“Get Back, Stay Back“
Lara Stone and Dave Slade performing Krav Maga moves by Nick Knight styled by Carine Roitfeld for V Magazine #76
This is wrong because she didn’t go on the V.
"…Experimental trials, the gold standard of medical evidence, suggest that diets that are severely restricted in fattening carbohydrates and rich in animal products—meat, eggs, cheese—and green leafy vegetables are arguably the best approach, if not the healthiest diet to eat. Not only does weight go down when people eat like this, but heart disease and diabetes risk factors are reduced. Ethical arguments against meat-eating are always valid; health arguments against it can no longer be defended."
—
Gary Taubes, Why the Campaign to stop America’s Obesity Crisis Keeps on Failing
A good article summing up the wrong assumption that it is overeating and lack of exercise that cause obesity. In fact, you’d have to exercise a considerable amount just to burn off a snack, and it’s not so much overeating, as overeating the wrong types of food that causes obesity.
On a less serious note, I somehow feel vindicated in my unholy love for cheese and fatty meats.
Muay Thai P4 - 28 (by bbxxin)
Where I learn that the mind isn’t all
I apologize for the long hiatus. Truthfully, it’s not like I don’t have things to talk about, but just that I didn’t have the time or the energy to put my half formed opinions on muay thai into a blog post. There are also other things to think about other than fighting.
But, to recap where I am. I’m doing two sessions of muay thai a week now, though Favourite Teacher will be starting krav in London soon. The sessions are much more your standard martial arts class with a very intense warm up. I’m talking about running laps around the studio, changing directions, then interval trainings with jump rope sessions interspersed with burpees, shadow boxing and push-ups. After that, it’s drilling with pads, technique sessions. So far, I’ve been doing very basic stuff, straight punches, straight kicks, round houses. I’ve also done some elbows.
I like muay thai. I like it because it’s training me the way a lot of people with a martial arts background would train. It’s giving me an insight into the kind of stamina a lot of fighters have, and how fast they all move. I’m also committing a lot of basic moves, like a punch, like a kick, into muscle memory. Physically, I feel much more conditioned for a fight. And because of that, I feel like I have gained much better control over my limbs.
But if I’m feeling physically more capable, I also feel much more mentally sluggish. I really miss a class that pushes you to do nothing other than save your life. And tells you not to stop to think, only move, faster than your attacker, and to not give up. I miss that kind of discipline. I miss being reminded in each class how fear can freeze you.
But what I’m also seeing is that the mental aspect isn’t enough to help you survive. Of course, to some degree, you can scare your attacker by showing that you can be fiercer than he is. But there are still a lot of people who can fight, who are used to taking punches, and who can throw a mean one themselves. Krav doesn’t really prepare you for dealing with someone who has better ability than you do. You really need to have the physical stamina to go through a fight?
What to do then? I don’t know, except that it’s a good thing to check out as many different kinds of martial arts to figure out different ways to move, how people fight with each other. But given that fighting ability is not something that you can predict, the emphasis of any good self defense class should be to recognize when danger is present and how to avoid or diffuse it. The best tool for this that I can think of is role playing dangerous situations. But then again, role plays are time consuming, and doing many will then eat away time to focus on techniques and fitness. Balance, obviously, is key. But I’m getting less starry eyed about doing a martial art, and that, I think, is a good thing.
York Muay Thai Demos May 15 2011 (by xBrian Edwardsx)
What I’m doing in the interim.
“Like herding adorable kittens.”
— Joss Whedon, when asked how was it to work with the cast of The Avengers.
(Source: reddit.com, via liminalzone)
Working on the sandbag
First off, skipping a muay thai class is a bad idea. I spent the first fifteen minutes of one of my class warm ups feeling nauseated and regretting the extra helping of nutella toast (with raspberries, natch) that I had for breakfast. I marvelled at what one week of office sitting can do to your ability to run and touch the floor and do star jumps. Moral of the story: don’t skip a class if you can help it, because the payback in the other class is worse.
It was also a nice class full of regulars, with an odd number, which meant that I spent a good portion of the time working with a punching bag. Now, I love working on a bag. I love the sch-thunk sound a bag makes when you land a good, solid strike. I love how the bag tests your technique and hones your endurance and your motivation all the same time. There is something just so calming and centering about beating a sandbag.
The thing that has struck me about the power strikes in muay thai is how they all ultimately unbalance you. You want to throw a roundhouse, turn on the ball of your foot. You want to deliver a knee? Rise up on tip toe. The reason you don’t notice the unbalance is that all those strikes happen at a lightening fast speed. So one kick followed by another.
The combinations won’t be useful in a real attack, because you’re concentrating the power of your whole body into one move. But the good thing about muay thai is that I’m learning how use my whole body for each move. If the instructor is telling me to rise on my toes to kick, it means I really do have to make sure my spine is straight, and that my moves are coming from my hips.
And sandbags are good for teaching you how to push through even when physically tired. But I like it. I like how the sandbags test your technique, over and over again. The exhaustion afterwards is a good one.
Drive by opinions on muay thai
I’m never mentally exhausted after class because I don’t have constantly control my reaction to stress. I’m told to box, I box. I’m told to drill, I drill. Sometimes, it’s nice not to use your brain for a while.
International Women’s Day
I am indifferent to a whole day dedicated to the advancements made by my gender. So I can work and have kids if I chose to, whodathunkit? So women are proving they can function just as intelligent as men in the workplace, wow, colour me shocked. There are more important women’s issues that need addressing. I fail to see how having a day is going to change that.
But it’s still good to remember that not too long ago, it was considered uncommon to be working as a young, twenty something female. That if I was born in a different time, I wouldn’t be able to have a bank account, or own property, or get into an Oxbridge library without a letter from a male tutor. It does well to remember that if I was born anywhere else, I would still be consider little better than cattle.
But I do have an education, a bank account and a living to make. And I’m lucky that as a woman who is not afraid to be assertive, far from shunned, I am accepted and even tentatively praised. And really, I write this blog as a girl who’s learning how to fight, so international women’s day seemed like a good day to revive.
But for now, there’s a Greek PSI due tonight and it’s press day and I need to hammer out a page of text by tonight, I need to get back to work.
