This past Friday I was finally in town and not sick, and able to go for my first run with my new running group, one of the Back on My Feet teams. They meet at 5:30 AM which means I have to be out of bed at least 20 minutes before that. It’s tough to get up so early, but I had a blast and can’t wait to go back. For now, I’m only signed up for Fridays but I do eventually hope to do at least a couple days a week.
Saturday and Sunday the gym was closed for Easter so we got a little extra conditioning thrown at us in Muay Thai today. I felt like I did medium OK – my partner was out of it and we had some communication issues, but nothing too terrible. We practiced performing and dodging teeps and rears, and then a couple combos – 2, 3, double rear, pull, double rear, double switch — and 2, 3, 11, double rear, double switch.
P. and I did get an awesome blender this weekend — I missed my protein shakes!!
Yesterday I went to BJJ – my first class in about a week and a half. I was sore like crazy for a few days, then busy with work, and then out of town. I did get in a few runs, but I was a bit focused elsewhere – and struggling for sleep.
I had every intention of going to Muay Thai today. But, last night P. took me to go see Joe Rogan, and of course dorky me wanted to stay after and get him to sign my Muay Thai shorts :D. So, we didn’t get to sleep until around 3:30 AM, and my butt was not moving out of bed. P. and I are running 8 miles together today though.
This weekend was a wash, sick sick sick. Monday I made it to Muay Thai, and today I managed my first double – so, 4 miles of running/walking plus 60 minutes of Muay Thai and 60 minutes of no-gi grappling. And… I feel it much more than I would wish!
Muay Thai has been kicking, kicking, kicking for the last several classes- cut kicks, teeps, switch kicks, cut kicks to combos. At this gym, combo 1 is 1, combo 2 is 1-2, combo 3 is 1-2-3, and combo 4 is 1-2-3-2. I also learned teep parries, which was totally new.
I was the only woman in no-gi today, except for a staff member. I’m going to try to embed at least one video of a technique practiced in grappling after each class, for my own reference – to help me remember at least the gist of the techniques, since it seems like different teachers teach slightly different points. I did okay in class today I think; I had no rhythm during pummeling which was just stupid. And rolled for the first time, and felt stupid. But, I did learn! Today we worked mostly on submissions from side control – americana with legs, arm bar with legs, and then a choke where if our opponent tried to push up against our throats with his forearm we pushed his own arm against his throat, tightened down, and circled out around to the side on our toes.
Today’s new crop of bruises on top of my old layers of bruises combined with the warm weather has me thinking, summer and swimming and bikinis are coming, and while my body fat percentage has been dropping and my bigger pecs have been helping me fill out my shirts more, it’s tough to feel cute with giant blotches all over (hips, forearms, shins, thighs, sides)… do I:
A) Try to forget I have them, and when that fails wear them with pride?
Except: Most people viewing them will not understand that they are signs of hard training, but will instead think P. is beating me.
B) Invest in pretty cover-ups that really, really, cover up.
Except: Not confident it would really help that much; I mean, they’re most places now and I’m still “taking it easy” in training. I’ll wear the ones I have as much as I can stand it, just ’cause I burn like crazy.
C) Get large tattoos to cover up the bruises (a girl in no-gi jiu-jitsu class only half-joking was talking about this, you can only see bruises on one of her legs because she has bad-ass tattoos everywhere else).
Except: I’m not quite ready to be a walking piece of art yet. Expensive. Might get hip tattoos if I keep getting these huge nasty bruises on my hips though!
After several amazing weeks with just really just a little tremor here and a little tremor there, yesterday rather stank and today is not going so well. But, really, these bad days are still nowhere close to what they were like a couple months ago.
Friday I made it to Muay Thai despite feeling a little off – I started jogging to class fairly certain that I’d feel better once I got moving, and I was right. Class was focused on head kicks – one of my favorites. I still chuckle about the beginning of class – we partnered up, and found out our very first drill was to put our foot on our partner’s shoulder, holding hands to keep balance – my partner was a very nice older (late 40s? early 50s?) gentleman in shorts that were much too loose. Whoops!
The rest of class was pretty much throwing and blocking head kicks, and then some cut kicks. Exhausting, but tons of fun and I do feel much more confident in both those skills now. We never devoted so much attention to headkicks at my old gym.
I felt so much better after class; I ran most of the mile home, instead of the usually limping run/walk that’s all I can manage after the burn out (conditioning exercises at the end of each class). And, I somehow mustered enough energy to power-shower and run (because I was so hungry) to the bar to hang out with P. and a bunch of his friends.
Yesterday, P. took me to the DMV to finally get my Pennsylvania driver’s license. I was hoping my shakes there were from hunger – we used the Happy Cow app to find the closest restaurant with vegan food… turned out to be New Harmony Vegetarian Chinese Restaurant, which was awesome! All the typical veg Chinese food options, plus tons more, and things like veg dim sum and vegan cheesecake. Delicious, but I still felt like crap, and was dizzy and falling on the way home.
But – it was fun to have a lazy day, and anyway my gym was closed yesterday. P. went out golfing, and I watched movies and played the original Super Mario Brothers … and did do a ton of paperwork, including taxes.
Today – I’m hoping to run with P. for part of his 7 mile goal (we’re running the 10-mile Broad Street Run in May), and very much wanted to go to my gym… but I’ve got roaming twitchies and a little air hunger just sitting completely still. So – we shall see!!
I was feeling not-industrious this morning, so instead of starting work at 7:30AM like I have been, I instead made P. and I some “Fronch” Toast from Vegan with Vengeance. The soaking mixture is made with soy creamer, soy milk, cornstarch, and chickpea flour – and it came out totally rocking and amazingly delicious.
I’m pretty sore from Muay Thai last night – we did a lot of work with knees again, which is great – but again, in six months at my old gym I barely did 10 minutes on knees, so it’s totally new muscles on top of a few months of inactivity… sides and bottom of my abs hurt. I had grand ambitions of a double today, but I’ve gotten a reprieve from lunch class with a surprise deadline for work of 4:25 PM today (hence the exciting 10-minute lunch break blog post), and I’m not yet convinced I have it in me to get my butt to the gym tonight. It would do my to-do list quite good to have a chore night, in any case!!
I do finally feel like I’m getting the hang of knees though – only compliments and not corrections from the coach last night, so that felt great :).
So – I ended up working through lunch break (shocker), but I did make it to my first no-gi class today! I’m still hampered by feeling too timid, which means I’m slow during the warm ups because I’m trying to see what everyone else is doing because I have no idea what the move the coach is saying is… and during King of the Hill rounds whenever I end up with the teacher I freeze up out of terror. Lame – but, I’ll get over it soon!
I’m lucky that there is another girl in the jiu-jitsu classes at this gym, and she actually likes what she’s doing and is good at it. At my old gym, I actually partially stopped going to the BJJ classes after three classes in a row getting stuck with a teenage brat who didn’t want to be there and didn’t want to work (I’m fine working with guys but they’re not always fine working with me. Whatever).
Mat burn on my knees aside, I did like no-gi! I was a little nervous about it; I googled what to wear (again lame). Message boards said the wear board shorts, compression shorts, and a rashguard. So, I wikipediad rashguards because I had no idea what one of those was… and ended up wearing a sports bra under a jogging tank top under a low-end underarmour knockoff, and Muay Thai shorts with a spare pair of P’s undies on top of mine as extra, er, protection. Everyone else was of course just wearing T-shirts and shorts, but hey I’m me and I got nerves.
I had bad dreams, ate a burrito and chocolate milk for breakfast, have a to-do list a mile long I don’t want to touch, really really need to clean my room, and feel like if someone spoke to me the wrong way this morning I *might* have a temper tantrum.
But, today should really be a good day. If I get enough done quickly enough at work, I can go to Muay Thai at lunch and possibly re-connect with a good training partner I had over the weekend. And, if my lack of sleep hasn’t caught up with me by the evening, maybe try my first no-gi grappling class.
Aside from not getting my butt to bed early enough (again, middle school!), and not really making any progress on my to-do list this weekend (though really I kind of needed a lazy weekend, and I did have to work some), things are going well – got to watch the UFC fights on Saturday (bummed Dan Hardy lost), go to the Kimmel Center for the first time on Sunday and see the Temple Symphony Orchestra, and last night P. made spaghetti squash with vegan mushroom cream sauce (I had to work late after my 3 hour lunch break doctor’s office fiasco) and loooooved it… after a week of eyeing the spaghetti squash suspiciously and telling me “I’m not so sure I’ll like this…”.
We also re-watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
I’ve had three classes at my new gym since Monday – #4 will be tomorrow, not bad for a first week. Three Muay Thai (including tomorrow), one BJJ. This gym definitely includes more conditioning in all their classes, which I *love*— every inch of my body has been sore for the last two days. I’m pretty sure I’ll have some insane muscle growth in the next few months if I’m able to keep my attendance where I’d like to. They also have more coaches per each class, I felt better able to figure out what I was supposed to be doing in the BJJ class, and I’ve learned more about knees in the last week than I did in months at my other gym. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED my other gym and I’m sure there’ll be things this one won’t offer that I’ll miss from there, but for now I’m a happy camper!
This Friday began at 5AM with my sport pilot checkride, and ended 22 hours and 400 miles later, feverishly unloading my stuffed car into my boyfriend P.’s apartment.
I barely remember Saturday – a blur of not sleeping, sleeping, resting, unpacking, sleeping, not sleeping… We did go for a 4 mile jog, going up along the Schuylkill river for the first time. Somehow, on our first day living together, we managed to get in a fight over how we would handle our future not-even-remotely-being-considered-to-be-born-anytime-soon children when they reached college age.
Sunday: cleaning cleaning unpacking cleaning. P. had bought me flowers on Friday night in recognition of me finally earning my pilot’s license; I’ve been breaking the big bunch down and now there are little vases of flowers everywhere and they make me smile every time I see them.
I braved two city grocery stores on Sunday afternoon, somehow managing to sort of have fun and not have a panic attack out of claustrophobia. Hauling five packed cloth bags back in the rain was my strength training for the day!
P. made awesome guacamole for while we were cleaning (and listening to NASCAR radio), and I made Veganomicon’s hot sauce glazed tempeh, with garlic mashed potatoes and jalapeno corn gravy (also Veganomicon) for dinner. Too late I realized the gravy was supposed to be food processed smooth at the end, but it was pretty good chunky style, too!
The apartment is getting better and better! It’s not quite where I’d hoped it’d be by the end of the weekend, but I do tend to be a little bit unrealistic in my expectations sometimes. It’s good enough that I should be able to spend entire days here without getting depressed or going crazy – which was the goal!
I’d hoped to check out a new MMA gym this weekend too, but now I’m thinking Tuesday even instead of Monday – still too many chores I’d like to do today.
And now – I need to try to sleep some more. Too many changes too quickly mean I’m leaping awake at the smallest noises, brain instantly in high gear. I miss sleep!
Tonight, I finally got in several rounds of awesome extra sparring practice with another girl from class. Through extra practice, I honestly think I’ll be able to progress at least twice as quickly as if I was just attending classes – even if I was able to attend more regularly.
It’s so valuable to me to stand in front of a bag with no one telling me what to do, trying to remember all the little details about techniques… and then of course, just trying to remember the combos and counters the coaches taught us in class.
AND THEN of course, in sparring, trying to apply them!!
Plus, sparring is just like the most fun thing out there :-).
I’m excited that I may have found an awesome ongoing sparring partner!!
See Jane Fight 