Keep Those Hands Up!

So I managed to roll myself out of bed today to make it to kickboxing again (for some reason my body is convinced that it needs about 18 hours of sleep to be functional).  However, upon my arrival, after warmup, George told us that we weren't really going to be working drills, that it was going to be open sparring.

Let's have a brief little talk about sparring.  In Yongmudo sparring, there is no contact to the head.  Yeah, you might take someone's shin or bare fist to your ribs, which can hurt, but still, it removes a great deal of fear knowing that your head isn't going to connect with someone's foot.  In Muay Thai?  Not the case.  I learned a great deal about keeping my hands up today....

So the way the rounds would go, is you would grab a partner, and do a minute and a half of pure boxing, a minute and a half of pure kicking, and then a minute and a half of both combined.  My reflexes from sparring in Yongmudo have trained me to watch someone's hips.  If you stare at the belt, you can see the hips moving early, and this react faster to their kicks.  In Muay Thai, if you stare at someone's hips.....you take a left hook to the jaw....which is exactly what I did. >.<

The good thing, the guy had gloves on, as did I.  The bad thing, it was a solid shot, so I got my bell rung pretty good.  It's a good way to learn though.  I hold my hands naturally too far away from my face, and leave openings to get hit.  Lesson of the day: Look THROUGH your gloves, keep your hands high and in front of your face at all times.

Then.....payback.  My partner tried to throw a combo, but when he did, left a clean line to his head, so I threw a right cross straight up the middle and popped him square in the face!  Wooooooohoooo that was really satisfying!  The thing I love about martial artists is that they're the only people in the world you can punch in the face, and immediately afterwards, they'll give you a high five and tell you "nice shot".

I managed to collide knees with my next partner though, which hurt....A LOT.  Stupid bony appendages....*grumble grumble*  Anyways, I LOVE kickboxing so so much, and I'm so glad that I get to train it so much.  Tomorrow is a 2 hour class, so I'm really excited for that.

I still haven't gotten my classes squared away, so hopefully by Monday I can get that resolved, and I think my TKD shoes came today :D  I'm gonna meet up with this girl who added me on facebook a while back for dinner, and maybe go pub-hopping with Camille later tonight!  Woooo.  I'm so excited to start classes and finally have a (semi) normal life :)