holidays and training

I miss going to classes.

I've been amusing myself with watching UFC, BJJ instructionals and other predictable stuff :-))

I've been trawling the forums. There seem to be a lot of bored people out there, too. Sometimes I come across some good stuff, for example the Sherdog thread on BJJ Quotes. There really were some good ones. But hell's bells, there are a lot of stupid posts. I don't know if that's because people think they can post whatever inane crap or poisonous b/s they like in the relative anonymity of those forums. Or whether that's just the way they really are. Scary either way. Still, there is the odd pearl of wisdom in these forums, and some funny stuff, so when I have time to kill (not often), I go and have a look.

To save myself the pain of going back to training after three weeks off, I've started using my mini gym. Ah, really it's not just the fear of things to come, I really do get all pent up when I've not been working enough. I gave myself a week off after the last class this month. That gave all the icky complaining body bits a chance to heal up and shut up. But it was time to get the old body used to being sweaty again. It's not as though I sit on my butt all day long, I live on a farm and I feed and work horses. But it's not very intense.

I've invested in a timer (gymboss). What a good little gadget! Quite easy to program, and a beep loud enough so I can hear it over the music I play when I do gym things. I think that I've mentioned in a previous post that I'm not the most self motivated person when it comes to working out. It's just that it's not very exciting and I'm always willing to let close enough be good enough. What's good about the timer is that I can set it to whatever intervals and then I'll decide to do so many rounds. I have enough discipline that I will start at the beep and I won't stop until I've done the rounds I set out to do. And instead of watching the clock, I can concentrate on doing what I'm doing, for example hit the heavy bag, until the beep relieves me :-). And start hitting again when the merciless beep goes off yet again!

To ease myself in, the first day I did ten one minute rounds with a minute off inbetween. Alternated between hitting and kicking the heavy bag one round, and the next round hitting and doing positional changes on the bag on the ground. That was after a good warmup of course and some other stuff (situps, pushups, leg curls, squats etc). Did about 3/4 hour all up, including stretching etc.

Then I had a day off and yesterday did another 3/4 hour in the gym. This time, 10 one minute rounds on the heavy bag with 30 second breaks. That got the heartrate up considerably more! That aside I practiced armbars from mount on the ground bag (I imagined the arms), did positional drills on the same bag, especially knee ride. I did some squats with kettlebells, working particularly on standing up one leg at a time like I would for a standing guard pass. And a couple of turkish getups (I think that's what they are called?). I also did some pretty thorough stretching.

And I felt really good afterwards. So I'm going to keep a similar schedule for the next couple of weeks until we have classes again, and even after that probably.

I'm lucky enough to have a mini gym for my own use. It's nothing fancy, just a few basic things in my shed. A suspended wooden floor with mats, a heavy hanging bag a floor bag, a simple weight bench, a small selection of dumbbells and kettlebells, gym balls, a treadmill (for winter nights), a selection of wooden practice weapsons, a bar for towel pullups and of course a cd player! The only thing missing is a training partner. But living out of town, the chances of finding a like minded person withing striking range (pun intended) is slim indeed. So I just play loud music and get on with it :-)

I get my ideas for workouts from several books I have, and from Ross Enamait's Rosstraining website (I also have his book "Never Gymless"). That guy is amazing. I don't have his drive but he is an inspiration to me all the same.