Kickboxing was a blast last night. I was the only one who showed up so I got an hour of private lessons and a harder workout than usual. Woot! SO MUCH FUN! Now it is getting more difficult. We're doing more complex sequences so more to remember. It's still very mechanical with occasional glimmers of "flow".
I find it interesting that it's quite difficult to overcome the "Don't hit people" idea, even for a non-girly girl like me. Even in a situation where we are practicing exactly that and are supposed to be doing it. I have no problem on the bag, and no problem sparring with the mitts that you hit into as targets. That's fine. Last night we practiced blocking and a switch attack sequence. The block is one where you flat hand 'pop' the other person's wrist away, bare hands, then do a block and a (fake) strike to the face. No pushing on the block, it is a fairly hard 'pop' to get the blocking hand quickly back and ready to strike. I was actually having trouble doing the 'pop'. It doesn't hurt either one of us, but it is definitely harder/sharper than just a play smack. He finally said, 'I KNOW you can hit harder than that. Do it." Right then I knew I was softening the block every time. Weird. Guess all that childhood ingraining of 'no hitting' really 'took'.
The guy that teaches the class is about 5'10" or so (a bit taller than me) and outweighs me by 100 pounds easy. He's a bit overweight, but is one of those guys that is built like a freakin' tank. He does hand to hand combat training for the military. It's not like I'll damage him. lol
