JKD Vlog 5 - Going Outside — Myriad Misadventures

More JKD and my boxing continues to improve…a little. Like it’s improving but veer slowly. Near the end of August we had a class with a heavy focus on one combo. It was kind of medium length and we spent a good part of the class building it up. We started with just a little bit and practiced it back and forth before adding a bit more and doing it again until we had finished the whole combo. I was a big fan of the combo. It seemed to incorporate a little of everything. There was plenty of offense, with lots of punching (it was a pad drill after all) but also had some defense in the form of slipping a couple of punches from he pad holder and blocking a kick. This is definitely my favorite kind of combo. I enjoy hitting the pads as much as everyone else but I find my defense is generally lacking when I’m sparring. In order to build it up I think I definitely need some structured practice to get used to what to do. And these drills are a good place to start in my opinion. Then during out post pad work sparring I kept getting punched in the head which just reinforced that belief.

Then we wrapped August up with an outdoors class, which was pretty cool. The class was mostly normal just sort of adapted to being outside. So we wore shoes and we did our line drills in place instead of moving so we weren’t getting in the way of the other people who were outside. The class was mostly focused on some partner pad drills where we were defending or countering and attacking. Hopefully more drills like that will help me improve my timing when I’m sparring.

I also started to figure out that hook punch I’ve been having trouble with. At least I think I did. Before JKD I always threw my hook punches with my palm down, so my knuckles were parallel to the floor. But in JKD we throw the hook punches with the palm facing your own body, so the knuckles are perpendicular to the floor. I think that the knuckles up hook punch really needs to be thrown at a very close opponent. The farther away I get from my opponent the more the knuckles up hook hurts because I’ve gotta bend my wrist. So on targets that aren’t too close I’ve started reverting to throwing palm down hooks, while close targets get that knuckles up punch that we’ve been practicing in class. Hopefully I’m on the right track here.

Even though I’m…still…getting punched in the head repeatedly I still feel like I’m making progress. And I guess at the end of the day that’s the most important thing.

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