ETK and combat update

OK this could be a long one ....

First, an update on my Les Mills packed weekend. If you're not interested in Les Mills stuff, skip onto the kettlebells below the photo .......

The combat technique day was fantastic. Meeting Rach was just brilliant; she is such an inspiration for me and in the flesh turned out to not only be just as fit and fabulous looking as she seems, but also really friendly, approachable and just lovely! Straight off at the start of the day we had to teach a track and get feedback from her. EEEEEK!!! It was a little scary, but a fantastic thing to be able to do. My feedback was mostly positive - she didn't say anything about my technique, which I'm taking as a good thing, just that my teaching style was a little too "cheerleader" - lots of fun but neglecting the darker, "grrrrrr" side of combat. I know she's right; I think I used to be a little more grrrrrr, but since I've started teaching jam I've found it hard to switch over from happy smiley jam mode to fighter mode for combat. We had a really useful discussion about how to get "into the zone" for the class you're teaching - lots of good stuff I can implement. Then we spent the rest of the day doing some pretty intense drills on a variety of martial arts - karate, capoeira, TKD (that one suited me lol and I even got to count everyone as I knew the Korean!) and kickboxing. I made the mistake of teaming up with Paul (the marine!!) for the kickboxing padwork. He didn't hold back! I was battered!! Fun though :-) At the end of the day we got to present again and I got some more feedback, yes I was doing better with the grrrr but still smiling too much! Plus some minor technical pointers. All good. I think I have got into the habit of thinking that I must always smile when I make eye contact with the class, but there are other ways to connect with them - needs some work! But overall, it was a fantastic day and I learned a lot.

The other great part of the day was meeting so many lovely people. I met up with some combat guys I knew from Twitter, and best of all I bumped into Helen my old combat instructor. She used to teach a class at LA Fitness about 4 years ago and I was a regular there, we were quite friendly but around the time she left my granny died, so I was a bit all over the place and never got her contact details. I've thought about her lots since I did my combat training, as she was a real inspiration to me and motivated me to think of training, but I had no way of getting in touch with her. Anyway I walked into the cafe at the course and there she was! It was great - much squealing and hugging (in a very non-grrrrrr way!) ensued.

So on to Sunday: the quarterlies (still not on kettlebells, skip ahead again!). What an amazing day. I got to see loads of guys to catch up with and did jam (awesome), step (meh), pump (double meh), RPM (fab) and combat (double fab!!). Once again Rach was totally inspirational presenting both jam and combat. If I can ever move half as crisply, cleanly and gracefully as her I will be a happy bunny. Here is a pic of my with her after combat - check out those ABS!!

So all in all a fab, if exhausting, weekend :-)

Now finally to kettlebelling! I didn't manage to complete week 4 of ETK. I did the first 50-swing workout, but the end of the week was crazy: Thursday I taught jam and combat back to back, Friday was the combat technique intensive, Saturday I could barely move, and Sunday was the Super Quarterly. I think even Pavel would have struggled to fit in the other ETK workouts on top of all that lot :-) I know you're not supposed to progress until you've completed a week, but I'm happy with my swing form and my conditioning, so I'm going to continue. I'm really excited to be moving on to the Rite of Passage section!

Lunchtime today was the first ROP workout. I used the 8 kg kettlebell following advice from RKC people (thank you guys!) and it was definitely the right decision. I tried pressing the 10 kg at the end of the ladders just for kicks and couldn't get it up at all on my left side! The 8 kg does feel a little too easy on the cleans, but right for the presses. So I will stick with that and hope to progress to the 10 kg next time I go through the programme. For the pull ups, I'm using my doorgym and a 1" superband to give me some assistance. Seems about right for me at the moment, as I was finding the 3rd rung hard, but do-able. I followed the ladders with 100 snatches, still with the 8kg, sets of 20 with a minutes rest. I'm feeling the urge to have a go at a snatch test soon (what has happened to me??!!) and feel reasonably confident I could manage the 100 snatches in 5 minutes when fresh - albeit with the 8 kg which is only 2/3 of my RKC standard weight! But we all have to start somewhere, right?!

My arms and shoulders are now feeling pleasantly achey and I'm happy to be back on track with ETK :-)