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