and Breathe!

Sanshou and the Shaolin Fitness classes.
Two very different classes but with a connection.

One class focuses on sparring and the other on your conditioning.

As a martial artist your conditioning and endurance should be your foundation from which you build your martial arts skills upon.
Imagine if you honed your skill and knowledge to perfection. Knowing every leverage point and placement of footwork to deflect and attack your opponent. Fantastic!
...not so fantastic if you find yourself winded and gasping for breathe in mere minutes of engagement.

Let us not forget about our fitness level, the basic conditioning of our heart, lungs and muscles. The internal workings and health of our body will serve us that much better in our pursuit of physical skill if we look after the basics.

To achieve this, we don't need to join a gym or spend 2hours a day running we simply need some cardio exertion at least 3 times a week to maintain a basic level of conditioning. Utilizing our martial arts as a source is perfect. Ramp up the reps of Forms, speed up a set of kicks, drop down for some push ups and you are on your way!

Don't have time for extra cardio with your focus on kung fu training?...no problem..add the Saturday morning Shaolin fitness class, add the Tuesday evening Sanshou class and make sure you put in 110 percent during your class warm ups... now you are maintaining a level of conditioning not to mention the extra kung fu training embedded in those classes!
and for those ambitious people looking to improve their cardio - add a couple of early morning runs and watch yourself emerge into that finely tuned breathing machine!

Girl talk

The dreaded pull up!

For us ladies this is like climbing Mount Everest!
Typically the female body type is not blessed with the upper body strength that our male counterparts are endowed with....and typically we are blessed with the heavy hips. This again, makes lifting our own body weight a challenge, so whats a girl to do?

First off, know the muscle groups that actually work the pull up...

For me, my weakness was engaging the whole back, I found my arms were strong enough but my back worked as independent muscles, quivering in and out! I was good for about 1 or 1 and a half pull ups. 

Ladies we have to strengthen our backs in my opinion. Watch how you do your push ups as well. The upper back should be fully engaged from the shoulders, scapula, rhomboid area, etc. and down thru your lats. Full back engagement also translates , or it should, into an engaged core. So bottom line, the whole upper body group of muscles are locked together (like Lego pieces) to lift as one unit. The lower body is basically dead weight.

So how do I strengthen my back?

 Tonnes of exercises  out there to choose from but I found this particular dumbbell set, for my weak area, was very focused in strengthening my back for the purpose of pull ups. Use a weight size that challenges you, these tiny weights in the picture wont cut it. (no offence random girl in diagram!).

There are plenty of other weight training exercises for the back and plenty on the Internet to introduce you to them. I just found this one helped me a lot.

This Saturday, I'm going to bring in my pull up assist cable for fun...if you would like to try it let me know!

Happy reps and see you on the mats!

Acupuncture

 My hamstring has been a problem for sometime. I have been stretching and heating and icing and massaging but it never really goes away.
I finally got up enough nerve to try acupuncture!...after the treatment he told me to try a short run on the weekend and see how it feels. I am excited to see if there is a difference, but I can understand now, how the acupunture penetrates into deep tissue, have a feeling I should have tried this much earlier!

Sunrise

                      My photography skills don't do it justice...but pretty cool sunrise this morning!

Work Life Balance

Do you ever wish you could quit your job and someone would pay you to train in the martial arts?

Kinda one of those in the clouds thoughts, like "if I could just win the lottery, everything would be better!"....

We have been short staffed this year and its taking its toll on me. Going to work early, staying late and taking work home just to keep up. As, I sit here typing, I realize no one has been forcing me to take on extra, its my own work ethic and it bothers me to be overloaded and disorganized, however at what sacrifice?
If you are lucky enough to have a career that includes your friends, family and something you love to do, life is good.
I like my job, I have worked hard in my career but it doesn't include my family and it  doesn't   include kung fu!
So, its up to me to make changes, I need to reset the balance and put harmony back in my life.
The reality is , work will have to adjust to me, not the other way around.
Easier said than done , of course!

So long summer...

Fall is coming and it signifies different things to different people. Back to school, back to work, preparing for winter and maybe preparing to leave because of winter!

Summer is definitely my favourite season. I love being outside, love water sports and try to be away as much as work will allow!
I do look forward to getting back into a routine and the sense of accomplishment it brings but I also know , come January, I have had enough of being indoors and enough of the cold miserable weather...so...this year, its time to make an effort to enjoy the many months of snow we seem to be unable to escape and make an effort to enjoy winter as much as summer.
This winter my goal is to get my son involved in skiing and snowboarding and mom is going to take a crack at the snowboarding thing! Should be fun, makes me almost excited for snow...almost!

Fun in the Mud!

Weekend with some Kung Fu friends at Mud Heros in Red Deer...

                                                                         BEFORE...

                                                                            AFTER...

                   and don't forget Sifu Lindstrom..thought we lost him!