MMA and muay thai monday madness

Yesterday I attended the MMA session for the first time and the muay thai for the 2nd. Both were taken by Mike Wood. I always enjoy training with Mike as his a similar bodyshape to me and so stuff he shows me I know will work for me as well. His also a good coach. Coaching ability is nearly as important as knowledge in my opinion and more important than competition ability. Being the best in the world doesnt mean you can teach, knowing everything doesnt mean you can teach either. But Mike has good knowledge, great coaching ability and competes regularly. He reminds me of a slightly shorter Hugh Laurie, which matches perfectly with Micks giant Tony Robinson.

MMA class:

Did a fun warm up that got a sweat going and then training revolved around a circuit.Station 1 & 2 medicine ball situp drill, 3 deadlifts, 4 ground and pound on bag, 5 clinch striking and takedowns on bag. 1 round at each station doing the circuit 3 times.

We then did some partner work, one guy going for takedown the 2nd just defending. Minute each. Going for 2 minutes. Did this first with Kieran who got me with a sweet no gi uchimata, I tried a no gi tomoe nage and we had a chuckle about that. Im not a great fan of shooting for the takedown, preffering to clinch and take them down from there. Then partnered with Rich who DOES have a great shoot, Rich is abit closer to my size so I was able to impose abit more in the clinch pinning him to the wall. But still pretty tough to take down. Good session, really enjoyed it cant wait to start some sparring.

Thai class:

Another warm up. 2 brazilians walked in wondering about classes so I chatted to them trying to be part helpful part salesman. One of them mentions how he also appreciates the muay along with the bjj, I mention anderson silva (been a fan of him for a long time). Brazilian guy 1 then asks me if anderson is here!!, I say no just saying I was a fan. Guy then mentions how he trained a little BJJ with anderson who showed him some stuff in brazil. He also mentions how they found out about us from another martial arts club. Precision martial arts in blackwater (http://www.pmartialarts.com/) Their posters at blackwater station had given me a misinformed opinion of them so was good to hear that the instructer was a good guy, especially as he was reccomending us. So Im trying to repay the favour by putting their link in this post, so check them out if your in the area. Anyway back to training!.

Technique was: jab, cross, hook, push kick, round house kick. Im still chambering kicks and my punches are very loose. But Mike gave me some great positive feedback so I felt good about improving. Im right handed and my partner told me my left leg's kick was considerably stronger, maybe Im forcing the right to much. Mike then worked on me abit trying to get me to turn my hips more, once I slowed it down I think it made more sense to my body. Rather than just going mental.

We then just had abit of a free mat for 30 mins. Did some no gi sparring with Toby a hefty polish guy, whose calmed down alot since starting. Worked on pressure from top of side control and escaping side control, with some random rolling inbetween.

Other news:

Started following Rafel Lovato jr's blog http://www.lovatojr.com/

Andy and bunch of other guys are going to ADCC to watch so ill be teaching some classes while they are away.