Head Trauma Wednesdays

Tong, a short, and stocky lao/thai kid pushed his arms out at me. His long (tattoo) sleeve was pushing forward towards my face. I wrapped my hands onto the insides of his elbows preventing him from both elbowing (allowed in full muay thai but not in anything us underlings do) me in the face and also giving me an inside position for control. I opened up my left hip like a door and then swung the fat of my thigh into his midsection shutting the door. He twisted his right shoulder into my face, with his left hand slid his arm under my grip and clinched onto the back of my neck. I tried to pull back with all the strength in my neck but he had me in a partial lock. He pulled me to the side, dragging down and locked me up with his other hand. He opened up his hip slightly and slammed his knee into my liver.

We swam (attempting to gain a lock position) back and forth for a few rounds, kneeing each other when openings permitted. I dragged his head down with the weight of my forearms happy that he would be so distracted by the anxious feeling of having your neck crushed that he wouldn't see the knees coming into his side.

The round ended and I switched my attention to Stefan. Stefan is taller, much, much whiter, and has many more bad tattoos. Standing an inch or two taller than me he has a advantage in the clinch game. While part of knee sparring involves strength, and more on the ability to swim into a lock effectively, part of being successful has to do with leverage. Being taller allows you to have more leverage. With a longer range Stefan was able to knee from a further distance and had the annoying (for me) habit of blocking my knees. When he saw my knee coming he would lift up the same side leg so my thigh would smash into the round of his knee. I quickly figured that a change in strategy was in order and when he picked up his knee I would spin him in the opposite direction and then would throw the knee.

After knee sparring for fifteen minutes Tong and I got on our running shoes and went outside. I sprinted Tong four out of five of the block long sprints down 15th street. On the final sprint Tong pushed himself having saved up all his gas for one last hurrah. He laughed proudly as he outpaced me for the second time in two weeks.

We went inside and did one hundred kicks. Fifty on each side. Tong was getting tired so I took it upon myself to yell at him until he pushed out all the kicks.

Tong and I will be participating in the smoker at Fight and Fitness on June 9th in SF along with a few other fighters from my gym.
http://www.fightandfitness.com/events.htm