Partner madness

Since it was only the two of us in class today, it was a perfect opportunity to do everything in pairs.  We started with SLOW four count street as a warmup.  It’s one of those drills that crops up all throughout training in Mo Duk Pai.  If you’re wondering why, wonder no longer.

The basic of the drill is counting to four.  Partner A counts to four, then partner B counts to four. With each count partner A throws a strike.  On the fourth count, partner B blocks and returns with their own flurry of four strikes.  During the three non-blocking strikes, the receiving partner gets to act like the strike actually landed.

There are tons of things to pick up from this simple drill but a big one is: where are the openings?  As your partner moves and twists from your previous strikes, what becomes available?  Another important concept to glean from the drill is positioning.  Get to your partner’s side or back.  Staying in front of them and striking means you’re going “toe to toe” with them.

Then we cycled through six count blocking, chi-sao (sticky hands) and some basics.  Six count blocking is exactly like four count street with two major exceptions: 1. Always block; 2. Count to six instead of four.  For today chi-sao became basically a fluid version of six count blocking, so we just took out the counting and took turns swinging at one another.

For the finisher we did:

5 rounds of

10 partner slam balls

10 partner sit ups

10 roundhouse kicks with each leg, on the bag 

I’m going to miss the Portland Crossfit guys when they go because I won’t be able to steal their workouts for my class!