Today started my second week in Krav Maga classes. I’m starting to feel like I can keep up better physically with the class now. I’m not saying I don’t double over, gasping for air in the middle of a drill…but I do it less often now. Of course, the class today was less heavy on the insane, nonstop drills. We stopped more often for the instructor to demonstrate a technique.
We started out doing running drills. The heavy bags were brought out (more about those later) and we had to slalom them (in and out) down one end, sprint back and slalom the next row of bags. On the instructor’s signal, we were to stop, find a classmate and do our “touch the shoulders” drill (try as hard as you can to touch your opponent’s shoulders while preventing them from touching yours). When he signaled again, back to running. At one point, he turned out the lights and even strobed them to simulate adverse conditions. He likened it to being in a brawl in the middle of a carnival. People and obstacles everywhere with limited visibility.
We spent a bit of time on punches, working on the fundamental 1-2, left jab, right jab punches. We worked with the tall, heavy bags for the first time today (they have this awesome track that the bags hang from, allowing you to move the bags around the room). We did some simple 1-2 combos, eventually going to power punches (hard as you can) and finally all-out (hard as you can, fast as you can). This is exhausting stuff…when you’re done it’s hard to keep your hands up. In between rounds of that, we were also doing pushups.
We also did a drill in teams of three. One person held the large punching bag, one person did everything they could to demolish the bag with their fists, while the third person did everything they could to keep the puncher away from the bag. This was insanely exhausting. I ended up with two guys that were both larger and more fit than I was. By the end of the rotation (everyone going through each assignment once) I was dead. It was great.
We also spent some time on close in combat with the elbows. This is the first time I’ve done elbows in the class. We started with what the instructor called #1, which involved striking across the body with your right elbow at about chest/chin height. Then we moved to #2, which strikes away from your body with your right elbow (standing straight, look right and throw your elbow in that direction). We then moved to #7 (I guess #3 through #6 will come later), which is the elbow straight down (imagine your opponent doubled over in front of you and deliver a blow to the back of the neck/spine with your elbow).
Once we were comfortable with those, we went back to choking drills. This time, instead of breaking the grasp and kicking the balls (like we did both days last week), we fall back two steps, establish our fighting stance, raise our right arm straight up and do the #7 elbow, breaking the choke. From that position, we went immediately to the #2 elbow, aiming for the face of the person choking us. I got to practice on Lisa, which was fun. Whenever we do the choking drills, she always ends up with red marks on her neck from my thumbs. I imagine being pulled over by the cops on my way home with red marks on her neck and my knuckles bloodied up. That should make for interesting conversation.
Another week or two of this and I think I’ll be ready to up it to 3 days a week. But we’ll see how I feel tomorrow and Wednesday. In any case, Krav Maga is awesome. If any of this sounds at all interesting to you, I highly recommend it. Great workout, practical self defense, cool instructors and all-around good time.