No Podcast today but another edition of 'A Blogger In Training'

Zach started this feature earlier this year with the goal of embracing our academic knowledge while attempting to put it to practical use. In other words, think of it as a MMA blogger's version of A Few Seconds of Panic.

Today the other Zak (that's me!) picks up the training slack as I detail my first official Muay Thai training class. Due to the class' schedule today's podcast had to be canceled and for that I'm sorry. Next week everything should be back to normal.

First, I think it is important to explain why I chose Muay Thai. Basically, it fit into my busy schedule though I will admit to a desire to learn the "art of eight limbs". Such a fascination began in earnest when I sat cage side and saw Anderson Silva give Rich Franklin a second rhinoplasty in Cincinnati, Ohio.

But why didn't I immediately go to a gym and start training "MMA"? Personally, I believe it is better for a novice to begin by immersing themselves in individual techniques before they begin the integration process across multiple disciplines. It is one of the reason's why I think high schoolers who "train" MMA would be much better served in the long run if they enrolled in Jiu-Jitsu class, the high school wrestling team, and worked in a boxing gym before they make the move over to the combat sausage that is MMA. In other words, forming proper habits for each individual discipline will go much further then starting off at the random MMA gym down the street where quite often the techniques are not taught by experts rather the last generation of sausage. 

Soap box lecturing aside, it's on to the first class. While most of it was spent with introductions and rules of the gym, the class did begin with the basics of stance and throwing a proper round house kick. For traditional Muay Thai imagine an angled stance, with the back foot pointing outwards like the bottom of an "L" with the lead foot pointed at your opponent. From there, an individual is suppose to lean slightly back on the hind leg, all the while staying on the front of your toes. Flat footed is BAD! It's fairly awkward at first and takes some getting used to especially as you need to condition your body to return to the proper stance after each strike.

After a few minutes of getting the class comfortable with their stance (a few lefties didn't know what southpaw meant) it was on to the basic roundhouse kick. As some of the readers have pointed out, my lanky frame (lovingly refereed to by some of the readers as "hobo Jesus") means I am not the most meaty of individuals. Unfortunately when it came to holding pads I unwisely teamed up with a gentleman who I spoke to at the beginning of the class; he just so happened to be eighty pounds my senior. That situation was made worse by the fact that he was more interested in kicking as hard as possible rather than training his muscles and footwork properly. Fortunately after thirty seconds of bludgeoning the pad he tired and realized he was going 140% while the rest of the class was at 35%.

As that was the first class it was pretty basic. Fortunately there will be more to come and hopefully better stories.