By Julius Anastasio
Julius Anastasio is a Green Belt at Wu Dao
As you probably noticed from my post on Monday, I had a rough start to training this week. After Monday's failed attempt at a morning run, I woke up with a little more determination and actually DID get out of bed, and enjoyed a great 3 mile run to start my day.
Wednesday morning rolled around, and I felt inspired enough (from missing training on Tuesday night) to go to the morning class. To my surprise, class was run by Shi-Shong Orlando, freshly off the plane from his trip training at Shi De Cheng's school in Deng Feng, China (he blogged about his training while he was there, go check it out!). After a week of intensive nonstop Shaolin training, he certainly had a few torturous tricks up his sleeve that still have me sore two days later. As I struggle to pick up a fallen pencil, we'll see how I fare tonight during my usual Thursday night double class.
I've been battling to balance two key components of good martial arts: having intent in your movements, and not leading with your face. Overcompensation for one has me neglecting the other, and visa versa. It's been rather challenging, but at least I'm starting to recognize it when it happens (And as they say, recognizing a problem exists is half the battle). I'm sure I have a lot of frustrating days ahead of me as I try to get this right.
Days until tournament: 64
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Shin-ful habits
By Julius Anastasio
Julius Anastasio is a Green Belt at Wu Dao
Saturday Kung Fu class is usually one of the hardest classes of the week. It's only an hour-long (instead of 1.5), so obviously we need to make up for lost time. Lately, our Shi Fu has been increasing the class's intensity more than usual; I'm completely soaked in sweat about 1 minute into class instead of 15. This Saturday was no different, where we found ourselves doing things like jogging around the school while carrying 100lb heavy bags over our heads and holding horse stances until our legs gave out. Once open training rolled around, spinning a staff around basically turned into an exercise of counting how many times I was able to conceal cringes of pain when I slipped and slammed the staff into my shins (I lost count after around 25). Talk about shin conditioning.
With classes like this in mind, lately I've noticed that my endurance is getting fairly abysmal. Even if I'm only practicing longer forms at medium/fast speeds I'm sucking wind after a surprisingly short amount of time. So I decided the best way to build my cardiovascular strength back up was to start running regularly again. Last Tuesday was my first "test workout" to see just how far my fitness has slipped from my collegiate running days. Basically, I've slipped quite far. Possibly all the way to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. I needed a specific running goal to get things into action, so I vowed to get up every weekday morning and for quick 3 mile run. As planned, this morning at 6:15 my alarm went off, I woke up, I JUMPED out of bed, and... promptly scrambled back into bed slept until 7. This is not a promising start. I might manage to get a run in after work today, but I really want to get in the habit of morning runs. Does anyone have any ideas here? I'm all ears.
Days to tournament: 67
Julius Anastasio is a Green Belt at Wu Dao
Saturday Kung Fu class is usually one of the hardest classes of the week. It's only an hour-long (instead of 1.5), so obviously we need to make up for lost time. Lately, our Shi Fu has been increasing the class's intensity more than usual; I'm completely soaked in sweat about 1 minute into class instead of 15. This Saturday was no different, where we found ourselves doing things like jogging around the school while carrying 100lb heavy bags over our heads and holding horse stances until our legs gave out. Once open training rolled around, spinning a staff around basically turned into an exercise of counting how many times I was able to conceal cringes of pain when I slipped and slammed the staff into my shins (I lost count after around 25). Talk about shin conditioning.
With classes like this in mind, lately I've noticed that my endurance is getting fairly abysmal. Even if I'm only practicing longer forms at medium/fast speeds I'm sucking wind after a surprisingly short amount of time. So I decided the best way to build my cardiovascular strength back up was to start running regularly again. Last Tuesday was my first "test workout" to see just how far my fitness has slipped from my collegiate running days. Basically, I've slipped quite far. Possibly all the way to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. I needed a specific running goal to get things into action, so I vowed to get up every weekday morning and for quick 3 mile run. As planned, this morning at 6:15 my alarm went off, I woke up, I JUMPED out of bed, and... promptly scrambled back into bed slept until 7. This is not a promising start. I might manage to get a run in after work today, but I really want to get in the habit of morning runs. Does anyone have any ideas here? I'm all ears.
Days to tournament: 67
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