When a BJJ Black Belt takes on Muay Thai... Post #2 - Leg Kicks and Patience

A lot can change in a few weeks as a newbie! 

As Erika explains, "When I first began Muay Thai in January, I felt my body and brain had so much adjusting to do, I felt silly at everything. But during this second month, I have felt my body adjusting to the soreness levels; I can actually walk properly the next day after training." She continues, "Month two I started to settle into the movement patterns a little better, my kicks feel a little less awkward, my breathing is more consistent and my upper body is SLOWLY letting go of the stress."

"Now, I am a Type-A perfectionist so this month I had to remind myself to be patient more often. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are good skills."

From gentle baby steps to the hardest leg kicks, let's jump into Erika's diary notes...

Today I got to work with Andrea as my coach! Not going to lie I was a little bit nervous because she has so much more experience than me and even a few fights under her belt for Muay Thai and boxing. But I absolutely love the way she pushed me. We were working on leg kicks that day and I kept kicking her soft. Every time she would teasingly yell at me and say, “If you aren’t kicking hard, you aren’t going to feel the movement correctly… So kick me!” Something I definitely am not used to doing.

My poor leg is absolutely destroyed from those Monday leg kicks! Luckily, we were not working leg kicks, but I definitely went into practice a little nervous not wanting anyone to get close to my sore leg. It’s funny how sometimes we can get in our own head and have a preconceived idea of how the class is going to go. I built up a fear thinking I was going to get kicked in the leg today… for nothing. Ended up no leg kicks at all! Today's lesson on and off the training floor was “don’t create stories in your mind, save your energy and stay in the moment.”

“Nothing worth having comes easy.” That’s what I told myself this morning because today I struggled a bit… the movements felt choppy and awkward. I definitely feel the improvement in my movements over all. But today I had to keep asking my partner to slow down. One punch, one leg kick at a time. Slow down Erika, it’s ok to be slow… it’s ok to not understand. I will with time and consistency." 

Today was so much fun! Andrea and I had an absolute blast with the combo… It was definitely a difficult one and what I liked was that we broke it down piece by piece. Instead of trying to memorize the whole thing from start to finish we would pick two steps at a time rep it out until we had it, and then add on a few more steps. Baby steps in for the win.

We did six minutes on the jump rope for warm-up, and I must say I successfully dodged smashing my toes! This was already a win, six minutes in. We reviewed a combo from Monday, which I really liked. I was able to have a good exchange of movement with my partner, back-and-forth, because I already understood what we were doing. It is classes like this that I’m grateful for; you really see the growth from my first month of training.

Stinking southpaw! Thank goodness for coach Yishien. Her patience was endless with me today and I’m so beyond grateful because I’m not sure if I was successful at a single combo from start to finish. We were working numbers six through 11 all southpaw and our entire private lesson I was stumbling and forgetting. Her patience really helped me stay calm with minimal frustrations.

Jumping rope is a go-to warm-up for Muay Thai athletes and Erika began jumping rope from Day 1.

Two months in and she's now jumping for six minutes continuously (yes girl!!).

Erika uses the Venum Thunder Evo Jump Rope, listed below. The full list of her training gear can be found on the first post.

Join us next month to learn how Erika's leg kicks, rope jumping and other Muay Thai skills have progressed...