RingoWhat follows is a detailing of my attempts to train for one specific fight as opposed the general training bohurt usually takes. Spoilers, Split Squats suck, I’m bad at following directions, and also ground fighting without grips is not fun. To fill in some context back in December I challenged my bro Alexander Rosenthal-Rashi, AKA Bear to a hybrid Knight Fight/ProFight to take place sometime after international borders reopened. In yet another one of my attempts to create projects well beyond my capabilities to finish, I presented it as a way we could both document our training to show the community. We both are slightly known in the community and have small internet pressences. We are each vets with a bunch of experience and an analytical eye towards fighting and training. It felt like by committing to this we would be able to create a useful guide for people trying to figure out how to plan their training.
Cut to April and it’s been three months and I’ve produced absolutely nothing documenting the process. WHOOPS. So uh what have I been doing in that time? Well to start with I wanted to get some outside feedback. Most of my training and fighting has been done at the Knights Hall. Due to constant exposure to each other I was worried about some plateauing in regards to coaching. So I reached out to Beth Hammer who helped coach/train the USA HMB women’s team last BOTN to help me design a new training program.
Our original plan was to touch base every few weeks but that fell by the wayside with life being very complicated. I didn’t make effective planning for the reality of covid and how hard it would be to build a consistent schedule. A big weakness of mine is my ADD which makes building habits, finding time, and keeping up on tasks extra hard. This was not a weakness I thought would affect my training, but that’s because I’ve had the crutch of a gym that does set times and classes to build a schedule around for years. Building my own and finding time to review my stuff and touch base with a coach has been extremely hard.
That said we did manage to review a few fights of mine and Beth had some excellent notes that I’ve been struggling to put into work in training. She also gave me a variety of drills to add to my normal routine and lifting routine as well. There will be more on the details of that in a video(or possibly not, see my above note about ADD) but for now I want to focus on the process over the details.
In the first couple of weeks I really just focused on getting into the gym. Between the Knights Hall Gym and the gym I have access to at work I was lucky enough to not only have access to a huge variety of equipment and places where I could work out without having to worry about crowds of people. I went basically 3 times a week, did my lifts, and in between sets some minor pell work. For that first month I did no film study, no armor training, and no sparring.
In Feb I felt comfortable expanding things. After coming back from not really training hard I’ve injured myself multiple times from trying to get back into the same work too fast. It’s a super common problem from what I’ve seen and read. For me personally as well, I need to build the habit so that going to training isn’t an activity that drains me mentally. I only have so much “discipline muscle” for lack of better work. Or maybe Grit fits. I’ve found that after I build a habit, it’s much easier for me to slowly progressively add work to it. Also when I try to start multiple habits at once they all fail.
I now felt I had the foundation to add, so I did. Every work out session I did between 20 minutes to 40 minutes of bag work, using the app INSERT APP HERE. I would often do these as schifinos so that in my rest I was doing some form of work, primarily kicking, but also Planks, squats, boats, sit ups, etc. I also started attending classes again at the hall occasionally making a sparring class. I also set up some time to Wrestle with my Metamor Jason.
In this time some of my lifts were doing fine and others weren’t. This was my first time using a variable reps scheme and many of the lifts I have no experience with. I also never had a spotter/ in person trainer I could use to set 1 rep max to build off of, so I was dialing in my lifts in each time. That… is not ideal. Multiple times I’ve either barely felt the work at the end of a lift or ended up not even coming close to completing reps in each set. Through Feb my deadlift stayed too light, my tricep pushdowns and extensions stayed too heavy, and I never managed to dial in my Dumbell row.
When I got back into sparring I realized I had lost so much in time off. For the most part we are doing single hit with battle gear at the hall and before the break this was a thing I was one of top at the hall at due to my time in the SCA. Time off always rusts reflexes but it was shocking how far I had fallen behind. I decide to try focusing more on cardio and movement though than rebuilding reflexes that were only somewhat transferable. Every sparring night I would spend all the time not fighting doing a shuffle or bounce to keep my heart rate up and in every bout I tried to constantly stay moving and work combos I needed help on, including leading shield punch and spinning sword side to land a back fist with the shield. I have never pulled it off in a fight but I feel if it lands it’s gonna rock someone as much as pole shot.
With Wrestling I wanted to focus primarily on a skill we’ve neglected alot. Ground fighting. We did a modified Mongolian wrestling where instead of ending when one person fell, we would continue for a few seconds to see if the top person could establish control and land soft shots indicating opening guard. We also added in light striking simply to keep aware of needing to strike in the clinch. Both these additions to the usually Mongolian wrestling opened alot of mental doors into things I’ve been neglecting and opportunities I didn’t know. Most importantly it became clear how hard it is to fight from the ground without trying some sort of Guard Pull or similar grappling. Trying to stand back up through striking or strike back after being taken down is very hard. And if down fighter wants to turtle finding good targets is not easy.
By March I felt firmly established in my routine and began adding in more supplemental work outs. Attended a knight fit, added some kettle bell routines, and started bringing my battle gear to the gym to strike the bag. Managed to start studying the limited tape of Bear I could find. I also finally began getting a handle on weight and increasing my lifts.
This exposed a real problem. My right side is fucked. My right shoulder is not stable when doing over head presses and is constantly sore, possibly due to a minor tear that never healed right. By the end of the month I could barely lift it without intense pain. Similarly my right Knee has massive swelling on the upper inside and some pain that might indicate a torn meniscus. My ankle is also weak as hell, probably due to the amount of times I’ve sprained it. I didn’t realize the lack of stability in it till doing split squats getting towards #100. I kept leaning to the right and struggling to keep my balance. My foot rarely makes firm contact with the ground when pushing up.
I have to find a decent Ortho to look at these problems but am struggling due to my PCP continually recommending me to specialist for old people with arthritis, which I may have, but they seem to not understand the desire to reach optimal performance vs just get by. In the mean time I’ve been trying to step up my yoga and am trying to roll out with Lacross balls for my shoulder every day and foam rollers after each work out. It’s definitely reduced the pain and improved mobility but I have a ways to go.
I got 1 armored fights in during Feb, that I felt ok in, but was only three 1 minute rounds in longsword. Not a great test. At the end of March we did an Armored Grappling practice for the hall and I managed to get few rounds of sword and buckler knight fight style. The results were not good. My movements are predictable and I was telegraphing level changes from range causing me to walk into strikes. My defense against shield punches was more than a half second late. All my strikes were sloppy and sluggish.
Halfway through April there’s alot to focus on. Upping my cardio, really focusing on controlling my movement and the pace of the fight, lots of partial armor work to get back to armor fit. It’s too soon to really start working towards this specific fight sparring as I’m still building base, but lots of sparring will be needed. Putting it all together will be difficult and I’m sure there are things I’m not thinking of at the moment.