Proving Ground

Did my first double today with Scott and Muay Thai. I did my lifting at 3:30 and the Muay Thai at 6:30 which gave me plenty of time to recover so I wasn't hurting during my Muay Thai training.

Today was upper body and I did my usual Bench press with the band and floor press with chains superset with pull-ups. I'm already starting to feel more explosive and powerful. Today's circut was 30 sec on/off of Med ball to sprawl, Rope drills, Sledgehammer swings, Tire jump and Band sprints followed up by the 3 x 3 min rounds of KB cleans, C+J and back to cleans. I'm especially digging this at the end as I feel its teaching me to pace myself and keep a constant effort throughout the entire round instead going hard for 30 sec to a minute and gassing out. I noticed that when I hit the third around I was able to pick up my pace and push harder towards the end. I see it more as mental conditioning than physical. Which is fine, I need plenty of that as well.

Had my second session of Muay Thai and got to train under Khunpon who was very attentive. I had talked to Chike this morning about wanting to compete in fighting and it seems like he let Khunpon know, I felt like he was watching me a lot. We did light sparring today, focusing more on technique and rhythm than beating the crap out of each other. Even though we were going light I had one training partner tell me that he could tell I had good power in my hands, which is a nice boost to my confidence. Overall I felt my hands and my movement were good but my knees and kicks need more work although my theep felt good. I talked to Chike a bit more about fighting and he told me that he wanted to watch me over the next week or two to see how my technique holds up. I told them flat out that if they feel I'm not or won't be ready to compete in April then I absolutely wouldn't. The way I see it, they're the experts and if they tell me that I need more work, than I need more work. As much as I want to compete, I'm not going in there to be someone's punching bag.

I won't lie, the thought of all of this makes me nervous. Especially the fighting part. I got popped a couple of times tonight and it didn't feel great. Part of me wonders if I'm biting off more than I can chew. This isn't crossfit or some 5k. This is fighting, this is for real. Even at an amateur level I can still get hurt. It's a scarey thing to be willing to intentionally walk into a fight. But, I think part of that fear is excitement. It's something I've never done before. And its knowing that I could get hurt that keeps me focused. It keeps me wanting to get better and better to get sharper. You can't slack off when someone is coming to punch and kick you. Even during the light sparring today I felt it.

It's just like last month where I almost got kicked out of the military because of my PT test and I felt that fear the week before the PT test. The tests I took before that day I was too relaxed and overconfident. A little bit of fear is a good thing for me. It motivates me and keeps me from slacking. When I was doing crossfit, I never really felt fear and that's why I kinda fell off of it like I did. Even now during my personal training sessions, I'm thinking about fighting and that keeps me going. I do my best when I'm not totally comfortable. Too much comfort is a bad thing for me.

No matter what, I'm still taking all of this one day at a time.