Thursday nights Kickboxing is a little different. The first session is ladies only. This initially had no real appeal to me. I get the sense of pairing up in gender for sparring training as much as possible, but pad work I don’t see the need and I lie working with the guys I train with. Still I went last week because it’s just before adult sparring and the chances of me heading out of the house so close to 9pm were impossible. I figured i’d do the class then i’d already be there to spar.
Ladies only was pretty knackering this week which was fine with me. Then the guys turned up, the girls left and it was time to spar. I did a round with our coach, then for most of the session worked with my sometimes training partner Nick, who always hits me with enough force to let me know about it and tends to like to go straight for my face. Nick makes me appreciate my gumshield. I think I got a few reasonably clear shots in, he certainly did, snapping my head back more than once.
Finally I did some just for fun sparring with someone who I haven’t worked with before, and he went easy, just using his hands, to give me a chance to just play around and try things. He called me on a couple of bad habits too which is the great thing about sparring with someone who is just chilling out, defending and throwing the odd punch, they have time to study you and spot your weaknesses. Overall the thing I really ave to work on is speed, bringing my punches back quickly so the whole effect is much cleaner and snappier.
At the end of the class the guys were talking about not minding getting hit when they are sparring. I listened. It’s good hearing other people say it. I have an enormous bruise on my hip from one of Georgia’s incredible kicks. I wish it were a little higher so I could show it to people. I am extremely proud of my battered body, the aches, pains and bruises. I get hit and it hurts and my mouth drops into an open, gumshieldy grin because, well, now it’s game on. Now I want to hurt you and i’m having fun.
I am working myself hard physically, the Wizard says I must rest in Devon, but I would like this to be taken into account. The training I do, puts no where near the strain on my muscles, bones, joints, vital organs and whole system, that carrying a whole spare person in weight did. If I trained 6 hours a day my body would still be under a fraction of the strain, so really, fine I take my recovery days, but no wonder I feel good physically, no wonder I can barely sit still anymore!
Paws in the Porridge 
Out of interest on the sparring. Sure, I have taken a few knocks and bruises, broken ribs and all, but mostly not. Ours is light contact, points scored on hitting the scoring zone (above belt, all front (except neck) and all head). I aim for speed, quick attack, light contact.
Do you do full contact?
Hey sweety, it’s technically Light Continuous that I am training in, so I can be DQ’d for excessive beating the face off people. ;p
The scoring zone is the same, and we are trying to score a clean firm strike so it’s somewhere between the two I think. There is points, light continuous and full contact for us. I’ve still got to learn the finer points of the rules, so far i’ve been told ‘hit them till you win’. As best I can tell it’s hit them hard enough to let them feel knocked about but don’t actually break them. When I spar guys they hold off on the power a fair amount.
I am working on improving speed but also getting more power to my kicks. I will know more after the tournament in May hopefully. ;p
Nothing broken yet, odds on it’ll be my nose first though which will upset my mother, ribs would be better from that perspective. ;p
Yeah, we do continuous, and point-stop (which is when I spar the lower grades). We also do a variant they do in competition whereby you can’t do more than two punches in a row without switching (to a kick, guard, move), to avoid the blunderers who dive in fist-fury.
Speed is the thing, as it isn’t fighting, just a sport. There are a fair few tricks you can pull, speed forward on fight start, the side fist out as you go sideways (under their guard), the turning quick as you move sideways, the punch/punch+sidekick at same time going forward.
When sparring the lower lot, I do tend to say what I am doing, and force them upward. Mostly it is speed I tell them, that and ‘don’t be so obvious!’ which I say while blocking their attacks.
But all good fun! And I do intend to come up spar you sometime. The clash of style will be fun, and force me to be out of my comfort zone 🙂
See, that’s it isn’t it, I know in my head it’s a sport, but I always go in for a fight. Hmm.
Yes, sparring with you will be a blast!
Thanks again for the MyNetDiary suggestion – just a week’s worth of tracking things has pointed out some problems I can work on correcting.
yay!! I love it. 🙂