Hi. I thought I’d take the time to catch up. How’s your week been? When it comes to all things martial mines not been too bad at all. Despite us still being in lockdown here it’s good to see the weather getting warmer and I think that’s been one of the drivers for some truly awesome runs this week.

I’ve started sprint training again to keep my fitness up ready for when I get back to the gym in the next couple of weeks. There are a river and woods near me that make for a pretty scenic 6 or 7k and it’s been good this week to just let it hang out a little and really push. I  start off running to a light jog and then gradually build-up into a decent pace after the first couple of kilometres of warm-up. From there, I start to sprint.

What’s been pretty awesome about sprint training this week is that I’ve managed to push through the breaking point and have just kept going. That’s important to me for a couple of reasons. It shows me my fitness is good and it also makes me a little tougher inside. It’s true when they say your mind gives up or gasses out before your body   so it’s been good to hit the point of no return and breakthrough. Nothing, as they say, is permanent and I’ve learnt over time if I can beat myself I can beat fucking anyone.

When it comes to sprints, this week I started with 10-second bursts and have ended with sprinting to just over 30 seconds at a time. Despite the lockdown, there’s still a reasonable amount of people around, so to try to keep distancing at points I’ve used them as sprint markers as well as trees, lamposts and assorted shrubbery. Don’t get me wrong it’s not a country bumpkin disco out here and I’ve not heard one banjo yet but you know..

Along the way, I’ve also found myself working on a little bit of presence and visualization techniques. Staying in the now can be walking or in my case running meditation and today, I focused on my breathing and the sound of my feet hitting the concrete path. I’ve worked through rounds 1 to 5 even with the last 30-second push of the fight and I’m pleased to say I’ve still got it. It’s never been easy and it’s never going to be.

As well as my sprint training and runs of awesomeness I’ve also done some decent home training this week too of between 35 minutes to an hour at a time. I live in a top floor flat heat rises in blocks and at the moment..boy is it warm. My living room has become my ring.

As soon as the front blocking leg hit the ground I came in with my battle axe rear knee. 

I start my home training sessions with around 100 to 150 situps, followed by around 40 kettlebell swings and another 30 goblet squats. As a disclaimer about kettlebell training, I’m not that great (I watched a video I made of myself earlier and almost heard a twang.) and then 50 to 100 press-ups After a 6 to 7k run with sprints this usually destroys me but I keep going.

From there, I move into around 150 bicep curls with my free weights and squats. By this point. I’ll usually have a pause and do some light stretching.) I seriously need to more stretching, but that’s nothing new.) and then around 25 to 30 minutes of shadow. After that’s done I’ll usually finish with Sylvie / Dieselnoi knees. (Check out her videos to see what I mean)  They are a work in progress and an absolute killer.

I’m going to build up reps and drills next week onwards. At present,  I’m very pleased with my hands and elbows and knees. I do my best to keep things simple (jab teep from one end of the room to another as an example here ) and back then build the combination up.  My movement needs a bit of work so I spent some of today practising some footwork too.

This week I’ve been running 4 times and trained at home 3 times. This is a big improvement from my sporadic 20 minutes of shadow here and there when bored the week before and it feels like I’m creating a bit of structure to what I do. I hope from May the 7th things begin to return to normal and that I’m back at my camp soon. It’s good however to get my focus and motivation back and as always I have no intention of giving up, It may not get any easier but it does get absolutely better with time.   Train hard because you’ll fight easy, and just like the last time… I’ll see you on that road.