GJ "Little Things"

The fighters started early with some mental and physical conditioning:

• 3 minute warm-up round on the thai pads
  
• 30 second rest
  
• 3 minute round starting with 1 mat, 2 mat, 3 mat shuttle and approximately 30 seconds of pitterpat, then a fast pad round, e.g. running through four counts
  
• 30 second rest
  
• Repeat 3 minute round above
  
• 30 second rest
  
• Repeat 3 minute round above

With the start of practice we did 6 minutes of shadowboxing. We then reviewed some material from the fight camp yesterday, specifically punch-kick offense and leg evasion defense with both sides wearing gloves and shin pads.
For our pad rounds, 3 minutes, we worked on:

1. Thai warm-up

   This round used basic punch and kick combos. I like using a progression, e.g. jabs, jab cross, 3, reverse 3, 4, H-C-H, C-H-C, kicks, punch kick combinations, four counts, and then reactions. Fighters followed (almost) every combination with tiip.

2. Knee combos and disposition

   We used the knee variants of the four counts but making sure disposition was performed. Disposition is how we get rid of our opponent after kneeing the stuffing out of them. We used the lead hand-lead knee push to C-H-C or C-lead head kick as well as the rear hand-rear knee pull to H-C-h or H-rear head kick. In this round fighters finished each combination with a head tiip to the pad

3. Chain reaction

   In this drill, the holder would enter a reaction pattern and continue to hold reaction until the hitter opened range on the angle and threw a tiip. This is another form of disposition getting out of the close range stay n' play range.

4. Conditioning

   1 mat, 2 mat, 3 mat shuttle and approximately 30 seconds of pitterpat then kick combos #1-4, tiip variation #1-4 (start with tiip finish with kick), and knee variation #1-4 with a sprawl after each four count. Repeat the kick combos from the beginning if time allows, most folks can get through them all about twice.

We finished with 30 minutes of 2 minute rounds of timing with a 10 second interval in between. All the folks I worked with pushed me with good effort and tried combinations. Good job.
I finished with an incoherent speech on little things. Little things are important. Being able to enjoy a sunny day, scratch an itch, or wipe your own @$$ make it a good day even if your boss got mad at you, your significant other broke-up with you, you messed up at work, or an experiment didn't work. Little things are not a right, they are privilege, cherish them and take advantage of them. Some folks can't even get out bed let alone train or compete, be happy for your chance and put things in perspective.