Supples’ Pub

(Note: My fingers are just fine, they just look mangled because they are freakishly long and bend in weird ways)

The first class of Krav Maga went well. Waking this morning wasn’t painful, and oddly enough the only part of me that feels off is my hands. My fingers feel weak, likely from my forearm muscles, which I can only attribute to them being strongly clenched for the better part of an hour last night. Most of the rest of my muscles feel like I had a decent total body workout last night, but no one area is worse off than another.

Not having ever participated in martial arts or any organized physical activity really (no sports, only lifting), I was curious to see how the class would be structured.

We started off with a good warmup, mixing cardio & muscle-usage. Not having devoted significant time to cardo lately, this seriously kicked my ass. It did its job though, as afterward I felt warmed and loosened up. Within a minute or so I didn’t feel winded anymore.

The first order of the day was punching, starting just practicing technique and then pairing off with rectangular pads to be held in front of the chest. I was the odd-man out for the class, but got my share of licks in. I need to remember to bring my hands back to my face.

Next up was palm strikes - same concept as punching except with your fingers straight out and impacting with your palm. You’ve got to rotate your arm slightly counter-clockwise (middle finger pointing to about 10-11 o-clock) to minimize chance of injury, it aligns your forearm bones better with your upper-arm & shoulder. Again I need to remember to bring my hands back to my face.

Head butts followed - these are not pleasant and I don’t really care for them, but at least I’ve learned & will practice proper technique so that if the shit hits the fan, I don’t break my neck head butting someone.

Kneeing was mixed in there somewhere, which was fun but we didn’t have the proper pads to practice this on our partners - technique only.

The remainder of the class was spent on breaking choke holds. We started with the specific aspect of breaking the hold & quickly striking back, but progressed to a full-on retaliation. My favorite part of this was when one person was constantly punching the pads while a third circled and randomly "attacked" with a choke - you broke the attack, repelled the attacker, and got back to punching at full intensity. The final 5 minutes were spent with four of the nine attendees holding a water bottle, symbolizing a glass one might have in their hands at a bar, while the other five randomly attacked - emphasizing improvisation and attacking even though one hand may be holding something.

All in all very fun, great exercise, and wholly practical. I assume once the class becomes proficient in all the basic techniques (this was only the 3rd class held in Raleigh), we’ll move on to application and scenarios. Krav Maga training is famous for real world simulations, with sensory disruptions like low light, flashing light, loud noises, etc while facing off against multiple attackers, etc and emphasizing a high degree of situational awareness.