day 152: drills & light sparring

concepts:

• movement

forms:

• tournament prep

today was a low turnout day, probably a result of the intense heat we had (forecast temps for Saturday and Sunday were over 100 degrees F). with the limited number of people we had, we ended up just dividing off into pairs, with Phunsak practicing the 2-person 64 palms form with Chieng-Chieh, and me continuing the kick and punch drills from last week w Viet, Richard, and Eric (eventually just Viet, since both Richard and Eric had to leave).

there wasn't much new this week, so i'm keeping this post short. basically just trying to improve my comfort level with the kicks and punches, as well as work on more movement. Phunsak did lead everyone through basic mantis footwork drills, but this was also a repetition of what Kieun had shown me last week.

James had been working with Simon, since Simon is apparently going to the sparring competition at the Las Vegas tournament. he asked for some light sparring sessions with us, to give Simon and me (and also Viet) a chance to start getting acclimated to sparring work. because we hadn't brought the pads or helmets, and Simon didn't have gloves, we agreed to just no hard punches or kicks, focusing instead on just movement and positioning. we did a few rounds of this--as much as we could do in the heat (i'm guessing 3 rounds between me and Simon, then 1 round each between Simon and Viet, and also me and Viet).

we wrapped things up around 1pm, despite the heat, and took an afternoon lunch.