Muay Thai Boxing

Today's adventure was just a little one; I'm saving a big one for tomorrow.  Again I got hooked up with a cool free activity through Adventure Wellington, they hosted a free lesson in Muay Thai Boxing, at the local gym: Jai.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, Muay Thai boxing is kicking boxing that uses 8 points of contact: your hands feet, elbows, and knees.

The class was from 2-3 and a jam packed hour of straight cardio.  We started out full force; our instructor literally jumped into jumping jacks, then moved us into pushups, crunches, and then some other "warmups".  We were already dripping sweat by the time he got into the actual boxing portion, and not only because the studio was about 100 degrees--it was HOT today.  In keeping with his "warmup" style, there was no real transition.  He simple said, "stand like this, left forward, punch and step at the same time: huh!"

A sparring chart they had in the studio

 So through the course of the class I got to learn to do several series of punches and kicks, which the instructor would build up to.  First, you started with the simple punch, then a left-right, then a left-right-hook, and then a left-right-upper cut.  That was all without gloves.  Next we put on some boxing gloves and paired up so someone would hold the bag, while the other punched.  You did 50 left-rights in a row, while bouncing on your toes and then go into the sets.  Each set was about 20 of whatever series he told you to do.  The bag series of punches ended with a really good one.  Our instructor called it a "superman punch" you did a left-right-left-right-right then back up a couple steps, run, jump and punch a strong right.  It was AWESOME!  Exactly how a superman punch would be.

The next series we did was kicks.  It was the same idea with the bag: partner up and one holds the pad while the other kicks.  The idea behind the kick was that you pivot up on your left toe, drop your right arm down as you kick with your left foot toe pointed.  Although, you don't kick so much with your foot as with your ankle.  I was a lot better at the kick than at the alternating punch, but boy did it tire you out.  It was especially hard when he had us doing multiple kicks in a row: one-two-three.  He even had us switch over to the bag and kick 10 times in a row!  It was really grueling.  After that set we got to so some combination punch kick stuff though, still totally threw me off.  I kept having to think about all the different things he was telling us to do: "always keep your none punching hand by your cheek/chin, hook with your elbow up, and twist your right toe when you hook left."  It was a lot, but to go along with our superman punch, he taught us a superman kick as well!  It was a left-right-kick-kick back up run a couple steps jump and slam a kick in.  It was hard but boy did I hit that bag hard!

In keeping with his intense workout we had just as bad as a "cool down": more situps, pushups, and then you had to hold someones feet as they went from a situp to standing and doing a left-right punch.  Luckily at the end he let us stretch it all out.  Boy was that a work out for me!  I'm definitely going back next weekend.