MY BIG FAT THAI KICKPAD
KBXG coach is back from his sabbatical in Thailand and don't we know it! I'm still sore after endless hours of roundhouse kicks to a big fat kick shield. It's such good fun and it puzzled me why his club didn't use shields before - relying instead on gloved partner cooperation. Shields are ace since you can whack them with mindless full force. Mind you, they are so big that you simply can't miss the pad, which probably means bad habits creep in, and probably why coach hasn't utilised them before. The kick drill where you start with one, then two, then three etc all the way up to ten is hard. One to five are great, then you hit a mini-wall and by the time you get to nine and ten, your previously invincible kicks are turned into a pathetic and weak imitation, then, you have to do the whole thing again for the other leg. And that's only the first drill!
I do like the fact that coach is still finding new ways to improve his own martial art development (we're talking about a real World Champion here) which ultimately we will benefit from. It's the right attitude and something I hope to emulate.