Working, travelling, socializing even training in most of the cases, especially in big cities, happens in some sort of complex buildings. Buildings or closed spaces like; fully equipped offices, comfortable cars, trains, coaches, coffee shops, restaurants, all those super convenient gyms etc...
In my very tight schedule I do spend a lot of time driving and travelling. I get connected to WiFi whenever I can at all sorts of coffee shops and restaurants. As well as I like my gym to be available whenever i want, so I can do my workout with all sorts of equipment in one place, fallowed up by sauna session and nice cold shower. It is all very comfy.
One great habit I have grown for over 15 years of my life, is that I do start and often finish my day with bit of run around the blocks. With no matter of the weather ( unless extremely heavy rain :-). I do hit the road every day. Hot, cold, snowing or raining. Nothing does stop me, it is my routine.
If I have to start my day earlier, I will also get up earlier to fit my routine in.
To make most of the summer, I do try to follow up my morning run by various of workouts in the local park as I have mentioned in some of my recent posts ( "Resistance bands", "Skipping rope" ) .
Due to the summer break at schools, some of our GMMA Academy activities have stopped too. We decided to fill that gap, just like we did last year, with some outdoor practice, till our Gukwoone classes in Hambrough Primary school start back again in September.
Plan is simple: meeting up every Thursday outside the gym where we do our regular GuruMuayThai classes at quarter to seven. Then take a fifteen minutes walk to one of the most beautiful landmarks of West London: Holland Park.
The idea of this kind of practice is more of a social event, rather than "push over the limit" kind of training. It is more of a sharing and developing our skills and passion of MuayThai/Martial arts,while spending some quality time with great, like minded people. The biggest bonus of all that, is being out in the fresh air, surrounded by peaceful nature.
Yesterday, was the very first of our GMMA outdoor practice Thursdays. Weather seemed to be OK for most of the day. A bit cloudy with few drizzles in the afternoon. But nothing that would scare us and give us reason to postpone the event. Till quarter of an hour before the meeting time. Right when me and one of my team mates Fillip have just turned up, rain would pour down heavily.
Oh well.
We are a team of doers, "The Winners Team", we wouldn't back off. Instead of finding excuses we always look for the solutions, as the winners do. So we have decided to move into the car park of the shopping centre that the gym belongs to.
Dry floor, roof over the head and quite bit of free space, gave us really good alternative.
Not much of a grass, trees and birds environment ( apart of few pigeons also hiding from the rain ). But still, we were already there determined to make most of it.
We haven't brought much of equipment along. Just dressed up in outdoor training kit, with pair of boxing gloves, hand wraps, gum shields and skipping ropes in our gym bags.
Starting up steady, jogging back and forward with some exercises in between on about fifty metres length. Slowly getting the blood flowing faster. We would get to the point when we would put in an element of challenge, which was: ten, fifty metres races. That would get us warm enough to put in quick full body stretch.
Then with boxing gloves on we would partner up and in sparring mood we would go through some boxing techniques on one side and ducking and waving on the other. Similar workouts with kicking and avoiding as well as mixed kicking and punching together. All that would be timed up by two minute rounds with thirty seconds breaks and changes of partners every two rounds. Before the start of each round we would give fifty of quick punches, glove to glove. Or ten left and ten right quick kicks each, also using the gloves as a pads. Then we would move to light contact sparring, one round with each person. Finishing off with clinching sparring. We would all agree that it is amazing how time flies and how much you when you actually enjoy yourself and put yourself in slightly different environment than usually.
Hopefully next week is going to be sunny so we can enjoy even more in the park.
www.GMMA.co.uk
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Krystian Ozog
Fighter/Instructor, GMMA Academy       |
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