Training Journal

A journal of my martial arts training

Category: Uncategorized

  • Class led by Brent. Standard warm up games and drills. Tonight was first night working on Krampau.

  • Class with Bryce. Stretch and full through my requirements and his. A few extended rounds of Add-On. Break and then 100 full circle cuts with steel (me 2-handed). Finished up with a few rounds of unarmored parry (1, 2, and switch).

  • More stance game, distance game. Final night on the technique, applying it to high and low in various ways.

  • Brent had us do stance game and distance game some more. Tonight saw the same twisting technique applied horizontally as a primary upper attack.

  • Class with Bryce and Sarah. Stretch and requirements. With sarah, went over defensive stance and the head and neck basic cuts and blocks. Light armored parry with Bryce. Balance 1 & 2.

  • Attended Indes HEMA. Brent had us do stance game and distance game to warm up, and covered the first night on a technique using the blade in and inverted guard to deflect an incoming cut windshield wiper like and respond with a counter.

  • Second day of the faire event. More steel and boken melees.

  • I journed down to Redding for Kaiden Sal's publish exhibition event. There was a mix of steel and wood melees.

  • Class with Bryce. He has completed his first boken, finally attaching the pommel and wrapping the hilt. It has a couple inches on the loaner I had provided him initially, so there may be a small adjustment period. Stretch and once through his requirements. Refined strikes a few times each to work on getting him used to his new boken. 100 full cirlce cuts with dominant hand, 50 more with off hand. Several rounds of Add-On, with a five-attack limit (i.e. aggressor gets three including final blow, defender gets two). We each designed one combo and tried them out. Put on helmet and mitts and did some light armored 1 attack parry, spent some time on a tangent about alternatives to backing straight away from an opponent, and finished with some light armored 3 attack parry (me with the longsword).

    I did everything with my returned one hander tonight except where noted.

  • Class with Bryce. Stretch and both our requirements. A few rounds of Refined Strikes. Took a short break and put on helmet and gloves, then did parry. Started with me using one hander and shield to give Bryce an idea of what its like to face shield, then switched so he had the shield and I was just with a one hander. Both sets we did 1-attack parry, 3-attack parry, and Switch parry. Put away the shield and finished with 3-attack parry and Open parry, him with his one hander and me with my two hander (bastard sword).

  • Class with Bryce. Stretch and then once through our requirements (his green braid and my silver chain, so he repeated his practiced moves a few times). A couple rounds of Add-On and once each of Refined Strikes. Setup for Balance 1+ and worked that for a while.

  • Class with Bryce. Stretch and reviewed his requirements. Instructed him on Jumping Tiger 2 and Dragons Tail to bring him up to 7 total practiced moves. Switched over to a full session of hand-to-hand training. Hit him with the knowledge firehose, going over Shotokan Karate technique; front stance, front lunge punch, reverse punch, jab, front snap kick, side thrust kick, low block, inside block, outside block, rising block. Went over a few common escapes, as well as falling and forward rolling (including with sword in hand). Finished up with a while doing light hand to hand sparring with just mitts, and a quick review of the sword disarming technique.

  • Class with Bryce. Stretch, reviewed his requirements, 100 full circle cuts (boken), a few rounds of add-on, sparred 15 matches (started one handed but broke my boken around 5th match so finished with two handed).

  • Today I participated in the all-steel 2017 Best of the Best tournament. This year the rule was you may only use your primary style of study, which mine is the bastard sword (hand and a half-ish, roughly 40" overall). There were 13 competitors to start, though two had to drop out due to injury (giving and receiving). I placed 3rd, which is fine, but I'll have to strive for better next year.

  • 5min elliptical warmup and light stretch

    HiiT set 30s/30s x 3:
     – pushup/high jump burpee
     – unstable yogaball crunch
     – lateral pullups
     – plank lat extenders +15lbs

    5min elliptical cooldown and light stretch

  • Class with Bryce. Stretch and once through his Green Braid requirements, with me doing them, too. Several rounds of Advanced Response training. 100 full circle cuts (boken). A couple rounds of Refined Strikes. A bit of 1-attack, 3-attack, and Switch Parry.

  • Class with Bryce. Stretch and a couple times through his requirements. A couple rounds of Refined Strikes. 100 full circle cuts (boken). 20 one-on-one matches (me two handed).

  • No students, no class. Did a little bit of personal training, 100 full circle cuts (boken) and going through katas ich, ni and san.

  • 5minute eliptical warmup

    HiiT set, 30/30 @ 4×3:
    – Squat pop +30lbs
    – Unstable tridip
    – Pullups
    – Seal walk +25lbs

    Elliptical 5m cooldown

  • Class with Bryce. Stretch and once through his requirements (me matching). 100 full circle cuts (boken). Refined strikes a couple times each. Sparring 15 matches.
    Almost had all-weather, but the rains stopped just before class started. Made it warm and muggy.

  • Elliptical warmup 5min

    HiiT set, 30/30 4×3:
    – Hungarian squats +20lbs
    – Unstable press 20lbs
    – Tricep dips
    – Pullups

    Elliptical cooldown 5min

  • Class with Bryce. Stretch and then reviewed his requirements. Then went back through each of his five practiced moves. Did some refined strikes, then broke to get get into armor. 21 matches, me with 2-handed in prep for Best of the Best (been using 1-handed typically to improve that and match him for better instruction).

    Generally, with lower ranking fighters, I am less likely to be injured when sparring to win versus when I am sparring to instruct. Sparring to instruct means I spend more time on the defense, which increases the chance of bad blocks or clash. We would have gone more matches tonight, but after a couple good hits to my dominant hand (fingers of), I needed to call it so I could get some ice on it.

    We took the previous week off and today was the first back on a Thursday schedule. Next week we'll move it form 6pm to a 6:30pm start both in prep for more students and to allow time for me to get home for gear between work and class.

  • Class with Bryce. Stretch and then once through his requirements. Focus session on Jumping Tiger 1. Refined Strikes. Esculating parry, doing 1-attack, 3-attack, and Switch including auto-switch on death.

  • 5 minute eliptical warm-up

    HiiT 30/30 sequence:
    – medicine ball lunge with oblique
    – unstable press (25lbs)
    – divider hop
    – slider pike/crunch/oblique crunches

    5 minute eliptical cool-down

  • Class with Bryce, back at the Commonwealth Lake Park again. Stretch followed by a full run through of both our requirements (his green braid, mine silver chain, so he got to repeat his 5 moves 5 times each). We then did a focus on Jumping Tiger 2 and The Tradition, and then a couple rounds of Refined Strikes. We took a break and got into armor and then had 15 one-on-one matches (me fighting one-handed and left as we were missing a set of protective gloves).