THIS WEEK ACCORDING TO MICHAEL

WEDNESDAY KICKBOXING It was a cold night so we kicked off with skipping as usual but then moved straight on to pads, we combined our pad work with integrated body weight drills to get warmed up and focused. Rather than plodding through rounds i thought id give everyone a bit of a challenge so we did a variation of the 'nazi' drill. The 'nazi' drill is usually done by throwing one punch then sprawl out and do one push up then spring back up then perform two punches, two push ups, three punches, three push up, you get the idea. So instead of one punch we did one combination set (e.g. jab, jab, duck from hook, knee to the body) and instead of a push up we did a burpee, we did this up to five then swapped pads, once both had completed it, it was straight into start jumps till everyone was finished then we moved to the next combination. The class was literally non stop but everyone kept pace, i was really pleased with how everyone pushed on. Well done to everyone. N.S.I We kicked things off with some empty hand sinawalli on the pads, just a simple four count to start with but we built on it by adding in a 'brush,grab,strike' action. We dumped the pads to explore the empty hand combative's, reacting from a big swinging haymaker punch we engaged with the opening sinawalli action, from there we explored low line strikes into face cranks to gain control, engaging the attacking hand then intercepting the 2nd hand and using our rolling back fist to gain outside line position, we then looked at our low line levers for controlled take downs. We finished off the night by looking at the same matrix of movements but we used a knife instead of our empty hand and looked at how we can use the blade to control and pass an attacking limb and gain a control position. Although we utilise weapon work we're really only using it to supercharge our empty hand skill and enhance our skill at arms knowledge, the empty hand application is what we're aiming for. Thursday Krav Maga Another cold night saw a big warm up, a paired exercise set consisting of kettlebell swings and body weight. one of the pair used KB swings which increased in reps of 10 while the other person rattled out a specified body weight exercise. Even half way through this i could see the guys starting to loose wind but fair play to them, they all smashed through it. From there we moved back to basics, i wanted the guys to really get the body mechanics of striking down and keep the strikes nice and reined in. A lot of the time we compensate the efficiency of a technique for 'hulk smash' esque power but when we throw loads of power behind it we telegraph what we're doing, now in the fur ball of an attack telegraphing isnt really going to matter much but it will matter when it comes to pre-emtive strike and in addition the more we practise striking with full motion and extension the more of that muscle memory will carry over when you get an adrenaline dump, remember our motions and physical actions shrink under adrenal stress. So we started in a right lead or south paw stance, we worked basic jab cross hook cross while utilising forward footwork, then we switched to our orthodox stance or left lead. We then went to reacting off either a straight or elliptical punch and moved into one of our lead's, the rest of the drill was the guys chance to play about with what strikes they could find and what targets they could open up. This was great and not so much by the way everyone was defending them selfs but mainly because the 'bad guy' in the drill was reacting like he was being hit, not just standing up straight like a plumb, when then marked a target the bad guy buckled or moved back, this kind of reaction is key to bringing your striking skills up to the next level. We used a little game of grappling to finished the night off and cool down.