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.
So intense! I used to take kick-boxing in college and remember the workouts exhausting me more than any thing else I'd ever done -Hitting the pads was so satisfying in some way and my arms would shake involuntarily for days.
ReplyDeleteThis is the cross-training effect - meaning that your body is used to your routine workouts and responds differently to novelty...
Class seems like a real "baptism by fire" approach that sounds like it works for you - Does it?
The first class really was a "baptism by fire." However, the instructors at the gym are really nice and understand everyone has a different experience level. I like jumping into the program and learning as much as I can, as I am excited about it, but I also understand that technique is obviously important and you need to do things correctly before moving on to the next concept.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, kick-boxing, I have found, is probably the toughest workout ever. Lately, I have been not going to the lessons as much, as a consequence of school and what not, but I have, as the one later blog shows, been doing my own kick-boxing workouts about 3 times a week. These workouts kick my butt and I love it. I have actually gotten a couple people to try the workouts I have come up with along with me and they love them too. You can see and feel results pretty quickly.