Arkiv | KMG

Still alive!

Well… I did try to get choked out today. Yeah, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Someone chokes you until you faint. Relax mom, I was sitting on the ground and it was only for a couple of seconds, then I was up and about again.

Since we learn (and soon we’re going to teach) self defense, it’s good to know why. For example, why should you defend yourself against someone trying to choke you? ‘Cause it’ll bloody kill you gosh dang it! It takes approx 4-5 seconds before you’re out, and in that time you need to be able to make a defense.

After lunch we had the first two warm ups, by Vegard and Jannik. They’ve both went through the kids instructor course and you could tell they’re used to teach. And two warm ups right after one another sure got me sweaty enough!

We left the punches in the afternoon, and moved on to chokes (hence the choking above), working on timeline and verbal commands. There was a lot of shouting.

Get the hell away!

Come here you m*%&”#f@!(/r!

What the fuck are you looking at?!

I know where your mailbox lives, you stupid fish!

I’m gonna punch you so hard your momma ain’t gonna recognize your sorry arse, you donkey kong!

Okey, I might have taken some liberty with the phrases, but you get the gist.

In the end we did some stretching – in a couple of months we need to be able to do proper roundhouse kicks to the head, so for some (read: me) it’s time to start with a regular stretching routine.

I’m getting a bit sore in my shoulders and upper arms, and a little bit in my back as well. But it’s not too bad at the time. It’ll probably be worse tomorrow. It was nice to hear Rune saying that he’d been going easy on us for the first two days, and that we still have the hardest parts left… And okey, it hasn’t been that intense so far, but still, you’re active for so many hours – and there’s so much info to take in. The mental part takes it toll too. I’m gonna take a ”bath” in heat lotion tonight, and use Linnex as water before training tomorrow.

Nighty night, sleep tight and wake up for a fight!

I thought I’d never go to sleep last night. I was wide awake. My brain was filled with warm up drills, questioning everything I’d planned, trying to come up with new ideas or trying to decide if I should stick with what I’d written down.

I swear. I was lying in bed but I still got dizzy.. No wonder I was tired as fuck this morning. But so far the day has been quite pleasant. We did a fun warm up that really got my heart pumping (in a good way), did some repetition of the straight punch and started working on low punches and punching in advance and in retreat.

My knuckles are a bit sore and scraped as I’m trying to work on my closed fist. I’m much more used to hitting with an open palm, which is good but I need to work on being able to hit with a fist closed as well. I got to punch Dima in the stomach a lot. That was fun.

Before lunch we had a lecture on how to teach a new technique. As Rune said: ”There might be a lot of ”aha”-moments for you, as you realize why your instructors at home are doing what they’re doing”, and darn it if I didn’t think

Aha!

both once and twice and trice!

There really is a neat system behind everything – and as a system-and-control-person, well, me like!

And now we’re looking forward to the first people holding their warm ups, there were a lot of peeps wanting to give the warm ups, so we made a list. I’m number seven!

There was a nervous gang who walked to Oslo Fighting Center this morning. Well, the guys all claimed they weren’t nervous, but the silenced kind of spoke for itself.

When we met some other participants the silence broke and the chatting began. We’re 20 participants – from Sweden, Norway and Denmark. We swedes make up almost half the group (eight people) and Ingela and I are the only women. Or should I say girls? Hell no, we’re the bitches, as Markus would say. And yes Marcus, it’s still Queen Bitch.

I was pretty nervous, I’d give you that. And when I get nervous my stomach gets.. let’s call it ”bubbly”.. Since I didn’t want to miss out on anything, I spent the entire morning holding it..

We’ve covered some stuff on warm ups today, and straight punches. Whoa, there’s a whole lot of things to think about when executing a straight punch. For one, you should punch straight..

Tonight we’ve all been busy preparing our own 15 minute warm up.

Each and everyone is going to give a warm up sometime during the course, and since we’re 20 people it’s gonna be a few warm ups every day. And there’s no schedule, I don’t know if I’ll do my warm up tomorrow or on Wednesday or the last day. We just need to be ready.

And when I say 15 minutes, I mean 15 minutes. Not 14 minutes and 30 seconds. Not 15 minutes and 10 seconds. It’s 15 minutes sharp.

Giving a warm up with all the parts it should consist of it’s no problem – if I can just come up with something to finish with, it’s supposed to be kind of a fun game.. I’ve got nothing.. besides ordering everyone to pull Markus’ pants down.. – it’s dividing the time…

But yeah, like the retired people like to say

There’s a day tomorrow too..

So, the warm up is Future Emma’s problem – most is done anyway, I’ll come up with some fun game while I’m dreaming (hmmm, shaving Nima’s beard off perhaps?) – see y’all freaks tomorrow!

Well, okey. ”Ready” might be a stretch.

But we’ve got some food at least (thank you Jarmo!), we took a walk to the club so we’ll find our way tomorrow, and we finally got a bed for Dima (sleeping on the floor seemed to be an option there for a while).

Now everyone’s tucked in and it’s not even 10.30 pm. I don’t know if they all usually go to bed this early, or if it is the nerves playing around a little. One thing’s for sure – I’m looking forward to tomorrow, but yikes I’m tensed!

I’m surrounded by six crazy people (the seventh guy is in a single room right above us) – sorry, crazy FUN people, I meant. I’ve only met one of them before, but already it feels a huge family. And tomorrow we’ll meet the rest. That’s the beauty of Krav Maga. You’ll get to meet and train with so many great people. There’s no competition, no pride, we all want to learn more and help each other out.

This is gonna be great!

Time to hit the hay!

Getting a bit nervous..

Yesterday it was packing frenzy mania – I’ve got a total of 19 t-shirts, two long pants, two pairs of shorts, four hoodies, eight sports-bra’s, two pairs of indoor shoes, two pairs of outdoor shoes, one shoe deodorant bottle (we’re seven people in one room, gotta be a little nice to the roomies), two towels, bed linen, and don’t get me started on socks and underwear..

Do you know the books ”Finding Elmo”? Well, I don’t have an Elmo, but I have a cat – Trassel. Et voilà, here’s ”Finding Trassel”!

We’re three people traveling from Karlstad:

Jarmo, working a temp job as a prison chef, who (unwillingly?) was put in charge of the food for the week. He barely slept worrying about buying and storing all the groceries for eight people and ten days.

Dima, coming down from Stockholm a couple of days early because he had no idea when we were actually leaving. He barely slept worrying about packing three people and all their luggage + a fair amount of Celcius, into his small car.

And me, a former dietician who’s promised to entertain the gang and sing my own version of ”Can you help me build a snowman” (Frozen) that’s called ”Can you help me hide a body”. I slept like a baby!

After some 3D puzzle making, we’re all packed and ready to go!

Hi and hey and ho!

Welcome to my dual blog – Heartcore – where I write in Swedish about my soon-to-be-finished project A Swedish Classic, and in English about Krav Maga, and especially about my way from practitioner to instructor!

About me:

Name’s Emma, I’m 29 years old and in the spring of 2013 I went through a heart transplant. I had heart failure – no one knew why, might have been born with it, but I didn’t notice anything until I was 26, when I got really sick really fast.

In order to survive I had to be put on the waiting list and hope and wait for a call, that someday might come and save my life. There’s a shortage of organ donors in Sweden, and every week one person dies waiting for a second chance. Waiting for a life saving call.

I was lucky. I only had to wait for a little over three months before my phone rang. It was The Call. I went into surgery a couple of hours later, but didn’t wake up until after one week. My new heart wouldn’t start beating, so I was sedated for seven days – during five of them I still had my chest wide open.

But once it got started – it has not missed one beat!

Why Krav Maga?

I started training Krav Maga in Karlstad, spring of 2014. My history of training in martial art before Krav is very short, just one semester of aikido the autumn of 2013. But I’ve always wanted to try it out – in my mind it didn’t really matter what form of martial art it was, I was keen on trying everything.

I just never took the time. I was always busy training other stuff – tennis, step aerobic, group classes like body pump, box combat (that’s NOT martial art, fyi), running, cycling etc. Or traveling. I’ve lived in France for one year after high school, I spent one semester studying and traveling in Australia and New Zeeland in uni, I’ve been to China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand (twice), Singapore, India (also twice), a little around Europe, the States (LOVED it) – and recently I’ve been around a lot of Sweden as well, as part of my job.

The only time I’ve ever really been in one place and not doing much, was on the waiting list.

And I realized that I never, ever wanted to feel so vulnerable again, as I did when I was sick. I couldn’t take three quick steps. I had to rest five times walking up a flight of ten steps. Making my bed? It felt like climbing Mt Everest. Showering? Took forever, I just couldn’t keep my arms up that long.

Every time I walked (like a snail) from the bus, coming home from physiotherapy or another doctor’s appointment, I thought:

What if I get robbed? Or raped? Or killed?

An alarm and hair spray would not amount to much if I couldn’t get away fast enough.. or defend myself in some way.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not paranoid and I try to think the best of people (sometimes it’s real hard, dang it), but going from being a very active person to feeling like my body was letting me down and realizing how weak I was – it was tough.

And I thought – if I get a new heart, if I get my strength back – I will finally start training martial art! So, four-five months after my transplant I walked in to the dojo in Karlstad and joined aikido.

Aikido was fun, it got me to focus, I learned how to roll and fall and I got the hang of some really cool grips. But… when winter came and it was time to renew the membership, I hesitated. A friend of mine had told me about Krav Maga, he learned it in the military. When I googled and found out there was a KMG club in Karlstad I didn’t hesitate. I called the trainer right away and asked when they would start the semester in January.

Sign me up!

And well, I’ve never looked back! If aikido was fun, then Krav is AWESOME! I wanted something that would actually work if I got in a messed up situation, something that would make me feel a bit safer, something that would make me prepared in case that the worst would happen. Krav answered all my prayers. And more.

I never realized how much of an impact Krav would have on my life, and how much fun it is – yeah, I admit it, I absolutely love hitting people! (with protection on of course, I’m not a complete savage.. or..?)

And now here I am, about to take the GIC – it starts in two days!

You’re all very welcome to join me on this journey – from P3 to instructor, via GIC1 in Oslo, GIC2 in Scotland and GIC3 in Germany! It’s gonna be one hell of a ride, an one very intense and fun autumn!

But, let’s take this one step at a time – first out, Oslo!