Way to the TKDI EC 2012, Part II

Recovering from a day of hard training. My ribs are aching badly, my neck is stiff, my muscles are sore to the point where just walking hurts like hell. Whatever doesn't kill us, huh? Anyhow, yesterday was carb feast time at my favourite chinese restaurant, so I guess I'll be back on my feet tomorrow.

My first session yesterday was technique and sparring with Chris and Frank - basically, we had us a team training scheduled, but then we're not the most organized bunch around. Sometimes I wonder how things can possibly work out so well for the Shinergy[supreme team] with everything being as it is... But I digress.

As stated above, my morning session was a proper warmup (going through our [Warrior Warmup] routine) 12 round á 3 minutes:

1. 3 rounds of throwing combinations at each other
2. 3 rounds of countering the pumping sidekick
3. 3 rounds of countering burst attacks
4. 3 rounds of semi-contact sparring

Now semi-contact definitely isn't my strong side - as a matter of fact, my last semi-contact fight was more than 5 years ago -, but then again, fighting is fighting. Chris and Frank are excellent semi-contact fighters, so playing with them gave me an opportunity to hone my attack skills, especially when it comes to scoring the first point.

Following my technique session, I had another 5/3/1 session. This time, it was the clean & jerk and the bench press. Broke my PR on the O-lift, didn't do so well on the pressing. I was under the impression I haven't fully recovered from my last session yet. Carb restriction doesn't help in terms of recovery, I can tell you that...

Immediately after my own training, I hit the Dojo to teach a beginners class, so I had around two hours of active recovery (~1 hour ride on the public transport, 1 hour of teaching). After that, I held an advanced class, where I went through the Warrior Warmup again. Didn't participate in the padwork, but by the time we got to work with a partner, I was all game. Now we just did three rounds á 3 minutes of partner exercise:

1. Throw combinations at each other
2. Counter each combination directly at any point
3. Counter each combination indirectly at any point

We finished the session with 9 rounds of sparring, of which I participated in 7. The overall skill-level was pretty high, as Chris, Frank (part of the Shinergy[supreme team]) and Alex (long-time fighter from the Shinergy[zone vienna] with great speed and skill) dropped by for some brawling.

As an additional bonus, I did two rounds á 3 minutes of grappling at the very end, one with Frank and the second one with Michael, who was a competitive Judoka in his youth. I got taken down by a perfect hip-toss (hence my rib pain) and guillotined from the halfguard (didn't make me tap from that position but messed up my neck badly, hence my neck pain). Obviously, I landed the one or other submission my self.

To wrap things up - I had a perfect day and once I'm back on my feet, I'll just do it all again.
Below you'll find some highlights of our technique session in the morning. All of this was recorded with my laptop's built-in webcam, so video quality is quite bad. Should be sufficient to get an idea on what's going on, though... Enjoy!


That was just another step on the way to the TKDI EC 2012 - stay tuned for more!

So long,

take care