How you could have trained today: Part 1

Ronda did a great job teaching today, if I do say so myself, which I do. I bet Blinky did a great job also, but I left practice after about an hour and 45 minutes because it was Palm Sunday and I thought it was important to go to Mass.

Yes, I could have gotten up early in the morning and gone but that would have involved getting up early in the morning which I no longer have to do because:

1. I am retired from competition, and
2. I own the majority share of the company I work for.

Blinky and Ronda were running practice today and I was just along for the workout.

The first thing we did was a circuit. The first person in line does three suicides. You all know those, right? You run a third of the way down the mat, then back. Two-thirds of the way down and back. Then, all the way down and back. That's one. When you've done three, you move on to the second station. This is what Ronda calls "Raoul" , which is the name she has given to the throwing dummy, for some unknown reason. You step up on the dummy, then your other foot follows to step up also and you step down with the first foot. Remember those running drills people do for football? Well, it's like that but you have a step in between. You can see Nathan doing it in the photo above. You do this as long as it takes the person behind you to finish their three suicides and then you move on to the next station.

For touches, you stand in the middle of a mat, then move to one side of the mat and touch with your opposite hand. Take a step to the other side of the mat, touch with your other hand. You are moving your feet and twisting, building the muscles and timing you need for judo.

The fourth exercise is running on the crash pad, as fast as you can, with your knees up.

One of the things I liked about these pictures that Julia took today is they show how involved Ronda is as a coach. I think many coaches make the mistake of being non-specific, yelling "Harder! Faster!" or just standing around with a stop watch. Or, even worse, talking with other coaches, parents or other people off the mat and not even paying attention to what the athletes are doing.

The fact that she is young and has no trouble jumping in there and doing the exercises with them helps, no doubt.

After this, we did several more circuits. One of those is called 10-10-10.  Everyone starts jogging around the mat and when she yells "10!" , everyone drops down and does ten push-ups, ten sit-ups, then grabs a partner and they each do ten jumps over the other person.

As soon as everyone is done, you start jogging again.

So, this is just part of what you missed if you didn't go to practice today. There IS practice next Saturday from 2 - 6 pm and, as always, everyone is welcome. There is no practice next Sunday because it is Easter.

There are two practices the following weekend, April 30th and May 1st. Ronda and Blinky are running practice again on Sunday, May 1st. Come! It will be fun.

P.S. For those of you who were skeptical of me having a 13-year-old taking pictures for our book, I think she did a pretty credible job. These aren't the best photos as I have not had time to go through them all yet. These are just a few I pulled out at random.

P.P.S. THANK YOU to everyone who was willing to be models for pictures today. These are for the first section of the book, on physical conditioning. The second section is on technique, so, of course, we will have to come another day and take pictures for that. Thanks again. It was really appreciated.