Week 4 Diary from Mark Lajhner

10.04.2006. Monday

I rested the entire day.

11.04.2006. Tuesday

11.00 Muay Thai

Samingum said that this week we will concentrate on the bag work rather than the pads.
He says that the bag will strengthen our shins which cannot be achieved with soft pads.

My kicks are getting better.

17.00 MMA

We practiced takedowns from boxing and takedown defenses (framing, sprawling, and wizard gripping).
Besam Josef helped me with boxing. He constantly reminded me to keep my guard high, chin down and to receive blows to the guard, not to the face.

After the practice I went to take a look at the apartment in Hisingen.
The place is ok but I would prefer something closer to the Fighter Center.

12.04.2006. Wednesday

15.30. Running and weightlifting

After running 10 times up the hill we proceeded to lift weights.
The routine was the same as previous session.

17.00. SW

SW was next. Martin Janson wanted me to show some Judo throws which I gladly did.
I showed two throws. The first one was the basic hip throw (uki-goshi) and the second was the variation of the inside trip (ouchi-gari) which Karo Parisyan uses for MMA and SW purposes.

Than Martin showed us some sweeps and finishes from the arm across the chest position. We also did situational sparring which was good because we were put into various situations where we had to either attack or defend.

13.04.2006. Thursday

11.00 Boxing

This time we were coached by August because both Stig Storm and Samingum were sick.
The training consisted of technical and conditioning part and the last one took many people by surprise because they were not used to the grueling conditioning work August puts us through.

17.00 MMA

The training consisted of some boxing and a lot of G’N’P practice.
At the end we did those brutal plate and dumbbells conditioning exercises which I consider hardest of all.
But not today. I ran through them and was felling very good afterwards.
G’N’P with full power came last.

14.04.2006. Friday

I decided to rest the entire day because of the weekend’s upcoming sparring camp.

Andreas Bruzelius showed me his apartment which he wants to rent and I’ll probably move in there.
It’s in Majorna and only one tram stop away from my current accommodation.

Ever since I arrived in Gothenburg I haven’t found the time to see the centre of the city.
My perception of Gothenburg consisted of 4 tram stops from Stigbergstorget to Vasaviktoriagaten and back.

I decided to use this resting day to visit the centre and the friend I’m living with showed me around.
I was in Avenyn, Kungsportsplatsen and Brunnsparken.

It was a sunny day and I enjoyed walking around the centre.

15.04.2006. Saturday

10.00 Sparring camp – Day 1

Unlike last weekend this time there weren’t so many people present, probably because of the Easter.
But there were more than enough to have a good training.

We rolled, boxed and wrestled in a cage. I wrestled with Kristian Lexell and Klas Åkesson. This time Kristian was harder to take down and Klas used to train Judo so we had good wrestling sparring.

We only had one 2 hour session so I used the rest of the day to walk around the centre and go to a shopping mall.

16.04.2006. Sunday

10.00 Sparring camp – Day 2

I warmed up lightly and then boxed with Kristian and Klas. They didn’t go very hard on me but when they boxed the blows were much harder.

I had one round of MMA sparring with Jens Östling and three rounds with August.
Again I got dominated by August and even when I managed to throw him he got on top of me and hit and submitted me.

After the sparring was over August explained finer points of some submissions which I really wanted to know.

Too bad Åke Bergvall and Thomas Valentin weren’t present at the camp this weekend because both of them are very good fighters and sparring with them would be a great learning experience.

17.00 MMA

In the afternoon we had a regular MMA class instead of the second 2 hour session of the sparring camp.
We worked on boxing, clinch fighting, ground fighting with punches and conditioning.

I was very tired when it was all over.