Steve on life....: Chess Or Chest?....Mind Games and Face Shaves

Checkmate?

Enter Week 03

Tuesday (Session 05/16)

So after another killer cardio weekend with Nayan, it is back to Faisal. This week he decides to mix it up a bit by stepping up the pace...it's time for Faisal's "Kill You" Cardio (not to be confused with Nayan's Killer Cardio), a set of what is seemingly endless HITT exercises. Once everyone is suitably knackered we are back onto the drills. We are working more on our defence again, perfecting the parrying and bettering our blocks, all whilst moving and shaking, keeping our form and our power. I had some great practice with Joe who gets the need to throw realistic punches, not the simulated type which stop 2cm from your face. Those of which I am guilty of myself as I have a natural instinct NOT to punch a fellow human in the feature plate. I like to think of these friendly British punches as those I image an English Gentleman to throw as they never really land. It's all posturing.

Manly Slang From The 19th Century (Click Me)

These are mighty unhelpful, as when you have one finally land on your clock due to a poorly executed block, you are truly not prepared...and it makes you look like an idiot when you jump out of your skin and roll all over the floor! So at this point, I would like to thank Joe for well and truly trying his best (and succeeding multiple times) to crack the melon when throwing his punches. You may not be a member of British Aristocracy, but you are a great training partner.

We ended the session by being introduced to a little game call Chess (and Chest?). The premise of this game is that you occupy a single floor mat square whilst your partner occupies the adjacent square. It is then the task of the opponents to reach over and tweak one anothers nipples* as many times as they can in 60 seconds.

*actually you were supposed to see how many body shots you could score, but from my position at the end of the mats, doing 60 seconds of press ups as I didn't have a partner, this is what it looked like. We did 3x60 seconds rounds of this

We ended the session...but wait, didn't you say it ended with Chess/Chest/The Nipple Game? Well I thought it did, but it appears that as well as being a decent trainer, Faisal can run the ol'half truths as well. We ended the session with more HITT :-( It was after this and being (unbelievably) even more sweaty than the previous week that I decided that.....

....the beard had to go! It was like a tog 1,000000 duvet on my face!

.....alas, my fears were realized. Without the beard, my strange shaped head becomes more noticeable!

Thursday (Session 06/16)

This session was taken by Nayan and again provided a refresher to what we had learned so far....but not before a HITT session to rival Faisal's! These guys have a rivalry to...errm...rival Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant, except their beef is with us as the competitors and that they are tag teaming the group with their wicked workouts, each crazier than the last! Today Nayan introduced one armed press ups. Enough said.

Again, we concluded the session by playing the nipple game, except this time it went for 8 rounds of 30 seconds. It was as I was coughing up a lung after this torturous test of stamina that I realized that the total time playing the game was only 4 minutes. That is only HALF of the time of what the actual bout on fight night will be. Man, I need to step up my game. I also need to avoid punching people in the nuts (as I almost did) wildly punching at the end. It was a close call and the chap was actually pretty nice about it considering I almost committed treason by swiping at his crown jewels. In my defence, he was quite a lot taller than me and his crotch was in an elevated position. Apologies. I am done with the crotch talk now.

Saturday

(Private Session 03)

This session started pretty well. We did some good punching and moving drills until I pointed out that I found myself closing my eyes when covering (not something that is strongly advised when avoiding the rolling punches). In order to condition me not to do this, Nayan advised me that he was going to throw the flying fists of fury at me and then at random intervals show me a target for me to hit. This meant I had to always be watching behind my flimsy letterbox of defense for that open target. Again, this went well to start with up until the point of repeating the exercise more than once in a row. He would punch, I would block, I would see the target and punch. I would then be happy that I had hit said target and raise my hands with glee. He would then punch me in my now undefended stupid face. I would be sad. We then worked with something that could't punch me back, the heavy bag.

Working the bag, the routine was to cover from Nayan's stick attack (he would swot at me with a broom handle) of which I was to defend by covering and ninjaing back. I was then to spring forward and counter the hapless bag. At this point my rear leg had all but given up and if it wasn't cemented in place causing me to perform a very inelegant split routine, it was dragging behind me like one of the undead antagonists in Robert Kirkman's comic books. I was done. I finished the session deflated even in the light of Nayan's praise.

(Extra Group Session 02)

After a quick 5 minute breather it was back on for another 60 minutes of training. Over to Faisal and more cardio. This session actually lifted me somewhat as we played some more of the Nipple game and I actually managed to score a fair few points. I also managed to win us a few rounds of sprints :-)

Well, now I am caught up and I am about to head off to the 1st session of week four. At the end of this week I will be officially halfway though and most likely less than a quarter way prepared.

Thanks for reading this week's take on life

Steve

P.S You didn't think I would shave off that dirty face rug without some intermediate pictures did you?