A Lover AND A Fighter: Round 3 - Body Shots

Ok, so I've had an extremely long hiatus from blogging and from MMA training.  I haven't blogged since August, and haven't been to Muay Thai or BJJ class for about the same amount of time, if not a bit longer.  No real reason, other than my own procrastination.  Well, I did get two tattoos during my time off, and it would have been unwise to do any grappling while they were healing, but that's beside the point.  Anyway, I promised myself that after the 2nd one healed, I'd get right back to training.  So here I am, back at the gym and back to my blog :-)

 - 1st round of light sparring:  My partner had a stance with his hands high up and his lead hand a bit farther out than usual.  His face and the rest of his head were pretty well-guarded, but his chest and stomach were wide open.  Instead of opening up with quick long jabs to the face, I kept my eyes on his head and went straight for the body.  He never changed his stance, so I was able to freely attack his chest and stomach, which opened things up for jabs to the face and a couple of left hooks to the head as well.  When we were chatting about class afterwards, he jokingly said, "Man, you like to go for those body shots!"  As I laughed it off, I thought to myself in my Goku voice, "I saw an opening that seemed to scream out 'attack', so... I did!"

- In both the 1st and 2nd round of sparring, I felt pretty even with the guys I was sparring with.  I feel like I didn't fall off much, if at all, during that half-year that I didn't come to class.  I found myself minimizing all the mistakes I remembered making in sparring before.  I was consistently following up my jab with other attacks, and putting together combos instead of just throwing single attacks or just a one-two.  I didn't fell as tired as normal either, as I was able to push the pace when I wanted to or felt I needed to.

- Speaking of needing to push the pace, in the 3rd round I went up against a guy who gave me a pretty good challenge the last time we met.  Dude has some pretty mean leg kicks and uses them a lot.  I guess I needed a reminder on how to check leg kicks.  Vowing not to end up like Rampage Jackson when he fought Forrest Griffin, I got wise to it before I took too much leg damage. I turned up the aggression on him. Along with checking the leg kicks, I started closing the distance more with my punches, dashing forward with my jab and always following up with a cross or more when close enough. It wasn't long before I would throw my jab and he'd bounce outta there with the quickness.  I was disappointed that I couldn't land anything after that, but no matter.  Mission accomplished: You can't throw leg kicks, let alone with any power, when you're retreating ;-)

- I was looking forward to BJJ class that day, but it turns out I was the only one who showed up.  Everybody else was there for more Muay Thai sparring.  I was a tad bit disappointed, but any time I get to go home from anything earlier than I planned, I'm not too upset.  Being a dance instructor who has had his share of no-shows and one-shows on my classes, I could relate to him not wanting to give a free private lesson.  On a brighter note, I found that Bangkok Boxing had changed BJJ instructors since I'd last been there, and the new coach is Tex Johnson, who currently fights in the Middleweight division for Bellator MMA and just submitted an undefeated guy 15 seconds into the first round of their fight.  Needless to say, I'm excited that my BJJ training will be resuming under this guy.