Tonight we had our last full contact training before the World's on Saturday. It was supposed to be an easy night. We did some sparring. It started light. Sensei Kris and I were sparring, probably 30% power. Then Kenny and I sparred and it started at 30%. Kenny is so hyped up. Slowly the power got turned up to about 80%, by him. I was still trying to keep the power down but defending myself, I turned it up too. The last 30 seconds hurt. When Kenny and Sensei sparred it was almost a fight.
Kenny is all about a certain technique. I can't say what it is because I don't want to give away any inside info right yet. But I have to say it is a very nice technique, but a fighter has to use a technique when it is an open option rather then trying it until you succeed. It was his downfall at his last fight. He was just looking for the opportunity to show his awesome skill, that he got beat with basics.
Kyokushin is not about fancy and flashy, it is about power and speed. It is about being smart in the fight.
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Pictures to help me remember
that I am not as bad as I think I am |
Sensei knowing how Kenny fought the last time and seeing him practice all the time decided that we would do drills for it so Kenny could learn how to make the opportunity.
I just learned basic knee kicks. It is not that we don't train knees, but we only train them on bags. It is a no-no to knee someone in sparring in the dojo. I guess there were too many injuries. The first knee I ever had was a week ago. I was like Woe There Friend (like the acronym?) That is when Sensei said if I was going to be a fighter, then I would have to get used to blocking them.
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| Another picture to help the confidence |
Because we don't spar with knees I am uncomfortable using them. We worked drills to each other giving knees. We also blocked other kicks. Sensei asked me if there was anything else that I want to work on. There is. Something that has bothered me since I was a white belt.
I am very linear. When I go after a person, I got straight after them. I back them up. When someone does that to me, I don't know how to get out of it. I practice the side shuffles and diamond steps but when it comes to sparring, my mind goes blank and the bigger person bullies me around. I am in the 150 and over division, the heavyweight. There are likely to be girls bigger than me. I got pushed around like that the last time too. Luckily, she got tired and I could push back.
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| Come on, I can do this again! |
I will have to come up with some kind of drills that I can incorporate into my kick boxing class. I will always need more drills. Oh Yeah I almost forgot. I may be helping out and learning MMA on saturdays. I am thinking it will be a split class. First we can do kickboxing with jujitsu drills and then MMA training for a 2 hour Saturday class.
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| Eat, Sleep, Fight. All I need. |
Come Monday morning, if I can walk, I am training for the Kyokushin World Championship. I am going to work 6 days a week to get into shape. I will have to decide what weight division I will be best fighting in and get to that goal. Then if I can stay healthy I may have a good chance at placing.
