Weaving vacation

It's been a bit of a weaving week for me.  Since I finished my time sensitive project, I've been spending some time with my tablet weaving.  I've finished three bands and discovered a few things.  While wool is sticky, it makes a wonderful band.  If I was actually going to sew the band onto something, I'd probably use wool.  Links will take you to the ravelry project page for each band.

wool band, ivy pattern.  

 wool band, modified dancer to make it wider.  Had a bit of trouble with this one, so it's a bit shorter.

Cotton band, hard to see but it's a star of david pattern.

On the other end of the spectrum, I think I either bruised or cracked something in my foot at Krav last night.  I landed a bad kick and jammed my toe.  Made it through the rest of class without a problem, but today it hurts (aches) when I walk and there are some sensitive points on the top of the foot.  Krav is the one time when I wish my genetics didn't include a big toe that is shorter than my second toe.  Makes it much easier to catch my toe if I don't land a perfect kick.

Boxing Gloves

If you're a woman with smaller hands, finding boxing gloves that fit can be a bit of an issue. There are lots of pink gloves out there, but I found that most of them are exactly the same as the men's with the exception of the color.

I did a lot of searching and found two companies that are for women by women.  One focuses exclusively on boxing while the other has more of a MMA focus.  What I couldn't find was independent online reviews of the different gloves and ended up choosing sort of randomly.

I went with Machina.  They're not the pretty purple ones I was looking at, but black isn't all that bad.  The website has very clear recommendations for hand sizes that fit their gloves.  They even show you how to measure your hand.  They include the best uses for each glove weight so you aren't left guessing if you need a 10 oz, 12 oz or 14 oz glove.  (I ended up with the 14 oz, as the extra padding is recommended for sparring).  They ship quickly and via UPS so it wasn't that expensive.

Those were all my reasons for choosing them prior to getting my gloves.  They came today and I can safely say I'm even more impressed.  First, they're boxing gloves.  They are meant to hit things with.  Despite this fact, they came in a solid box, wrapped in plastic, then bubble wrap and finally a layer of tissue paper.  I tried them on without hand wraps. Yes, I know if you're going to hit something, you should wear them.  Keep in mind that we only wear the gloves so we don't kill our partners.  Krav Maga is meant to be a method of street fighting and no one walks around with their hands wrapped.  They fit well without the wraps, my fingers and thumb resting solidly within the glove.  No sliding around, no fingers not reaching to the finger area.  I decided to wrap my hands and give them another try.  They fit perfectly with the wraps on, even a bit tight, so would be perfect for boxing.

I won't get to spar with them until next week, but I'll let you know how that goes.

Oh, just to prove I still knit:

I finally knit a clapotis.

I suck at boxing

It's a good thing the guys in my Krav class watch out for me, because I really suck at boxing.  In my defense, I was boxing without my glasses or gloves that fit properly.  For those who don't know me, I'm pretty blind without my glasses.  I took more than one hit to the face today.  It was a good test for my new mouth guard.  I'm happy to say it worked better than I expected and does help cushion blows to other parts of the face.  I got a LoPro+ women's mouth guard.  Yes, it's pink, but it was easy to fit to my mouth and it really does fit well.  I wish I had put it on when we were doing bear hugs tonight, I took an elbow or two to the jaw because I'm shorter than the guys in class and they just didn't realize my head would be so close.  I have a two types of contacts coming in for me to try.  I either need to switch to contacts or sports goggles for Krav.  Even the unbreakable glasses are getting dangerous.

And yes, I still love it.

I'm a woman, I need my own gear

I never hit the button on the purple gloves.  I was having trouble with shipping via USPS costing over $20 for a pair of 14 ounce boxing gloves and a pair of MMA gloves.  Not to mention, an "online" message was never answered.  So I continued to search for gloves and gear.
I just ordered a pair of boxing gloves tonight.  Not purple, not even pink, but they were reasonably priced, created for a woman's hand and shipping was only $8.  They even have a range of hand measurements they recommend the gloves for.
I also found a boil and bite mouth guard made for us girls.  Bought it and some wraps off Amazon, though I'm not sure I'll ever use the wraps. Wraps are for keeping you from breaking your hand if you throw a bad punch, but you don't have time to wrap your hand before a street fight, so you better learn to not throw a bad punch.
I didn't order the new MMA gloves.  Found a pair with a long wrist wrap to help protect your wrist, but I don't know how/if it will decrease my ability to use my hands for other things besides punching.

Can't wait for my gear to get here.  I did some boxing tonight, though it was mostly me chasing around one of the more energetic younger members of the class to work on my footwork since I didn't have a mouth guard in.

Back on the mats

Okay, almost a year this time.  I seem to have a yearly cycle where I get sick of facebook and don't want to post too much there.

I'm five months out from my shoulder surgery.  I was originally told I could return to Krav at six months, but I've been doing so well that my surgeon actually released me for Krav a month ago.  Why did I wait the four weeks?  Well, I couldn't do a push up without it hurting at that time and you do a lot of push ups in Krav.

So I've been back a week.  I've discovered that the bond between classmates doesn't dissolve over a five month absence.  I've also discovered that no matter how much strength training and bike riding you do, it's not enough to keep you in shape for Krav.  Yes, I'm very, very, very sore right now.  My quads are not happy with me and I may have torn something in my left one today during drills.

I tested up to Level 1 just before I went out for surgery, so this has been my first week of level one skills.  How cool is it to go back to a class where the top three moves are hit the groin, gouge the eyes and bite the neck?  This is why I love Krav.  No bull, no rules, just doing what you need to survive.  Level one is when we start sparring, so I've started looking for gear.  I found purple boxing gloves, can't wait to order them!