I'm b-a-a-a-ck!

Went to krav class night, despite tender toes and a cold. And I survived without too much pain.

I chose common sense during the warm up and walked instead of running. Felt a right numpty though when I got 'lapped' several times. After the warm up we moved on to our benchmarking. I normally like the challenge of this, but I was a bit concerned that I maybe wouldn't do as well as I could due to my cold. Well, I shouldn't have worried about that! Shoved a menthol cough sweet in my mouth and off I went.

Press ups: 60 (55 - improvement of 5)

Bodyweight squats: 175 (140 - improvement of 35)


Really, really wanted 200 on the squats. The legs were willing but the rest of the body cr@pped out on me! Felt a wee bit wobbly - esp around the arms - afterwards and it took me a wee while to get into things once we moved onto the pads.

We started off working alternate palm heel strikes - jab, cross, jab. Once we were comfortable with that we worked on punches, elbows and knees - jab, cross, straight elbow, upward elbow, knee. Here we were training the footwork and body positioning for each strike. Finally we added in shin strikes delivered off a roundhouse kick, first one then two. Lee quite correctly picked me up for not kicking properly, but UTP jumped in to remind him I had a sore foot! The kick was right footed so I needed to spin on my dodgy left foot which I was being wary of.

We also practiced hammer strikes from a variety of angles - high downward, side and low downward. Lee pointed out that this particular strike is much more effective when the arm is kept relaxed until the point of impact. Hammer strikes are fun!

We then looked at defending a roundhouse kick. This involved a variation of the 360 degree parry from last week. Essentially it's the same move, but delivered at a low level to parry (or indeed catch) the kick as it comes in. The parry takes the defender off the line of the attack, puts the attacker off balance then allows the defender to move to a zero pressure area where they are chest to back with the attacker. This allows the defender to deliver a variety of moves, eg kick to the groin, hammer fist to the head etc.

This led onto to hubud. Hubud is similar to the pelampas drills I've done previously. The one we practiced last night involved defending a right hook attack on the inside using your left arm to check the attack, then folding at the elbow both to 'pass' the attacker's arm and to begin pressing it down. You then bring your right arm up to continue to pass the attacker's arm across their body, and then use your left hand to press / check the arm down across their body.

Although I'm used to this style of drill, I found it hard to remember to 'fold' at the elbow before passing the arm. I'm not sure if this is because I've just gotten used to just passing the arm 'high' then checking down or if it was a height (lack of) issue. It was certainly easier to fold when working with UTP who is shorter than me. The folding movement certainly makes sense, so worth practicing.

This was a v small class - only 5 of us and just the one guy. Poor guy fairly got picked on for the demos esp the kicking to the groin lol.

Got spin class today, so it will be interesting to see how the foot holds up for that. Will decide later about krav class tonight.