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Gavin

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Posts posted by Gavin

  1. It's been harder than expected getting back into training after the break. After the funeral all I did for a week was work and sleep, and that stretched into two weeks. Anyway, I got three sessions in this week. One of the senior boxers has invited me to the advanced class, so I'll probably start doing that in a week or so, once I have some conditioning back.

    I had to take the 10 oz gloves back as they didn't fit properly with wraps. I swapped them for 12 oz, even so they are quite tight. I can actually feel when I hit with my knuckles now. The feedback is good. Although my hands are taking a beating... I will switch between my 16s and 12s until my hands adjust.

    Hope everyone's training is going well.

    74.5 hours (I've added a bunch of hours at once from when I wasn't posting).

    • Like 2
  2. Do you feel that this was such an intense workout week? Or are you already okay with upping the hours of training?

    I've actually cut down on one class (which is in a gym that's pretty far away), but instead I'm going to a kinda-crossfit class that day. It's at a fitness gym, not martial arts one. So I find it extremely hard to NOT jump in fighting stance or shadow-box lightly in-between rounds :) :) I literally had to stop myself to do it, even if the song was a boxing song (lyrics going like "left hook right hook" and so on...) :) Fortunately we also did some punching on the pad, so I was giving my best there :D

     Hey Micc

     

    I didn't at the time, but I feel like I've paid the price this week.

    Tuesday 1 hr MT, 30 mins running, 30 mins bench pressing. Was actually weaker than the week before :(

    Tonight 1 hr MT.

    This week has not been good for training. I picked up a freelance gig which I've had to work on after work hours and I had a date on monday :wub:

     

    66.5hrs

  3. John sounds like an acute injury, not a chronic case of over training.

    I am slowly titrating up my training load. I think this is important, because you can't just walk off the street and expect to be putting in 10,15,20 hours of training in, otherwise you'll have an injury, like John.

    It's been a lot slower than what I hoped and at times I've taken days off when in theory I would have rather trained. In retrospect I feel like my body was autoregulating me. Could be nonsense? But I feel like I am slowly adapting to more and more work now, and in a way that has worked much better than what I had even planned.

    This is really fascinating to me. I just keep trying to turn up as much as I can, and while I often disappoint myself, I just get back in and slowly my threshold is rising, like my body is making slight but regular adjustments sub-autonomously (this isn't really a word haha).

    • Like 1
  4. Wondering if anyone saw this fight and could comment on Rory's elbow?

    He landed some elbows, but they didn't really seem to hurt Robbie or cut him.

    Also, he was attempting to counter jabs and straight crosses with elbows and was often missing.

    If you didn't see the fight, I was wondering if any of the pros on here could comment on range and elbows, and where you find elbows most effective.

    Thanks!

  5. Wohooo! :D Let's celebrate the 50 hours milestone!!! :D  :thumbsup:  :banana:

    Haha, that banana can dance his ass off.

    1 hour of muay thai. Did a lot of basic kicking, and then teeping the switch kick and following up with a switch knee. Very cool.

    Had a funny interaction tonight with my partner. We were checking a kick and then throwing a right kick back with your partner taking the kick on their arms. He said to me 'kick me as hard as you can, you've gotta kick hard, so that you can learn properly, kick me with 100%'.

    In my head I was thinking 'are you crazy? there is no way you want me to kick you as hard as I can'. Not because I'm a super hard kicker, but because I am 100kg and a fully grown man. So I kicked him with about 40%, and sure enough after two kicks he was like 'alright not that hard'.

    As promised here is a video of me 'shadowboxing' I don't really want to post this, but I said I would when I reached 50 hours, so... here it is.

    https://youtu.be/ikSbjp6xdj0

    Next video will be posted when I reach 95kg bodyweight!

    51 hours.

    • Like 4
  6. These are really good questions Gavin. Maybe Sylvie can hop in and answer from her own perspective, but from what I see, yes, generally you can build a higher body any number of ways...but, in instances of where your body was broken through violence the fighting arts (and fighting) seems to have a very privileged place. The reason for this is - at least how I intuit it - that the arena of the art, and not just the ring, but the very "stuff" of the art, is composed of the "stuff" that wounded you. If you nearly drowned, learning to breath underwater might have a special place for you. That is what the fighting arts are for some. They teach freedom of movement under the pressures and states that are likely deeply associated with what broke you. Of course each person is on a different path, but generally I feel that this is what is at play. It takes the stuff of wounding and weaves a new cloth.

    As to "when" the higher body is completed, I'm not sure at all. But when I ran these ideas past Sylvie she responded strongly to the fact that Ganesha could not stop until all the verses were written. There is a driving duty almost to see the task through. One assumes that when the verses are written one knows. Whether this is an act of destruction or not, I think the fighter can feel that. Sylvie is, from my view, after 111 fights in Thailand, much less destroyed, much more free than before. Things break, but the arc is upward. The art, and the fighting is elevating. You can feel the liberty and growth as it is happening, even as you become more critical of what you want to accomplish.

    But I am sure that there are ballet dancers who have composed a higher body for themselves, and writers, and poets, and skateboarders. musicians, photographers, mountaineers. In a certain sense I think for some fighters fighting has chosen them, it is not something they would ever have chosen fighting. Sylvie never wanted to fight. Then once fighting, even though she loved it she never imagined to fight a great deal. But then the fire took hold, a fire of transformation I think. It is very hard to judge the burning of the fire from the outside, other than to say that something is definitely burning there, and it is making such a beautiful light.

     

    Thanks for explaining - makes sense.

  7. Hi Kevin

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Ganesha is an interesting character.

    I have a question, for you or Sylvie - do you think martial arts or fighting is unique in its capacity to build a higher body?

    The reason I ask this is because if it isn't, if there any other less damaging ways to do so, why wouldn't Sylvie do that? Sylvie do you need to break yourself over and over again? And when is it enough? When will you know when your higher house is complete? What if it never feels complete? Do you keep breaking yourself over and over again until you're destroyed?

    These are some of the questions I had when reading the article.

    Thanks

  8. Gavin, as long as the goal will keep you motivated to move and not "sit in front of the TV" as you said, I'd advise you to stick to it. It might take longer, but it's a learning process. As long as you handle your schedule, you can do it. I work a full time job and train 6x a week, but I also have a part-time job from time to time that takes up around 5h a week. It's not much, I know, but I still manage around it to make my training schedule work. Uh, if you are ready to give up most of your social life ;)

    And congrats on the weight loss! I finally managed to move a bit down on the scale, too :) It's just 1kg, but a firm 1kg-loss is better than nothing :)

    I watched my first sparing video from last year a few days ago and I was like "nooo, is it me? it's me. nooo. It's so hilarious!!" But I'm not embarassed, because I think I made some progress during this year, technique-wise and even though my weight is exactly the same as last year, I think I look slimmer now. :) 

     

    Hey Micc, that's great. I think 1kg makes a difference. Imagine having to do a whole workout while holding a 1kg dumbbell. It would be difficult, huh?

     

    I wouldn't give up on it all together, but just rearrange it around your new work life, and be prepared for it to take longer. I just quoted Micc because I thought it was spot on.  :smile:

     

    Thank you mate.

    I don't think you should give up. Goals are there to give you something difficult to strive towards, not necessarily just so you can accomplish something. Sometimes falling short of a goal is more helpful than succeeding (it can give you added motivation for the next shot). I say stick with your plan, and see where it gets you. If you don't make it in your desired time frame, just keep on rolling until you hit your mark. Then set a new goal and try again! We don't improve without falling, and only truly fail if we quit.

     

    On a side note, doing something you enjoy outside of work will often make you better AT work. You don't have to be a professional fighter to enjoy the workouts. You will be more relaxed and hopefully less overwhelmed when things do get crazy at work. I dove head first into my last job and its literally the only thing I had in my life. If things were stressful or bad there, I couldn't escape it. It ended very very poorly lol. But I learned from it and whenever I do go back, I am going to try my best to use moderation. Your career is always going to be a part of your life but you've gotta have other stuff outside of that that keeps you sane as well :)

     

    Thank you Tyler. I am going to continue with my original goal, because like you said just by aiming for it I will be more successful than if I give up.

     

    On wednesday I did a boxing class and it was kinda brutal (for me) from a conditioning aspect. We did 300 lunges, 300 pushups and 100 squats interspersed between 800 punches. I still can't walk properly and it's Saturday. I was in awe of people who just went straight into the next class, because I was shattered by the end of it. I tried to run across a street and just ending up half walking.

    The trainer explained that this isn't really a lot of lunges, and I agree, but it was a lot for me at my stage of development. Anyway, I'm not complaining, I kinda liked it, It just stopped me from training for a few days though.

    Tomorrow I am going to spend some time figuring out how I am going to push on with my goal while allowing time for work development. I do this often and I find it really useful.

     

    48 hours.

     

    Once again thanks to those of you who continue to encourage me.

  9. Just keep hitting these little milestones. Almost to 50 now, next look at 100. Everyday is hard, but everyday is a step in the right direction towards completing your goal. Hahaha you're not alone in lacking motivation some days. I live two floors above the gym and some days it still takes some serious convincing to get myself downstairs. It is always worth it though. And sometimes the days I am the most tired turn out to be my favorite training memories.

    Thanks for the encouragement Tyler. It's good to hear other's perspectives.

    Boxing on Monday and MT tonight.

    I am honestly considering whether I give up my 1000 hr goal in the 18 months. Not for no reason, but to devote more time to my career... I am starting a second part-time job in August and I want to develop my skills in my field. I don't think I will ever fight or be a professional MT fighter. I've come to it rather late and I'm not sure if I have the demeanour for it.

    Another part of me says that I can probably try and do both, but I'm not sure if that's realistic. I'd keep training MT and boxing and complete my 1000 hours just over a longer period... I'm also aware that giving up on goals is a slippery slope, that could end up with me back on my ass watching television.

    If anyone has an opinion on this I'd love to hear it.

    In other news I mentioned I had gone down a hole on my belt, but that I didn't get below 100kg on the scales as yet. Well, yesterday I weighed in at 99.8kg in the morning, so the scales finally caught up. I haven't been under 100kg in over a year, so it's a good milestone.

    When I get to 50 hours I think I will upload my 'shadow boxing' video I filmed a couple of weeks ago. I already look a lot slimmer since then. Frankly, it's embarrassing, not the weight so much as the technique, I throw my teep like a karate kick an that's just the start of it... Anyway, it might be interesting for other beginners eventually. It's interesting for me to look at too.

     

    47 hours.

  10. Sweet man. Gavin I'm just wondering how this is going mentally for you? e.g are you struggling to find motivation to go to gym/sessions. I ask this as I took my friend to a kickboxing gym tonight and the trainer said 'come 2 nights a week, or else you'll get bored really quickly'. 

    I'm guessing the coach means, if you don't train at least twice a week, you won't progress fast enough, therefore you'll get bored because your not making and progress and it's still difficult. That makes sense to me.

  11. Only on the days where I'm really hurting. Well to be honest some days I don't feel super motivated but I go anyway and feel awesome afterwards. I missed my training on Wednesday because I'm missed my tram and just though shit I'll go home. Then I went Thursday and I enjoyed it so much, and I was just kicking myself that I had missed boxing.

     

    I can train 5-6 days no problem. My biggest challenge is increasing my hours. I think I need to build mental toughness.

     

    45hrs.

     

    I'm not sure if I lost any weight on the scales this week, but I've dropped a hole on my belt.

     

    Also I'm missing training tonight cos I have a date. Can't make a habit of it.

    • Like 1
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