dont' pose and leave your technique out there.

After class I spoke to Martin about sparring and said that I find it hard as I am usually the shortest and am unsure about to use this as an advantage.

For the next 50 hours of sparring my goal is to primarily work on;

1. Maintaining takedown defence stance

2. Attack at the end of their attack.

Also i have just watched a bagua combat video on YouTube
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPXHBIDO_1U and there are some ideas on that which I might also begin to play with. For example, off lining forward footwork on attack to 11 0r 1 because at the moment I am just working 12 and 6. That is no good as my forehead is a little lumpy today. Also look for elbow control instead of wrist. If I can control the wrist then they can still manipulate and move from and with the elbow. Finally, when engaged or controlled to try to fast twitch turn and attack forward.

I am going to try really hard to stick to these tactics for this year along with anti-grapple as it is far too easy to take hits, close the gap and grab a hold.

On Thursday night, standing grappling with Paul and Man mountain Nathan was extremely fun, bordering on addictive. Yes there might be an argument that I am developing and working on infight sensitivity and control of another but my weakness is out of range and initial boxing range. Therefore this should and will be at the forefront of my mind in sparring.