Just outside the Villa market and you can see the rain pouring down. I missed getting the worst of it. I heard it on the roof of the market and thought the building was collapsing.
The afternoon is looking bleak right now. I was caught out in a monster rainstorm when I went to the local market. Unfortunately the one that was in the hotel are is turned into a so its a bit of a walk. Stood outside and watched the rain. The motorbikes and food delivery guys just kept on going. They were splashing through the puddles that were really deep. After about 30 minutes, it slowed enough to escape back to the hotel without getting too wet.
Its getting brighter so it looks like Ill head out to train. If its a thunderstorm drenching downpour, Ill have to skip the trip. There is alot of walking uncovered that will just make the travel back and forth miserable. Of course the rain really starts pouring once Im at the final stop, or maybe we just drove into it. Good thing I remembered a poncho. At least there arent many people to avoid, or cars splashing gallons of water around. But as you can see from the picture, theres a bit of water here. Instead of running, we swam 40 lengths, backstroke and freestyle. When theres no running, theres lots of jump rope,
Its a long, deep wade to get into the gym today. The water was almost over the top of my shoes. Feet were very squishy while jumping rope.
30 minutes of it today. Only two other guys training this afternoon, and I think we are all about as excited about the long jump rope session (not). We began cycling through the pads, and I started on the heavy bags, kicking lightly, but mostly working to get the footwork and placement correct. I sometimes drop the kick instead of bringing it back the the start, and then sometimes it goes too far back. Footwork is the key. Trying also to not always do a switch kick when going with the left. Its hard to work just stepping right and kicking left.
Got into the ring for the normal afternoon workout, but today, there was a twist. The first three rounds were the normal heavy power kicks, knees, etc. they all had at least one series of 10 quick kicks included and the last one added in machine gun punches. But now it changed pretty quickly. We were paired off to do sparing against the other people training. It was light contact to shake things up a bit. Fahlaep sparred with Rune, who is from Denmark, and is staying at the gym. Those two are
This is the teep, sort of a front kick/push used to keep the opponent out of reach or to push them back. Of course no matter how hard I throw the teep, I can move Fahlaep, unless he wants to be moved.
more even,y matched I started against Martinez, who lives in Ireland, but was born in Lithuania I believe.We are both about the same weight and height, so the parings were good. Its a very different thought process than working the pads. Having to try and see openings, and create them, while reacting to attacks really ratchets up the intensity. We sparred for two rounds. In the first sparring round, I seemed to favor blocking the kicks by catching them and them sweeping, or trying to anyway. Probably because thats been something Ive been working on this week. Fahlaep wanted me to block more and then counter kick in the next round. Just like the old days, the two pair of boxers were in the same ring, sparring away. It was quite fun and we both landed a few good shots on each other. But that wasnt all, I had one more sparring round with Fahlaep. I think he likes to work me to death in that last round and then end up clinching while I knee the body pad and struggle to breathe. Then he sweeps me to the mat, and were done. Today was another great workout. I
Got back somewhat late and was slow unpacking, so a quick dinner trip to the closest restaurant was the plan. This is how close it is to the hotel front door. The hotel works there too!
Too much typing, so time to wrap this up.
