ryan kennedy’s blog

Yeah, okay…totally lagging in posting this. Day 7 was this past Saturday (3/23). We started out slow with our warmups. Running around, touching shoulders, dropping and doing pushups and situps. We eventually partnered up. I joined up with a well-tattooed guy about my height but, perhaps, a little bigger than me. We did a bunch of 1-2 punching combinations with the heavy pads. The best part about my partner is that he barked. Not literally, but the noise he made as he exhaled with every punch sounded just like a dog. At one point, Lisa looked around wondering who let the dog in the gym. Then she realized the dog was beating the living hell out of my blocking pad.

We eventually got back to knees. This time I partnered up with another Ryan. The name was the only thing we had in common, he was a head taller than me and much, much stronger. When we did knees he was either throwing me 3 feet backwards or 1 foot in the air. That being said, it was more enjoyable than the last guy who did a number on my jaw. We focused a lot on the knees that involve a hold. In the first, you grab your partner by the tricep and shoulder and then ram your knee into them. In the second, you lock your hands behind their neck, pull them in towards you and throw your knee into their face/chin/chest.

The conditioning is getting a little better. I’ve been doing some conditioning on the side. Using a deck of cards, I turn cards face up one-by-one. Every red card is pushups, every black card is squats. Aces and number cards are 1-9, face cards are 10 and jokers are wild…20 pushups or squats. This past Monday I got through 30 cards in 30 minutes, finishing 95 pushups and 120 squats. Doesn’t sound like a lot for 30 minutes, but it’ll get your attention. I can’t take credit for this hellish workout. Credit for that goes to Matt Furey’s book, Combat Conditioning.

Speaking of books, our school carries Complete Krav Maga, which features pictures of one of my instructors (Kirian). I’m going to pick up a copy soonish.

I skipped Krav Maga on Saturday last week (trying to give my thumbs more time to heal up) so this past Monday was day 6. I’m a little behind in posting this, so hopefully I remember everything.

As usual, Jesse worked us over pretty good from the start. I have to say, my conditioning is improving. I still get tired and it’s still difficult to keep my hands up through long drills. But it’s getting easier. I’m no longer doubled over gasping for air during drills. That’s really the strongest measure of what three weeks of classes has done for me. Technique is great and all, but I need to get back in shape.

We did a lot of punching and kicking combinations as a warm up. Eventually, Jesse turned us loose doing hammer punches. Imagine you’re hanging a picture on the wall and you’re putting up the nail. Clench your fist like you’re holding a hammer and hammer the nail into the wall. Now take the hammer out of your hand and replace the wall with your partner, holding the heavy bag. Generate power from the legs and twist the trunk, transferring power to the shoulders and drive the bottom of your fist into the bag as hard as possible. When done right, your partner will wonder if you’re about to stop their heart with these blows (I was getting concerned when my partner was wailing on me). We started out with just the right and progressed to left-right combinations. Periodically Jesse would signal for us to go “all out”, hammering with the left and the right in rapid succession, as hard and as fast as we could. It’s a pretty devastating blow. Imagine leading with a kick or knee to the groin to double your opponent over and then driving a hammer fist into the back of their neck. Yeah, brutal.

We also did some work on getting out of side headlocks. Imagine someone comes up to you from the side and wraps their arm around your head and neck from the side. They pull you to one side, knocking you off balance and torquing your neck in the process. The counter is to go with it. If the attacker comes from your left and pulls you that direction, pivot on the ball of your left foot, swinging the right foot in the direction the attacker is pulling you. When your right foot lands, you should be perpendicular to your opponent and as close to them as possible. The free right hand swings downwards and then up, into their groin. Strike at least once, preferably two or three times. As this is happening, the left hand goes up, eventually coming between your head and your opponent’s head. With the left hand, you smash the bridge of the nose with your palm and grab the chin with your fingers. Pull back, causing the head to tilt backwards. At this point, your opponent is wide open for a range of different attacks. Punch the face or throat. Better yet, bust out that powerful hammer punch you just learned.

It’s great fun. I was paired up with Nate, a level 2 student that I’ve worked with before. He’s big and not afraid to smack me around a bit (other people seem to think you’re made of glass at times) and he’s really good at telling me everything I’m doing wrong. After a few minutes I was getting the hang of it, but then class was over (pitty).

My thumbs are still pretty torn up, but are getting better. I managed to get out of this class without any new injuries, although one of my partners managed to poke me in the eye pretty well during one of the drills. No biggie, I made sure to put a little extra mustard on the hammer punches to return the favor.
In other Krav Maga news, we were given handbooks by the school. Among other things, it details what we’ll learn at each level. Let’s just say that the first item on the list for the green belt curriculum (level 3) is head-butting. Just 10 months to go.

Before you ask…yes, I plan to blog every day of Krav Maga.

After the class on Saturday, I was looking forward to a slightly more tame Monday class. Jesse, the Monday instructor (and Saturday assistant), usually spends more of his class going over technique. That means things slow down a bit giving you more time to catch your breath. Today however…he had some surprises for us.

Things started out pretty normal. Some running (with ~16 people in a crowded room, running becomes interesting) along with pushups and mountain climbers to get the blood moving. After that we partnered up. I was teamed up with the 14 year old in the room, not his lucky day. If he was lucky he weighted around 130 pounds…roughly 100 pounds less than me. We started out with one person on all fours. They then piked up so they were on their hands and toes with their butt up in the air. The other partner then military crawled underneath them to the other side. One there, the partner on the ground dropped low, allowing the other partner to jump over them back to the starting position. The person on the ground goes back into the piked position and we start over. At one point, the instructor blew his whistle and we went either all under (back and forth) or all over (back and forth). It was insane, I’ve got the carpet burns on my knees to prove it.

When that was over, one partner again got on all fours. The other partner then sits on their shoulders, hooking their feet around the other partner’s knees on the ground. The partner on top leans back and sits back up…kind of like doing a situp. This is where the weight discrepancy came into play. I started on top, leaned back and the kid’s arms buckled and I flattened him like a pancake. Fortunately I caught myself with my arms and managed not to pop his skull. Not wanting a lawsuit, they found me a larger partner.

When that was done we went back to punching and kicking drills, this time moving around the classroom to get used to throwing punches while on the move. Usually we stand in one place and throw them, so this was a nice change of pace. These punching and kicking drills still kill me. My arms get tired and it becomes difficult to keep the hands up, which is essential in any combative confrontation (protect your head at all costs).

We wrapped up with more choking. I pitty the fool who tries to choke me from the front. He’s in for a rude surprise, roshambo style.

I feel like my conditioning is improving. I won’t say it’s good, because it’s not. I’m still the fat guy huffing and puffing (sometimes wheezing) with his hands on his knees. But I’m huffing and puffing a little less and I’m going on three weeks without missing a day. I dare say I’ve even dropped a little bit of fat over the past week, according to the scale anyway.

So, today was…different. Like last Saturday the instructor really stuck it to us. We ran in a big circle for a while, switching directions on demand. Seemed almost tame. And then his inner masochist woke up. Five jumping jacks, five squats, five burpees, five pushups, five mountain climbers…repeat. We did that for what seemed like five minutes.

We finished up with that and then paired up. I found someone roughly my size, although he was definitely a few levels above me. We did the usual: punch and kick each other. Then they decided to teach something else…knees. It started out simple, knee the other person at 50%. Then the instructor gave the word: grab your partner around the neck and go to f’ing town on the pad. It seemed okay at first, the guy was pummeling the pad (and the back of my neck) but I was okay. Then he started landing blows high on the pad, sometimes slipping just past the pad to land a shot on my chin. Just to mix things up, sometimes he’d go low on the pad and nail me in the stomach…not far from the jejunum I’d guess. It was awful, pad or not.

We wrapped up doing an A-B drill. Three person teams. One on each end of the gym and one person in the center. The person in the center listens for the instructor to yell “A” and “B”. For “A” they run to one side and punch the hell out of the bag. For “B” they run to the other side and kick the hell out of the bag. The instructor periodically throws in some twists, switching right in the middle of running from one to the other. At one point, the instructor switches the “A” pad holders to knees. While the person is kneeing the hell out of the pad the “B” pad holders run up behind the person in the middle without them knowing. Now when the instructor calls “B” the person turns around and immediately starts punching the pad. It was pretty greulling.

Now, at the end of the day, all I feel is my jaw. I think all of the knees that missed the pad and clipped my chin did a bit of damage. Nothing permanent, I hope.

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.

Saturday was our second Krav Maga class. Unlike Monday, which was a Level 1 class, Saturday is an “all” class. I think it means all levels are welcome and they’ll pick some lowest common denominator routines to go through. The class was a bit larger than the Monday class. You could really tell when we were all lined up doing pad exercises, there just wasn’t room to move. Hopefully that’s not what it’s always like. I’m not crazy about really crowded gyms.

We did a lot of the same exercises as the Monday class. This time instead of being pummeled by a much larger classmate, I was matched up with an older but similarly sized gentleman. Of course, he’s been taking the class for the last nine months. I figured he would be easier on me with his punches than my Monday classmate…wrong. He seemed to take great joy in pounding my chest with his fists. I found it amusing that he was happily pounding the piss out of me while wearing his “I’m a vegetarian” shirt.

I think I fared better than I did on Monday, although I still get winded and need a short break to catch my breath. I was sore across the top of my back and shoulders Sunday morning when I woke up. Other than that, no issues, however. That’s a good sign since I have a quick turnaround to get to the next class on Monday. All in all, I’m really enjoying it. The workout really kicks your ass and you’re learning practical self defense.

Inspired by a recent episode of Fight Quest, Lisa and I went to check out a local Krav Maga school on Saturday. We sat through 30+ minutes (out of 3 hours) of a belt test for about 14 students. While not nearly as intense as the Fight Quest footage was, it was still pretty brutal watching them go through their warmup routines.

Tonight Lisa and I had our first class at the Academy of Self Defense in Santa Clara. They gave us two free weeks to check it out, so we dropped in on the 7pm Level 1 class. Let’s just say that Level 1 is only referring to the competency level, not the intensity level. The class started out with us mounting punching bags on the ground, pounding our fists and elbows into the imaginary face of our enemy. When the instructor blew his whistle, we rolled on our side to our backs, grabbed the punching bag handle and proceeded to wail on the virtual assailant’s face with our fists. That went on for about 5 minutes.

After that, we paired up for more work. I paired up with someone slightly taller but considerably larger than myself. Mistake. We took turns punching the bag that the other was holding up. I landed some strong rights, but my left is weak by comparison. We switched and my partner took turns pummeling the bag with his ham sized fists, driving the air out of my lungs with every punch. Seriously, I’m pretty sure the pad is just there to make sure I don’t get a bruise or a broken sternum because it wasn’t doing much to prevent his powerful blows from pushing me backwards.

After a few minutes of that, we started running around like mad. Literally. One of us ran with the pad while the other ran with nothing, sprinting through the crowded classroom, dodging the other students. When the whistle sounded, the person with the pad stops and the other person seeks them out to take out some sweet aggression on the pad. Once again, wind being knocked out of my lungs. On a related note, don’t let the pad come away from your chest…or else it just gets repeatedly driven back into your chest by your partner. Also, don’t let the pad dip…or else it will be driving dinner out of your stomach instead of air out of your lungs. Words of wisdom by Ryan Kennedy.

There were some other drills. Voluntary amnesia is suppressing those memories in the hope that forgetting the misery means I’ll go back for more. We did some choking. One partner chokes the other. The person being choked has to simultaneously break the choke and kick the other person in the balls. The choking might explain the amnesia.

That brings up a fun topic…rules. There are none. In other martial arts there are things you don’t do. You don’t gouge the eyes. You don’t strike the back of the neck. You don’t kick the balls. All of those are the bread and butter of Krav Maga. Crushing the testes of your opponent is how you start the fight. Most martial arts start with a bow. Krav Maga subscribes to the roshambo school of starting fights. This lack of rules is really what draws me to Krav Maga. There are no formalities before the duel. There is no referee. There are no points. You win if you don’t die. It’s reality based fighting, this is how it’s going to be if you’re attacked on the streets or on a battlefield. Bow to your opponent? Not unless you want him to kick you squarely in the face.

We rounded out the night with 10 jumping jacks and 10 burpees. Well, the class did. I was able to do about 5 jumping jacks and prevented myself from performing any vomitees. It was brutal. My hands are chewed up from the punching (my poor, delicate, programmer hands) and the physical exertion is flat out exhausting. I loved it, I’m going back on Saturday and I’m going to do it all over again. With luck, I’ll loose some weight and get back in shape while learning some practical defense techniques.

Wanna join me? It’ll be great.