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Reminiscing some more on my previous Muay Thai gym, I think I was a little hasty to call the padwork there “mediocre at best”. Now that I remember more, that was actually the best thing about the gym. It was only when my primary instructor left the gym that the padwork (done by the other instructor) drills started dipping in quality, and started becoming more about getting a cardio workout at the expense of everything else. (which was my most recent memory when I wrote my previous critique)
Its definitely still not the highest quality of padwork, but it wasn’t horrible either. My drilling on the pads transferred over nicely when I had to do hard sparring.
Anyway, here’s a video of excellent padwork:
https://youtu.be/rnXzEE3kAYw?t=460 (start at 7:40, then some more notable moments around 27:03)
To quote somebody else describing what makes this so good:
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Pay attention to how the coach doesn’t just mix up the combos and the timing of the strikes that he calls for, he also goes after the student to make them defend against a variety of attacks while continuing to move and hit back. Compare how dynamic this padwork is to the padwork shown earlier. It’s done at a very high level, but the same concepts should be incorporated at all levels of pad work.
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The padwork I did at my gym wasn’t at this level, but it was at least emulating a little bit of this. Unfortunately, that’s the only thing I can retract. every other critique I wrote (such as the bag wailing, the lack of partner drilling, and the lack of technical sparring, etc.) remains.
My worst ever experience with padwork was with a gym I only briefly attended several years ago when a fellow student held pads for me (and then I had to hold one for him too. I’m sure I did an even worse job than him).
Ideally, fellow students should never hold pads for one another, only the instructors should be holding pads. (and maybe senior students who are long-term dedicated to the school and willing to undergo the extra time and training to become skilled pad holders) Because effective padwork is a separate skill in and of itself.
Obviously this becomes less practical in a large class. degradation of instruction quality is probably unavoidable once the class is big enough. I think the only real solution here would be to not bother with padwork in a large class, but do partner drilling instead.
@yarara (and anyone else here with experience in this matter)
You have a fair amount of experience with Martial arts yourself, right? Did the padwork you do look like the one I linked? Did you do a fair amount of partner drilling and technical (light) sparring when you trained?
Anyone ever seen this movie? It’s one of the most subversive I’ve ever seen ( and I’m ready for Zionists calling me a hypocrite):
https://youtu.be/uc8NMbrW7mI?si=nS_MxmfTiRFqXkFq
I watched Dances With Wolves as a kid but I only have vague recollections of it. However, I do recall that the mainstream media pushed this movie quite strongly. The prescribed mainstream opinion was that you were supposed to like this movie and tell others how great it was. The next time a Western was pushed this hard was the subversive faggot movie Brokeback Mountain.
It’s like 3 hours long, but I’ll save u some time. Basically, Souix Indians = perfect. White American men = evil. This is a particularly disturbing scene depicting white male military men. I remember after watching this with my cousin, he said “stupid White man.”
https://youtu.be/Tpwf7dBg8Yo?si=mkpbKAr73zxLlMMy
I mean, were all Union soldiers psychopaths?? Yes, I was once 13 years old with beebe gun. And I’m not proud of how I used it.
But grown men, trained in the armed forces,
with rifles trying to kill a WOLF? I don’t think they were even intoxicated. 13 y/o GLAS would never think about shooting at a wolf, even with a beebe gun. So, what gives? White men have no souls? No morals? Yeah, this is what we do. Kill noble creatures for fun. Ya know, cause we’re white guys.
Fuck this movie.
More reconstructive architecture! 🙂 This time in the Netherlands:
https://www.facebook.com/ArchitecturalUprising/posts/pfbid02rjcreG3EgPEmKW9vKGB3H2td2KwQ2s6CDNFQAmpa4kD6s6dEpejguDFLND8KcNdKl
Happy to see this trend spreading.
The 1990s chat we had recently got me thinking about this song. It was actually played briefly in Wild Things. It’s from a Belgian group called K’s Choice. It’s clearly about addiction, but does not make a clear stand on substance abuse. This song touched me so long before I imbibed on anything.
It’s a great and deep song. The video makes me
think the artists were making a larger point than addiction alone:
…….and it would help if I linked to it 😉
https://youtu.be/JT2SsWOCoEw?si=yHuZdQf3yKZq8tcK
Wild Things equates the two main female protagonists with the forbidden fruit. There is also the related narrative aspect of the main protagonist getting accused of having sex with his students, which is apparently as much of a crime as taking heroin, with all its negative social consequences.
To be perfectly honest, I am a little jealous of my friends who have been legally admistered morphine. Like I want a fucking kidney stone.
That is the very reason why I have never tried heroin.
I’ve experienced morphine when I went under the knife for Appendicitis.
They didn’t put me to sleep, and I’m kinda glad they didn’t as it allowed me this unique experience. Absolute zero pain, the doctors were making some (really unprofessional in hindsight) less-than-flattering comments about my body (This was during my college years when I have never seriously worked out and was close to living the fattest period of my life), but I was just experience peak IDGAF right that very moment.
I hope Sleazy is ok with me making this comment, but…if I ever wanted to “rope” someday, I would try my best to find a way to get my hands on high grade heroin (or Nitrous Oxide/Laughing gas, which I’ve heard may potentially be even better for facilitating a painfree and euphoric “demise”) to OD on.
Dark territory, but yes I can relate. Hell, two wars were fought so the Brits could sell Opium to the Chinese.
Am I the only one who thinks the pandemic could have been a great opportunity for societal overhaul? with many fundamental (or rather, what we *thought* of as fundamental. Before COVID, remote/at-home work was less common if I’m not mistaken. Turns out you don’t need to force people to waste time dawdling in offices to get important work done.) processes being forcibly paused, this could have been the opportunity for societal to rehaul many of these processes. The 9-5 and the mainstream schooling/education system are primarily what comes to mind.
Instead, at least with my country, they just seemed to double down on the flawed processes. Like, instead of making education more efficient, they instead made elementary/high school students spend the amount of time they usually spend in school, spent instead with their eyes glued to their laptops and asses glued to the computer chair for hours on end. what in the holy hell does this accomplish?
I’m glad I graduated college before the pandemic hit, but I felt so sorry for the poor students of my country that essentially had to take the abusive schooling system into their homes. I witnessed my stepsis go through this herself. Instead of the school authorities finally using this opportunity to make a very necessary rehaul of our schooling system, they instead chose to keep perpetuating the system that has kept this country near the bottom of the food chain.
Making all students undertake a reasonably designed fitness and nutrition program, almost like what I was doing in my 1 and a half year stay at my grandfather’s dieting, lifting weights, and doing Muay Thai (alternatives could be provided of course for other physical interests/passions), etc. would have been infinitely more productive than the above BS. Probably would have brought the population health and strength (potential manpower) of this country up considerably.
I think a big problem is that bureaucrats are more interested in perpetuation the system as it is rather than change it. It would be great had there been fundamental changes but in the end there are too many people with a vested interest in certain institutions remaining the way they are. On that note, I am quite curious how Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency will work out. Someone external with the authority to enforce change could have quite an impact. Internal change in an organization, probably any organization, is difficult to impossible.
Achieving change from within an organization is quite hard. It can be done from the top, though, if the leader is able and willing.
Look into how James R. McDonough turned the Florida Department of Corrections from a softball-obsessed (!) den of drug abuse, corruption, and prisoner abuse into a professional organization