Training Days

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