Ugh. It's day two after my first Krav Maga session. I coughed earlier, and flinched in pain as spears of dazzling agony circled my rib-cage. WHOA MAMA. I haven't felt that pain before!
The session was only an hour, and although at one point I wanted to vomit, I felt at the time that it wasn't that bad. I felt that it wasn't as intense as my boxing workouts had been.
Now, looking back, I note some key differences between Krav and Boxing... for one thing, I got many small breaks in boxing, alternating with 2 minutes of intensity. At Krav, I got about 5 minutes off in the whole hour. Secondly, although I did boxing off and on for 3 years, there was rarely any real sparring. The whole focus was on techniques and fitness. At Krav, we were performing real attacks and blocks in our first session. I got nailed once below the eye, and again on the side of my head. The impact of the chest hits were much more than I thought.
After my coughing fit this morning, my mind wandered questioningly back to how the heck my ribs could be sore. My rhomboids yes, my lats yes, my pecs yes- but my ribs?? Then I remembered. This one girl was my partner for this session where I held a blocking pad right against my chest, and she hammered away with jabs and crosses for 3-4 minutes (a not-so-small eternity). She knew how to punch!! I was staggering back, shocked at how much impact she was generating, but - she apologized, "my jab isn't as strong." Well, idiot that I am, I blabbed some advice to whip her hips first, and let her left follow. Awesome! Now both her shots were knocking the air out of me.
When it was my turn to work on the pad, I was already exhausted, but threw myself into landing heavy hits and driving her back again and again. Since there had been little or no break before this exercise though, I lasted about two minutes, and realized that this session was double what I was used to. I more or less wimped out for the latter 1-2 minutes. This was the height of my need-to-vomit period. Or maybe it was 2 minutes later when we attempted the same exercise while being held back by a belt around our hips by a third person. It's all a blur.
All I can say to my credit is that I got through it, and I'm pretty keen to go back again. I had thought I'd be ok to go again tonight, but... I think Friday might be more realistic. I was running for a while in the late fall, but my lungs freak out in the cold, so I've nearly 2 months with nothing more to bolster my cardio than sauntering beside my geriatric dog.
In other mundane news- I've discovered that Happy Days is on TV (we have TV at this house we're staying at), and I'm thoroughly enjoying watching the Fonz operate. Gosh, he's so cool. Along with Spock, Batman and John Wayne, he was a childhood hero. When I chose my first motorcycle, I made sure it looked just like his.
That's it- I'm building our latest park video in the background, and it developed a bizarre stutter that seems to move between clips. I think maybe some XML got screwed up somewhere, so I've been attempting workarounds that don't involve serious roll-backs. I'll keep you posted.
