Monday, October 15, 2012

Contusions of Krav #1

There's an old joke:
"What do you tell a man with two black eyes?........ Nothing, he's already been told twice."

The moral of the story is, you learn from your beatings... or, at least you should.

I've now been doing Krav for just over a month. We started out pretty slow with a few class mates extra hesitent to really bring the aggression that is quite frankly needed in the kind of fighting Krav is made for.

So I wasn't really getting hit.

You'd think that was a good thing. But I'm not paying to stand around and learn a few moves that I can't really be sure are effective against a determined attacker.

I came here to learn how to fight and in order to do that.. well, you gotta get your skin dirty.
This is my first good Krav bruise obtained while sparring with a former tae student. He must have kicked me twenty-five times in the thigh and while it didn't seem to hurt much at the time I was feeling it the next day. And he was pulling his kicks big time. His full force blows would put me on my butt.

We haven't gotten much into defending against kicks but this mark makes me wonder what I could do different?

Move? Try to catch the kick? I'll have to come back later and think about my lesson learned... for now the lesson is sheer body toughening.

My phone does not do the deep purples justice.

2 comments:

  1. Yes, you don't feel it until AFTER the fun is over! :)
    Kicks can be very powerful. If you can move out of the way, that is a better choice. Even if you have to block, I would try not to be in a place where you take the full force of the kick. After a painful bone contusion in one of my early sparring sessions in martial arts, I asked my instructor what I should have done to defend against the kick. He simply said, "Move!" So, you're right! Also, if you are in really close - pressing in on your opponent - that range makes it harder for them to kick you...not that this is where you should necessarily be, but just something to know for strategic purposes. Hope you're bruising and aches are all better soon!

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  2. Those will bruise less and hurt less the longer you do it. I just finished my level 4 test 2 weeks ago and I only had 2 bruises to show for it. So keep up the good work and eventually you'll be able to quote Eddie Murphy "we bruise on the inside" (Trading Places reference, just incase it needed explaining).

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