Partnering up with a TV celebrity

Saturday was an awesome day. I felt really good during combat fitness class, I got better at throwing knees in Haganah and I participated in my first knife fighting class.
As I’ve said before, the Saturday combat fitness class is usually the toughest of the week. This past Saturday was no different. In what’s becoming the norm for Saturday class, we deviated from the typical circuit. We only used eight stations: pull-ups, knee raises, dips, pikes and pike push ups on an exercise ball, dumbbell curls, sufer burpees into upright row, G4 sit-ups with medicine ball and squats with plate extensions (while holding a 45-, 35- or 25-pound plate, do a squat and extend your arms straight out in front, return to upright position and bring plate close to your chest). We started at 12 reps on each station and we had to do three sets on each station. So that’s three times around the circuit. Each time around, we decreased reps by two. So, the first time around we did 12 reps at each station, the second time around 10 and then 8 on the final lap.

Haganah
I’m still making stupid mistakes in Haganah class, but I feel like I’m improving after each class. My first partner on Saturday, Dave, squared me away on throwing knees. Dave is one of the top students in Haganah and instructs when Mr. Stuart isn’t around. Partnering with him is like getting a private lesson. After a month and a half of classes I think I have the knees down.

My second partner was Alex. Alex is another top Haganah student and also instructs classes when needed. Alex speaks with a Russian accent and for some reason this lends much gravitas to his advice. He strikes me as a guy who has had to employ this training in real life. Alex helped square me away on a take down that involves controlling your attacker’s wrist and cranking their fingers toward their forearm until they go to the ground. 

My third partner for the day was much prettier than Alex and Dave but was no less informative. During the gun disarm I was partnered with a famous QVC host I will refer to only as Lisa. Not many people can say they’ve held a dummy gun to the head of a television celebrity, but I can.  Even though her expertise lies in being a TV host, Lisa was able to give me some good tips on the gun disarm.  Thanks, Lisa.

After Haganah, it was straight into knife fighting. More on that in Tuesday’s post. All in all, Saturday was a great day of training. I was in the gym for a more than three hours and felt incredibly calm and relaxed the rest of Saturday.