SW Portland Martial Arts Blog

How do you get yourself ready for kid’s class? You keep your elbows in tight! Also, you spin backfist a tower of air shields.

How do you get ready for CrossFit class? Bring a pair of dumbbells or fill some empty milk jugs with sand! Today I learned that if you stick out your non-weighted arm during a one legged deadlift, it helps with balance. 15 years later, still figuring stuff out.

Bonus setup? How do you setup a spinning backfist? You throw a punch first, obviously. More specifically, you confound your partner with a staggering array of lead hand punches and then… POW! Spinning backfist.

How important is accuracy to martial arts? Vital. Today in kid’s class we worked accuracy by throwing bean bags through hoops, and also elbowing giant piles of stuffies.

And for striking class? Of course accuracy is important. Throw all the strikes you want, but if you can’t aim them, it doesn’t matter!

Wait. Does accuracy matter for CrossFit class? Of course! If you can’t hold that weight in the right place, it comes crashing down!

Need more accuracy? Check out this video I did on how to confound your opponent with a crescent kick.

On Saturday, I did a striking workout with a cloth mask on. I didn’t wear it for the whole 30 minutes, but I did wear it during the “hard” part at the end – tabata bag work. It worked. I didn’t die. Anyway, watch the striking video from Saturday. My plan is to try part of the CrossFit workout with a cloth mask on tomorrow. Life is an experiment.

Today for kid’s class, we worked angle of attack. What’s that? It’s when you swing the same attack at different angles. I say swing because one of the easiest ways to imagine it is to picture swinging a baseball bat at different angles, but all at the same target.

For CrossFit, I tried working bent over rows into the skill work. They were not terrible, but I couldn’t actually get enough weight using only books and my backpack. I think I need heavier books?