Stop getting punched by punching back

Well, last night's boxing class didn't exactly boost my confidence. It's not like I got my ass handed to me, we didn't even do light sparring, it was just one of those classes that reminded me how little I've learned in the three months of taking classes. My punches felt weak. My footwork was ... I can't even find a word for it. I'll just say that at times I was stepping forward with my rear foot. My rear foot! And my partner wasn't any help either. Not because he didn't know what he was doing, quite the opposite. I was partnered with a guy who shall remain nameless (he has a Russian accent) and is way better than I am. Running through the drills with him made me feel like I was a little child who just stumbled out of his sandbox and into boxing class.

This illustration from Wikipedia
 demonstrates the counter punch
without blocking first.
Boxer A's left jab is countered with
 Boxer B throwing a right straight
 punch to the head.

We practiced countering for the entire class. Partner throws a left jab, I block it with my right arm and counter with a straight right; partner throws a straight right, I block with my left and counter with a left hook. It feels incredibly weird to counter with the same hand I'm blocking with, but it makes boxing sense. When you block a punch with your right arm, you have shifted your weight to your right leg, and we all know you can only punch from the side of your body that your weight is on. While this makes boxing sense it does not feel natural at all. In my mind, when I block a punch I want to keep that hand covering my face. My thinking goes like this: Holy crap, I blocked his punch. I can't believe that worked. Well, that hand did its job, I'm gonna keep it there where it's protecting my face. Wrong, wrong, wrong. When your opponent punches, it is a great time for you to punch back. Problem is, I want to counterpunch with my non-blocking hand.

Another issue I have with the counterpunch is a mindset problem, one I touched on when I first started the boxing classes. I am not attack oriented. I'm defense oriented. So when I block a punch, I fall into the trap of thinking that I can just keep on blocking punches, as if my opponent will grow weary of hitting me and give up. But blocking punches isn't going to win the fight. Blocking is only something you do when absolutely necessary and when you are not punching. The only way to stop getting punched is to punch back. Since I am defensive minded, the counterpunch should become a move I like because it relies on my opponent committing and me exploiting his opening.

Warming up. No chit-chat. Consistency

After Saturday's circuit with burpees, Monday's combat fitness (April 2) was toned down. And I was happy for that because a gluttonous Sunday of eating and drinking and more eating had me feeling sluggish at best by the time Monday evening came around.

I made sure I got to the gym well before combat fitness started so I could get really warmed up. I'm finding that my warm up takes longer now. I like to already be sweating when class starts. If I'm not already sweating, it takes me too long to get in my groove. Foam roller, jump rope, some pull-ups and a few minutes hitting the bag and then I feel ready to start combat fitness.

Haganah class
There's a time and place for conversation. Haganah class is not one of them. My first partner last night was more concerned with chatting than he was working the drills. You can't talk and throw knees at the same time.

Consistency
I've been good about making it to all of my classes. I've missed one in the past three weeks. I'm averaging about 10 hours per week in the gym. That's five days a week. I feel great when I can be that consistent and I need to stick with it because stuff is happening in April that might cause me to miss a few classes. It's been more than a year since I was last tattooed and that's too long in my book. I have an appointment next week to get some work done on my right leg and it might cause me to sit out a couple of days and a camping trip toward the end of the month will mean missing a Saturday. Saturday's are my favorite day in the gym and I don't look forward to missing even one.

Burpees replace the bun

Code what?

Well, just when it seemed that Saturday morning combat fitness had become really tough with the addition of Code X (exercise in between each station on the circuit instead of rest), it just became tougher. Lots tougher. How tough? Take the dreaded burpee, an exercise I loathe but have come to embrace for its effectiveness, and make that the exercise in between each station of the circuit. That’s what the March 31 class entailed.  Bad enough on their own, burpees between stations is almost cruel. If I wasn’t such a glutton for punishment I’d rethink my Saturday morning routine of working out at 8:30 a.m. But, as it is, I’m sick in the head and enjoy physical abuse at an hour when most people are only beginning to get out of bed.

Code B, or Code V (that’s V for vomit), whatever you want to call it, reminds me of Kentucky Fried Chicken’s double down sandwich, the one that replaced the bun with pieces of chicken. The double down was an attempt to squeeze more food into the same amount of space that a normal sandwich occupied. Between-station burpees does the same thing, it almost doubles the amount of work you do during the circuit. Code V does away with the bun and puts in its place a sandwich that’s nothing but exercise.

It’s a sick world we live in when burpees are considered recovery between stations. Mr. Stuart has upped the ante and I fear to see what else he has up his sleeve for Saturday mornings. I think, though, at some point the laws of physics get involved here: there is a finite amount of exercise that can be squeezed into a circuit.

Haganah class

The fun didn’t stop when combat fitness ended. Saturday’s Haganah class was a bit of an ass kicker, too. Although we always keep partner preservation on the top of our list, that means don’t hurt your partner, I was delighted to see my partner grimace during our Haganah punching drill. The punching drill involves your partner holding a pad up to their chest while you throw a three-punch combo of straight punches. Mine were landing with some weight behind them and every time my partnered showed his displeasure I tried to hit harder. Sorry to take joy in another’s discomfort, but it is motivating to see that your punches are effective.

I Received some great tips from the instructors on various aspects of my technique during Saturday’s (March 31) haganah class. I have completed three full months of Haganah, that’s three classes a week, and while I have learned copious amounts of information on inflicting pain, all it takes is the discerning eye of an instructor to show me how much more I have to learn. Thanks go to all who correct me consistently.

The Pivot: the door opens; the door closes

Last night’s boxing class (March 27) featured the use of the pivot. Unlike slips, ducks and rolls, which feel rather foreign to me, the pivot feels very natural. Since the pivot involves swinging the entire body, either forward or backward, I liken it to a door swinging on its hinges. And just like a door can open or close, the pivot can open up a new avenue of attack for you, or it can close off your opponent’s avenue of attack. It seems like a great way to flank your opponent when you’re attacking because you quickly take your attack from  their front to their side. When your opponent is executing a good attack and closing distance on you, the pivot can slam the door on their advance because you move from a position of defense when you’re in their line of attack, to a position of offense when you swing to their side.

1 more thing about shooting

After ICS training, the pistol feels like
an extension of my hand hardwired to my
own nervous system.

One more thing to say about the Israeli combat shooting (ICS) instruction I received from Mr. Stuart …. Despite owning handguns for a longtime and shooting them every few months, I never developed the relationship with the pistol that I now have after only a few hours of professional instruction. It’s hard to describe, but the pistol no longer seems like a piece of external equipment that I pick up and try to manipulate. The pistol now feels like an extension of my own body, as if it has been integrated into my own nervous system and does what I tell it to do, not like in the past when I would have to ask it and coax it to do what I wanted.

Fitness training as a full-time job

Sitting at my desk for eight hours a day makes me wish I could make physical training my full-time job. I don't want to become a trainer and train others, and I'm too old and lack the skill to become a professional, or amateur, athlete, I just want to get paid for my own training. Oh, and I want to have health coverage, too. 
It's not that crazy of an idea. When I used to workout in "normal" gyms with their rows of stationary bikes, treadmills and nautilus machines, I always looked at the wasted energy. What I mean is that there were a dozen people expending their caloric energy for their own health beneftit when at the same time  they could have been creating electricity. Creating electricity is a fairly simple process: according to Wikipedia,  "electricity is generated by the movement of a loop of wire, or disc of copper between the poles of a magnet."

Imagine this: we give up fossil fuels and rely on people power. Huge hangers filled with stationary bikes, treadmills and other types of equipment that could be used to create electricity  become the new power plants. In a heartbeat I would apply to become a energy producer. What a great job that would be. Ride a stationary bike for hours and read a book, listen to music, or watch TV and get a workout while I create clean engergy.

Essentially what I want is to kill two birds with one stone. There are days that I don't feel like going to the gym after a busy day of work. On those days I want my job to be my workout. This isn't hard to accomplish. There are plenty of jobs that provide incredible workouts. Several weekends during the year I'll do weekend work with friends who are landscapers, concrete masons and hardscapers. Those are jobs where you get paid and get fit at the same time. Run a jackhammer for two hours breaking up an old concrete sidewalk and then toss the broken pieces into a dumptruck. It willl crush you. Or, do the digging required for a dry-stack stone wall. That's a core workout from hell. Dig, dig, dig and fill up a wheelbarrow and then push the wheelbarrow thirty yards and dump it. Then move the stones for the wall. You could also work with a guy setting a brick patio. This will require an enormous amount of digging, pushing wheelbarrows filled with screenings and crushed stone and carrying 10 bricks at a time.

Maybe I'm on to something here. I'll bet there are fitness nuts out there looking for a way to change up their workout who would do some of these jobs for free. Their payment would come in the form of sweat, lactic acid and shredded muscles. If you want try some working class fitness, I can set you up with my buddy who pours concrete sidewalks. Come to think of it, I should I take a day off from working at the paper and go work with him. It only takes a day of hard labor to make me thankful that I can sit at a desk all day and get paid for it.

Home on the range with Israeli Combat Shooting

There was blood on the gun. It was my own blood. A circular patch on the second knuckle of my right  thumb was raw, worn by the deathgrip I had been clutching the pistol in for the better part of an hour. It was well over 100, the amount of times I had racked the Glock by that point, and now my skin and a smear of red were spread on the top of the grip of the gun. I put black tape over the raw patch on my thumb, just like I had done to my index finger on my left hand earlier, stood in ready position, loaded another magazine and waited for the command to fire.
I was having fun and I was learning, too. Even though I've owned handguns for more than 15 years, I never had any professional training on their proper usage. Now I was getting it. It all felt pretty natural and, like just about anything taught from the Israeli perspective, made tons of practical sense. While I've always been comfortable around guns, I feel even more so after the Israeli Combat Shooting (ICS) class. And after shooting without really using the gun's sights,  I don't think I'll ever waste the time to stand in front of a target and line up the sights. That seems almost silly now.

I own a .40 Ruger and I welcomed the lower caliber and lower weight of Mr. Stuart's Glock 19, a 9mm, that I was using. This was only the second time I had fired a Glock and I couldn't seem to catch on to the trigger reset. This came into play when I had to fire three rounds in rapid succession. Here's how it worked. Two targets were set up, one on top of the other. The bottom target was the body, the top target was the head. On the command of fire, I had to assume the firing position, rack the pistol and fire two shots to the body and then one shot to the head. The two shots to the body should have almost been simultaneous with a slight pause between the second and third shot as I acquired the new target. Sometimes I was getting the two body shots off pretty fast, but several times I was too slow. This had to do with me not fully understanding the trigger reset on the Glock. I was letting my trigger finger move too far before squeezing off the second round.  I shouldn't have been letting the trigger come out as far as I was so I was losing valuable time measured in hundreds or thousandths of a second.

After ICS, I have more confidence with a pistol,  more skill with a pistol and had a boat load of fun  being trained. Considering how much I love being trained, I would make a great dog. Ruff, Ruff. More training, please.