Padwork – What I’m Trying to Accomplish
Because my YouTube channel was founded on detailing the process of my training and has become a record of my fighting in Muay Thai it’s good sometimes to just show the raw footage of my work. It’s bizarre to think that I’ve posted over 1,000 videos now on YouTube, many of them extended training sessions in my first years of learning under Master K, filled with my mistakes and his constant corrections. This footage from Friday is very much like that, a roughly 20-minute glimpse into what I do every day in the effort toward making myself better. Fatigue, flinches, off-balances, repetitions, moments of clarity or power… they are all part of it. I’ve said from the beginning (which is five years now – crazy) that I’m not interested in creating or showing “highlight reels” of my work, but the struggles and difficulties and work of my work, because that’s what one learns from.
My padwork as of late has, for me, been a test in focusing on my energy. Not energy like not gassing out, but energy as in the intention and force with which I face my opposition in the ring. In padwork, Den is my opposition. So if I miss a block or get teeped across the ring it’s a matter of coming back; it’s a challenge to always move forward. I dinged my shin in my last two fights, so I’m not kicking with my left leg in any of these rounds, but Den decided in the morning session of this same training day that he wants me to be teeping with force and frequency. So we’re doing that. Den is doing it to me repeatedly in order to show me a) how to do it and b) when to do it. He’s far more relaxed and fluid, so it’s at his disposal more often. I’m getting there.
Normally at Lanna we do 5 minute rounds, but somehow most of these got shortened. We actually just bought a new round timer for the gym so that issue should be permanently resolved presently.
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
Round 5
