Yoga

So far in my Body Conditioning and Injury Prevention class I have done two yoga sessions. The format of our class is two days a week. One day is lecture in which we have been discussing the bones and muscular system. The other day is a studio session. During these sessions we do yoga and ab workouts. These sessions are very interesting. I have never yoga before so everything we do is very new to me.
I really enjoy yoga. I would say that 70% of the yoga I enjoy and the other 30% is a bit uncomfortable for me to do. When I say uncomfortable I mean that I am tight in certain areas and find some positions to be difficult for me to do. I have been trying to recognize which positions are difficult so that I can work on them and get better. The one area on my body that I have the most difficulty with is my hips. Even when we are in the lotus type position to start the yoga session it is impossible for me to keep my hips down. Most of the positions I enjoy, however, and I can really feel the stretching going on in these positions.
I can tell that I will get a lot out of yoga. The flexibility aspect of yoga will really help me when it comes to my MMA workouts. One thing I have always noticed is that people that weight train seem to do it at the expense of all flexibility in their body. I know that to be an all around athlete, and a healthy athlete, flexibility is something that you cannot ignore.

     For example, in Sanshou, one of the fighting forms I have been learning, you must be able to do kicks.  In order to be able to strike a person high, you need to be flexible enough to be able to get your leg up high.  Furthermore, in ground techniques it can help to be flexible as it will allow you to escape certain holds and submissions.

Interesting.

     So, the other day I went to the library and checked out 2 books on yoga.  There were many books on the subject, as there are various topics regarding yoga: metaphysics, religion, etc..  I chose one book that really focused on the practice of yoga itself.  This book had chapters on breathing, positions, and my favorite, the yogic hygene.  

     The chapter on yogic hygene was one of the most interesting and surprising things I have read in a long time.  The chapter basically discussed all the different ways people who practice yoga cleanse their body.  This involved many very disgusting techniques.  They would be very disgusting to write about, but I will give you an example of one of the less disgusting ones. People who are advanced at yoga used to(and I suppose still do?) be able to control their body inside and out so well that they could force their large intestine to come outside their body at which time they would hold it in their arms and clean it.  Yes, this is one of the less digusting techniques.  

     Some of the other techniques are still used today.  One specific one is what people think of when they use a Neti Pot to clean out their sinuses.  Although some of these techniques were shocking, the bigger picture, and what I got out of the chapter, was that people who practice yoga religiously can control every aspect of their body.  They are very focused and can single out nearly whatever muscle they wish to.

     I have a Thursday night class which is over two hours long and I spent the whole time reading about yoga and a lot of the time was spent reading about this yogic hygene chapter.  This is just the tip of the iceberg, however, and there is much more to read and learn about when it comes to yoga.

This week

     So far this week I have spent about 6 hours at the gym doing MMA classes and I plan on going once more this week for 2 hours.  

     On Tuesday I did sanshou basics class which was awesome. I learned a couple striking combinations.  This was really fun but really tiring.  Tony is hilarious. At one point he showed us a move that was him striking the opponent in the head about 3 times within 3 seconds. He told us that in American MMA you cannot strike an opponent in the head when they are down BUT in Japanese Sanshou this is legal.  I asked him if this could kill the person and he said "oh yea." Ha.

    After the Sanshou class we did some MMA and then cooled down and stretched.  I really enjoyed this class and think I could get into Sanshou.  It is really useful for fighting, self defense, MMA matches, etc...

     

     Last night was the last class I went to. This class is called "The Eliminator." I saw this and knew I had to go.  The class lasted for an hour and a half and was unreal. Zero breaks.  We just did crazy stuff for that amount of time.  Tony amazes me because he does everything with us, he teaches every night and does most classes, he literally just does not get tired. At one point we went from squat jumps to pushups. If you stayed with him you probably would have done 70ish slow good pushups.  Everyone in the class was pretty much just on there stomach moaning at the end but Tony was still going strong. Keep in mind that this is after a bunch of other stuff we did.

That is my week so far.  3 nights, 6 classes, 6 hours.  I feel good about this all so far and know that if I keep it up I will be in ridiculous shape.

The First Day

     I went into the MMA gym on Monday and signed up for the classes.  I had very little clue of what I was getting myself into - all I really knew was that I was interested in MMA and the fitness benefits from it.  

     I met Anthony Marquez and he gave me all the information about the gym, I got some shorts and a shirt, and paid the money.  After I changed into my new shorts, I immediately started my first class.  I wanted to get right into it.

      The classes at Extreme Kung Fu Wushu Training Center are all in one hour time slots.  The first class I went to was a MMA class from 7-8.  The trainer put on some metalish/hardcore music and goes "lets warm up."  

      Next thing I know we were jogging in a circle on a mat, dropping to the floor and getting back up (Sprawling) at his command, doing bear crawls, crab crawls, pushups, situps, etc. for about 10 minutes straight. I remember thinking to myself wow I can't even move anymore. Yes, within 10 minutes of my first class I was exhausted.

      Keep in mind that I am in pretty decent shape. My cardio is pretty good as I played soccer all my life and workout on my own regularly. 

      After the warmup we worked on escaping from the mount. I had a partner that was about my height but with about 15 pounds on me. I had wrestled for about a year when I was younger so I knew some of this stuff and with fairly strong legs I did alright.  But, then we switched to new partners and I got an asian kid named Nolan.  Nolan is about 4 inches shorter than me and i must have 20-30 pounds on him.  He was ridiculously strong and talented.  I actually think he works at the gym and I know for a fact he has fought in a real MMA match before ( I found it on the internet).  Needless to say, he dominated me.

     After I was getting crushed by him, I told him that it was my first class ever.  He then took it easy on me and actually taught me a lot.  I really appreciated that.

     We did stuff like that for the rest of the class.  Then, the next class was a Sanshou class which I also stayed for.  

     Once again, I had no idea what I was doing.  We warmed up for about 5 minutes during which I just jumproped the whole time... this was actually really tiring.  Anthony then got the rest of the class going and then showed me the basic stance of sanshou and how to do a proper jab.  I basically just shadow boxed for the next hour which was really exhausting.  I moved on to hitting the bag towards the end of class.

     We all cooled down and stretched at the end of the class.  It was now about 9:20 and I was done with my first MMA class.  I felt really really exhausted but proud of myself. I knew that it was what I wanted to do, but getting myself to go to the gym and sign up as well as get over the initial fear of the class and being new was the hardest part.

This Blog and About Me

     My name is Kevin and I made this blog to help track my workouts throughout my last semester in college.  I am a senior at Loyola University Chicago. I was on the soccer team at Loyola, something which consumed most of my time.  However, now that I am done with soccer I decided I needed to do something to keep myself in shape and busy.  

     I signed up for MMA classes at a place close to my apartment.  Furthermore, I am in a food and nutrition class and a dance class called body conditioning and injury prevention.  I will also be using this blog to create entrees for my dance class assignments.  I felt that writing about the excercises we have done in class and how they help me with my MMA would be interesting. In this class we will be working on flexibility, something that I need to personally work on and something that can benefit anyone doing MMA.

    Whoever is reading this blog, I hope you are entertained and please feel free to leave comments regarding my posts!