Training Day

Another good training day. Did a very simple workout this morning: 10 minutes long cycle clean and jerk with the 24 kg kettlebell. Simple, brutal, effective. Particularly good because I was running into a little bit of a time crunch, so 10 relatively hard minutes was great. After that, I headed over to the Y for a dunk and steam (jacuzzi, then steam room) and a shower. Niiiiice.

I got home in time to gather my gear and headed over to practice the German-style longsword that I do. It was a good, relaxed session, because everyone else had cancelled out, and Chris was still recovering from a nasty case of bronchitis. We took it easy; he had to stop to rest and catch his breath occasionally. But I really believe that when you’re in that stage, you need to get up and move around. You don’t want to overtax, but you need to get blood & lymph moving, and oxygen pumping through the system, which will help facilitate healing.

We took it easy, but he did a good job and had a good attitude. I got a good hip throw on him. That was fun! We got in close with a bind, and he grabbed my hilt or pommel, but that put him in a compromising position–my arm was across his chest and my leg went behind his and… whump! Down he went… Okay, it was closer to an aiki or systema throw than a strict hip throw, but it worked (and it didn’t hurt him). Hey, it was on relatively soft earth anyway–we were training down in the park rather than the parking lot that we often are in.

I liked that better, because we also did some knife training, and I don’t care to do that in front of the whole apartment complex. We aren’t doing anything wrong, but too many eyes, distractions, and little people around. It’s one thing with the swords, but with the knives I like to be a little more circumspect.

Again, nothing too strenuous, but I gave him some of my philosophy on knife work, and how it differs from sword work, especially longsword. We played a little bit, and included some empty hand stuff too.

Then after a bit, we headed over to Smokey Bones and chowed on some meeeaaattt…

Now–you may wonder about a hard workout before the sword training, especially in light of the fact I was also fasting for the day. A couple of reasons…

When I coached fencing at the college a little while back, I would sometimes do a hard workout (concentrating on the legs, doing heavy deadlifts, etc.) before hand with the thought of sort of… self-handicapping, so that I would maybe be a little slower and make it just a hair easier on the students. It rarely worked out that way, however. It seemed that by the time I made it over to the college, I was pretty well recovered, and I fenced better and harder than I did even normally. I guess maybe I triggered some sort of warm-up cascade of adrenaline and testosterone, or something.

Anyway, I also did it to stress myself, and to make it harder for me. Well, in this case, I had been getting home late the last several days, and the last couple of days had a bit of a sore throat, so in the better part of valor I hadn’t done any real physical training to speak of.

So, I was feeling up for it, and I didn’t know if Chris was going to be able to practice anyway, so I just went for it in the time that I had. And as in the college instance, I intentionally wanted to add fatigue and stress to the training by working out before hand, and added the fast ta boot. So, there you have it.

I think it was quite a successful training day, and I’m none the worse for the wear–better, I dare say. In fact, I’m contemplating hitting the kbell again, or some other physical training a little bit later to cap off the day. We’ll see!