Sweat-tastic

By Julius Anastasio
Julius Anastasio is a Green Belt at Wu Dao

Saturday marked the end of my first week of intensive tournament training. Things went really well almost all week, (I went to 6 classes according to my incredibly nerdy spreadsheet), until around Friday when I completely lost all steam and became a walking zombie. No matter how much I tried to psych myself up, I just couldn't get my body to go. When my crescent kicks started to look like they'd only be able to reach a 3 year old's knees, I decided it might be a good idea to take it little easy and not go to class on Saturday. I tried to go out and train on my own on the weekend, but my body still felt like it was moving through molasses. I forced myself to take Monday completely off to give my body a rest and get my energy level back, and that seems to have worked. Now it's just the heat I have to contend with.

It's suddenly gotten hotter in Boston. A lot hotter. Yesterday was in the 90's. This kind of temperature is normally reserved for August.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the heat. In fact, I thrive in it. But my uniforms are getting so soaked that they barely have enough time to dry before the next time they're worn. I know, gross, I don't wash my uniform after each time I wear it. But it's kind of hard to do that when you don't have laundry and you're going to class two times in one day.

One of the things I've noticed is that training in the heat gets me very loose and very flexible, very quickly. While it IS awesome to say "hey look at me, a full split after only about a minute of warming up!," this also tricks me into pushing myself a lot harder than I normally would, which leaves me completely exhausted and spent after only a single class. I'll have to be careful over the next couple days not to overstep my bounds. We'll see if this heat wave breaks as quickly as it came. Now that it's getting hotter, and training is getting more intense, I'll have to pay a lot closer attention to my body in order to train intelligently in the days coming up to the tournament.

Days until tournament: 37

Training to Excel

By Julius Anastasio
Julius Anastasio is a Green Belt at Wu Dao

We had our first "Tournament Meeting" this weekend. Logistics were planned, fighting divisions were confirmed, nutrition advice was given, and training strategies/goals were discussed.

Basically, our agreed goal is to practice each form 500 times between now and the tournament. For the next four weeks we'll be breaking our forms down into four parts, concentrating on a single section each week.

The only real way to really internalize a form's movements is through repetition. There's an old the adage that's made its way through many a martial arts circle: "If you practice a technique 1,000 times, you know the technique. Practice it 10,000 times, you are the technique." Three months before the DC competition last year I decided I would at least try to get to the "knowing" stage of my form, and practiced it 10 times a day every day until the tournament. My martial arts improved leaps and bounds.

At this point, with less than two months until the tournament, I realistically can't expect to complete 1,000 repetitions of both forms. However, 500 seemed like a very reasonable amount. I calculated that doing each form 12 times a day, 6 days a week would more or less get me to the 500 mark.

I got started with this routine on Sunday morning. My plan was to practice the first section of Xiao Hong Chuan (my hand form) 5 times slowly, the whole form once slowly, the first section 5 times full speed, and then the whole form once at full speed. I did the same with Zhen Shan Gun (my staff form). Total time: ~1/2 hour.

Great! This seemed much easier than I thought it would be.

Then I did some more figuring. Being the computer geek that I am, I made an excel training log (tracking number of miles run, classes attended, forms completed, etc). It was only after writing some snazzy excel functions that I realized the total number of form sections I'll be doing this month won't add up to enough whole forms for me to be on target.



If I want to stay honest, those 10 form sections I went through suddenly can only be counted as 2.5. So my original training estimation was a bit light. By about 250. Uh oh. Some more accurate arithmetic revealed that for the next month I'll have to do these form sections about 25 times per day to stay on target. Looks like I'll be outside a bit longer in the morning.

Days until tournament: 46

My legs feel so (stir)fried

By Julius Anastasio
Julius Anastasio is a Green Belt at Wu Dao

I was zapped of all energy and my stomach was feeling off when I got home from work, so I didn't make it to kung fu yesterday. Instead, I decided to run 3 miles hard and do forms practice for an hour. Does this chain of events make sense to you? My gut feeling says it doesn't.

After a quick shower, I was forced with the daunting task of making dinner. I decided to follow the lead of (neverhome)maker's recent post about stir-fry and quinoa. Some cut up veggies, a lime, soy sauce, and a whole lot of peanut butter later, I had myself a rather delicious meal. To give the quinoa some added flavor, I cooked it in some vegetable stock from our freezer.


(for the curious, that's onion, carrot, broccoli and radish)

"But, doesn't that basically look like just a bunch of cooked vegetables on top some quinoa?"

Indeed. I didn't make a lot of sauce. Woops. In my defense, I was halfway delusional from my workout. I also forgot to add any protein beyond the peanut butter, so I got hungry again about 30 seconds after eating the metric ton of vegetables and grain (but a protein shake remedied that situation).

Another drawback from cooking while extremely tired is the volume of dishes produced. I think some cheesey before/after pictures convey this issue appropriately (OK, I admit, the pictures were taken in reverse. But I'm trying to illustrate a point here):

Before


After


It was a pretty tasty meal though.

Days until tournament: 49

I'm hungry.

By Julius Anastasio
Julius Anastasio is a Green Belt at Wu Dao

Starting my mornings with Kung Fu has been a fantastic way to feel alive and FULL of energy! For about one hour. After that, the endorphins start to wear out. The daily beating I've been giving to my body starts to catch up with me. I start feeling old muscle pains from injuries that happened years ago. I get incredibly sleepy. And...

The insatiable hunger begins. So far I have eaten a GIGANTIC lunch, about a pound of carrots/celery/hummus, yogurt and granola, and a Clif bar, all after my breakfast. And I'm still starving. I am currently chowing down on a large zip-lock bag full of crackers that I found while scrounging for food deep in the depths of my office desk drawer. I do not know how long they've been here, and frankly I do not care. I wonder if there's anything in the fridge...

Days until tournament: 51

On Snacking

By Julius Anastasio
Julius Anastasio is a Green Belt at Wu Dao

I've been trying to actually eat something after I get home from Kung Fu. The problem lies in the fact that once I'm home, all I usually want to do is find something to eat that doesn't involve any preparation whatsoever. My wife will readily attest that most of the time I wind up standing in the kitchen doorway, staring blankly at our shelves full of uncooked grains and dried goods. Once I finally start getting yelled at to "hurry up and eat something, it's getting really late," I usually just grab a couple of bananas or apples and chomp on them in an unsuccessful attempt to replenish my tank after a hard workout.

One solution to my reluctance to cook at 10 o'clock at night has been to make a "breakfast dinner." Since my breakfasts normally consist of incredibly fast and simple things (breakfast sandwiches, scrambled eggs and toast, yogurt and granola, cereal, etc, etc), making breakfast as a second dinner seems like a fairly safe way to get out of coming out of my post-workout autopilot (leftovers from our initial dinner are usually already used up to make lunch for the next day).

Last night was a yogurt and granola night. I tend to get a little carried away with the additions, adding handfuls of raisins, cranberries, and walnuts, entire coconuts, etc. For instance:



Can you find the yogurt in this picture? I can't.

By the end of the mini-feast I was definitely full, though I should probably start coming up with some more breakfast ideas so I don't get sick of yogurt and granola (I've had it for almost every breakfast for the past month). Does anyone have any suggestions on some slightly original, but still fairly easy to make breakfast ideas?

Days until tournament: 56

Tales of heart(and wood)break

By Julius Anastasio
Julius Anastasio is a Green Belt at Wu Dao

I broke my staff on Saturday.

Last week I finished learning the staff form I'll be doing at the tournament (Zhen Shan Gun). Since Saturday was going to be a very busy day (and no time for kung fu class), I woke up early to train for a couple of hours on the abandoned asphalt lot close to our apartment. It was already blazing hot by 7:00am, which really helped me loosen up quickly. A few minutes into training in the sun and I was moving. It felt great to finally get into the rhythm of a form, repeating sections over and over until I got them right.

With all the unbridled enthusiasm, I got a little overzealous. After finishing one particularly spirited round about an hour into training, I looked down to see a very discernible crack branching from one of the wood's knots near the bottom of my staff.



I was heartbroken. I did some hand forms for a little while, then trotted back home to give my staff some emergency TLC.

I’ve broken many a wooden stick in the past. Back when I was doing Capoeira, I cannot tell you how many Berimbaus I have shattered while stringing them up (cold, dry weather is no friend of pliable wooden instruments). Repairing them usually involved a lot of cursing, wood or Gorilla glue, and hefty coils of string around the afflicted area. For my staff, I used some wood glue in the cracks, clamped it, and hoped for the best. I might tape it up after I sand down the small amount of excess glue, depending on how the binding feels.

I highly doubt this repair will last (the impact of repeatedly slamming a piece of wood onto the ground is a lot greater than the stress of repeatedly bowing a wooden musical instrument), but for now it’ll allow me to at least tread lightly throughout my staff training until I get a new one.

Lesson learned: When training with weapons, handle them with the utmost respect and care. Know their limits, and always beware the unforgiving nature of asphalt.

Days until tournament: 59