1000 Knees 1000 Teeps New Challenges
I’ve been obsessing with knees, the clinch, and Muay Khao style for quite a bit. I even made a video analysis on 2 of the RWS fights in the past month that were won via Muay Khao clinches:
I came across Sylvie’s 1000 knees 1000 teeps challenge article and video dedicated to Langsuan. I’ve been keeping up with my fitness throughout November and December. My weight do juggle around between the holidays, but nothing too excessive as I like to stay in shape rather than get back into shape.
I did want to keep my cardio up in tip top shape and want to test where I’m at. I’ve done quite a bit of S&C during November. I did a 8 KM jog in the morning on December 3 around the lake before I had to run some desk job errand from noon to evening. I don’t like being too sedentary so I decided why not off balance this day by starting off on the 1000 kicks 1000 knees challenge. I mess my count up but I think I did a bit over 500 and 500 on each side and it took about half an hour.
On December 4, I jog around to buy a few things (new lock for my locker as I have to have the other one cut open because I lock the key in by accident) and decided to try 1000 knees and 1000 teeps right off the bat. I did it and got 1000 (next time I’m putting vaseline on my knee since it gets cut from the abrasion slipping over time). That probably took an hour for me. I did some lock lifts in the evening.
On December 5, I just shadowboxed 500 knees and 500 teeps as I’m quite sore. To give my knee a break on Friday, I did 500 kicks and 500 teeps instead in accumulation while I was working my hands on the body snatcher bag at the gym.
I ended the challenge at Day 4 on Friday as I decided to try and check my benchmarks and other metrics after I got an Oura ring. I ended up deciding to use it to test whatever I throw at it and see what benchmarks it comes up for me as well as catch on a few administrative work that I’ve been leaving off for a while.
Takeaway
1000 knees 1000 teeps is very doable. I was glad I started the challenge even though I failed in a few days juggling with many items. It gave me a little test to get my feet wet and see where I’m at even if I fail, I can pick this back up at a later time once my mind and scheduling is ready to come back for it.
At some point, the challenge feels more like a rhythm/relaxation thing since you’re basically learning to relax in the work in automation in order to hit those high numbers. Thinking 1000 is a lot. Breaking it down to 100/100 a leg for 5 rounds sounds more manageable (especially if you’ve done 100/100 kicks before). I generally do 50/50 at the start and end of a session comfortably. It makes it more comforting.
What I like about being able to throw teeps whenever I can is that I know I won’t fear fatigue when I need to make distance with my teep and be able to throw it whenever I can. Same goes for knees if you want to be a Muay Khao fighter. Teeps in general are more of my bread and butter.
Mentality wise despite liking analyzing the Muay Khao who will outwork all the other styles of Muay Thai, I find myself more on the spectrum of wanting to out think my opponent. If I don’t have my knees, I have my kicks. If I don’t have my kicks I still have my hands and clinch. I have my angles. I have my teeps. I have all the tools available to me, but mainly I have my brain. With that kind of mentality, I think the Muay Femui style is what suits me best. Maybe if I was still an angry teenager that rely on relentless pursuit of effort no matter the cost, it’d probably suit me, but I like to find the best optimal solution. Especially in my later life where I like to try and think like an engineer and all of the variables and all of the positions.
Despite that, I still think it’s a nice tool to include when the time is right and fine tune because it is better to have something in your arsenal and not need it than to need something and not have it. I do believe we mustn’t forget the wisdom and fine tune details that the golden era provide to us, but shouldn’t forget about modern tools and science that today have brought to us as well because there are some very useful knowledge and insights that become lost that were very useful if we don’t preserve them.
New tasks
On the day I choose to end the 1000 knees/1000 teeps challenge, I enrolled in a breathing study and got an Oura ring to monitor many fitness metrics. I had a Whoop 4 before (it got in the way of my training so I stopped using it as it keeps telling me to rest). I feel like Oura didn’t do that so I quite enjoy my Oura. Of course with both, I felt like my sleep needs a bit of work now that I got insights on them. I like the accuracy of the Oura ring sensors and how it doesn’t fly off my wrist or fail to measure my metrics when hitting things (I am concern about long term with punching mitts with a ring under my handwrap but I shall see).
For now I’m going to throw various varieties of activities throughout December and see how Oura handles processing them and see what my baseline is. Another unfortunate thing about the 1000 knees/1000 teeps challenge were there were times I have to choose between spending an hour throwing volumes after volumes of strikes on the bag OR do some portfolio building and other errands. It became something that could interfere some current chores and responsibilities I needed to do at the time.
I do not fear fatigue, but I need to do something that will get me somewhere (although doing 1000 knees/1000 teeps can set me up pretty well for future endeavors).
Future Goals
- Optimize my and find my benchmark on my sleep schedule so I don’t under-recover (I don’t exactly believe in the hard rest do nothing because you’re overtrained approach)
- Try to continue on my portfolio building so I can fund myself for my next trips
- Do my breathing study clinical trial and learn a bit more about my body
- Always stay in shape and stay ready so I don’t have to get ready