Martial Vitality

Since returning to the martial arts in January 2016, I haven't suffered any serious breaks in training -- until this month. I wanted to share what has happened and how I've been coping with it. During the month of March (thus far, with only one week to go) I've only attended one regular Jiu-Jitsu class and one regular Krav Maga class. I usually attend 3-4 classes of each art per week. What happened? The first half of the month, I was managing a back injury. I suffered some strained muscles performing an awkward throw in Jiu-Jitsu with a partner who weighed at least 40 lbs more than me. I felt it the next day and I realized it would be a problem. The back injury caused me to evaluate how I would spend my time preparing for my Krav Maga Global P5 test . I attended one Krav Maga class 5 days prior to the test, but did no other exercise. The day before the test I had planned to participate in another 3-4 hour Jiu-Jitsu blue belt preparation class. However, I only watched and to

Sunday I successfully passed my Practitioner 5 ("P5") test within the Krav Maga Global system. I last tested for P4 in September 2017 . I wanted to share a few thoughts on how the test went. If you review the  krav maga topic link on this blog  you will find many posts about my training and philosophy. I started training in the Krav Maga Global system at First Defense Krav Maga in January 2016. My 2016 year in review and 2017 year in review posts document my Krav Maga training journey. Thus far I am 5-for-5 with passing scores, having tested roughly every 6 months since starting at the school. The one exception was my P1 test, which occurred in April 2016, 4 months after I began training. There were 5 people testing for P5, and we were the senior students. No one tested for Graduate ("G") ranks that day. As you can see in the picture below, we had a great turnout for ranks P1-P5. My partner was Josh, in the short-sleeved shirt in the top photo. Josh was the MVP