Dont forget the Feet

I know, for myself, I am usually paying attention to sore muscles in my arms, legs and back and try and make massages a regular practice for preventative maintenance. Feet seem to always get forgotten.
We should approach healthy muscles from the ground up. All our weight is supported by our feet and we rely on them for power and stability in our applications and further, if you run on a regular basis they take an additional pounding.
Here's a tip that’s easy to do and feels good.
Find yourself a tennis ball or something of the same size and firmness. While your sitting in a chair roll it underneath your foot to loosen up and relieve the tension in all areas including the toes. Pretty simple but if you don’t keep the tennis ball handy you never remember to do it until your feet start to feel sore.
Once again, keeping proactive about your health is far better than reactive. It takes time and planning but worth it when tired muscles are your only problem not major injuries.

JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Canada

Focus

Whats the opposite of focus? unfocus? the anti-focus, focuslessness?

For me, its distraction.
Distraction appears to be something around you that manipulates your attention, even if its only a fraction of your attention, its enough that I have not put 100% of my thoughts into what I am doing.
I used to think distraction was in the form of outside influences, noise, people, unfamiliar settings, etc. Truth is, its what goes on inside our heads…this is the pure distraction.
If I have the ability to tune out external activity this is one level of focus. The next level is to turn off other thoughts within my mind and give full attention to what it is I am dealing with.
Sounds simple, but this is probably the most difficult skill I have ever tried to master.
We as a society push for, and admire, the gift of multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is a great skill so long as each task is still accomplished with the quality it deserves. When our minds become accustomed to trying to accomplish more than one thing at a time it becomes difficult to turn other thoughts off and only deal with one thought.
Even as I write this blog, I have had to delete some sentences because I start running off into another topic that leads from one thought to the next and ends up having nothing to do with my point.
So, for me, my challenge is keeping my mind on the task at hand. I cannot control the external distractions but I have the ability to control or at least work on the skill of controlling the internal distractions.

Internal distrations, better known as a busy and wandering mind.

JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canad

Training Smart

Structure is great but be careful of becoming too caught up in the structure that your workouts and practices either become identical or have no room for change to address something you would like to improve on or discovered you need improvement on.
It is easy to get into the “going through the motions “ to satisfy a structured plan.
For example I need to complete 100 push ups, run 2 km, 50 round house kicks and 4 forms.
If the focus is to complete your structured training(get through the hour) you can easily get lost in the numbers.
Ask yourself why you want to complete your training.

Is there something in the form that I am not sure about or doesn’t feel right? Should I slow down a feel what is happening when I train. Why run 2 km? Should I time myself when I run to see if I am progressing with my cardio? What muscles make the push up happen?
Was my first roundhouse as strong as my last one, what about the other leg?
Etc, etc.

Put purpose in your training so its not just about accumulating.
I only say this because for years, long before kung fu, I would go to the gym and workout and not really know what I did. I put hours on treadmills and barbells but cant really tell you what happened while I was there. I was a master of mindless training.
Even a simple exercise in the gym should be something you are engaged with., if I would have engaged myself with a goal and a purpose I could have trained with more efficient results back then.
The point is, don’t turn off the brain just because you went down for pushups or start hitting the bag. This is when you need full focus and listen to what your body is telling you so you can look for ways to improve, especially over a shorter period of time.
Focus, measuring improvement and challenging yourself will bring you to another level with the most efficiency.
So train hard but train smart…and don’t forget about the recovery time!

JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada

the goal of Quality

It seems the measure of success has shifted or maybe we have added another criteria to the definition of success.
Success in our society (North America) is measured by money and power, from what I see, we also measure our success by how busy we are.
It starts by trying to accomplish as much as you can, keeping yourself moving from one task to the next. We even start our children down this busy schedule plan by bringing them from one activity to the next.( Soccer, swimming music lessons,hockey ).I think we have been duped into believing more must be better.
If I am really busy, my family is busy every night, we have commitments every weekend then we must be accomplishing something , I must be doing the right thing??
Maybe, but I feel at some point we start losing the battle,our ability to put quality into everything we do starts to diminish. It is very easy for my life to become a numbers game. A giant “to do” list. Full of deadlines and tasks and too many goals. Even if my goals are with the right intent to better my world, my family, my community, I feel too much can have the opposite effect.
I start to compromise the quality that goes into each goal, task, word and thought. Time is not flexible, I cannot change time. I can only change what is a priority in my life and if I want the most out of my priorities I need to assess the amount of time each priority requires to be absolute in my efforts. If being a person of substance and depth is a priority for myself everything I do must have quality to it. No more ridiculous lists. I have to change them into realistic, obtainable priorities, some of which will take a lifetime to see through but I think I am OK with that.
I was reading an article, the author( Leo Babauta) put forward a thought which made me stop and think. He wrote something to this effect “…what if we truly believed our lives were perfect, no need to lose weight, no need for bigger muscles, no need to run faster, look prettier, no need for a bigger house, car, no need for more stuff and merchandise…life was perfect. If we could for a moment enjoy what we were and what we had the stress of trying to do more would disappear, we could just enjoy the “right now” and peace would at last be ours. We could spend more time helping others instead of trying to make ourselves better. If we decided to accomplish something more it would only be a bonus to our already perfect lives…we were good enough right now…”
Interesting, the author was trying to put forward the concept of quality in your life and the ability to enjoy the present as opposed to always focusing on what you have to do next. I think a person needs to stop living to serve the goals but have the goals serve the person.

JC Msterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada

The Colour Blue

This week I had the pleasure of watching some students receive their Blue belt. They worked hard for it and I am happy for them.

The blue belt rank has and always will me something extra to me. For me, it is when I realized I was in a martial arts school.

Where was I before that...coasting. I admit it. I was telling a student last night how I admired this group because I could tell they practiced and put thought into their curriculum.

I, on the other hand, don't recall much before my Blue belt. I was good at memorizing and got by on just that. It was Blue belt when my eyes were opened to my own potential. I attended every class just to make up for lost time and lack of understanding of what I was really doing or even answer what I was trying to achieve.

Of course everyones journey through the coloured belts is different but for me,the Blue Belt was always the one where the rubber hit the pavement.

My only thoughts to offer, don't wait until your Blue belt to really apply yourself but if that's not the case then there is no time better than now.

JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada

I have been reading a book about Zen. Actually it’s a comic book series, this one is called “Zen for Beginners” and I think this is my third attempt to read through the whole thing.(I would have never made it through University).

Anyways, one chapter had a piece in it that spoke to me. Essentially the message was as follows:
“Human Distortion of reality arise from 3 main habits

1.) Greed 2.) Anger 3.) Ignorance”
Further to that, “All beings are inherently enlightened, we just don’t know it. Only our own confusion veils us from our natural wisdom and goodness”
Pretty powerful stuff when you sit and think about it.

So why the “Zen”, at first it was just pure curiosity. Different religions and philosophies have always intrigued me but now I find I need a reminder and a source of stability to ground me and I need this everyday. I’m not saying a book on Zen is the answer but the more sources I have to keep me on the rails the better.
I find myself in a position of witnessing corruption both on a local level and a political federal level. Far more complex than I could have imagined. Truth and right conduct become mangled and distorted for the gain of a few while the perception of integrity is displayed to the majority.
Indifference and looking the other way is easy. Becoming desensitised is a way of coping with the stress of inaction or action.
I have faith in myself by way of keeping my mind, body and spirit in tact with that I can make the right decisions.

Sorry, if this resembles a babbling mess but it helps me deal with myself.
Where is a Zen Master when you need one!

JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada

The Mighty Hamstring

My hamstrings have been giving me trouble for a few weeks now. Usually a tight muscle is worked out and back to normal for me in a short time. No doubt aging is a factor but should not be something that slows you down, you just need to approach things differently.

Preventative maintenance is key to keeping yourself off the injured list. Reality is, not many people take the time for muscle maintenance, ironically the older you get the more important this is but the older you get the less spare time you seem to have.

A muscle like the hamstring( which in fact is a combination of muscle groups that attach from the hip to the knee) is like an elastic band at the back of your leg. If its tight it will shorten the range or extension and prevent you from throwing high or effective kicks.

First, stretching. Don't skip the stretching. Not only does it warm up muscles but it tells you if something isn't quite right. You can have any injury and not know it for days until you make that one movement that says"ouch". You don't want to discover that in the middle of a full out committed kick..tends to be more than just "ouch" at that point!

Second, dynamic movement, kicks. Want to improve the height of the kick. After warming up and stretching the hamstring, start throwing the kicks that will stretch the hamstring further.(Cyclone, high roundhouse, dragons whip, etc.)

Third, try and fit in a massage session every 4 to 6 weeks.

Sadly, not enough people visit a massage therapist until something is bothering them or into the realm of injury. Time is always a factor for people and unfortunately so is our health care system.We seem to throw millions of dollars into reactive health care and little to no priority is given to preventive maintenance when it comes to our health.

Coverage for massage therapy ranges from none to a required doctors note to give you a token few visits for the year. I think we would be far better off to invest more of our dollars into the "before" instead of the "after".

In the meantime I have discovered the use of the foam roller to try and soften and work the knots out of my hamstring (see picture below). Another handy gadget that is not too expensive.

You can even watch a movie while spending some time on your muscles and not feel so guilty. Oh, and its really hard to eat popcorn while rolling on your hamstrings!

JC Masterson, Silent River Kung Fu, Alberta, Canada