Latest workout to chew on and try to digest.

Here you go 15 minute workout divided up into 15 one minute rounds, no rest.

3 rounds for max reps                            My numbers met each round.

Kettlebells Swings (KBS) 32lbs                 21/18/21
Beat on Heavy Bag                                    -- -- --
Pushups                                                 21/24/20
Goblet squats with 25lbs dumbbell           29/19/22
Jump ropes (2lb jumprope)                     101/79/89

Good luck with this one.  It tends to burn up all the oxygen in the room.

C

Cough...cough

Time to dust this blog off.

Ack...ack.

So I am thinking of posting about habits and treatments I have found to keep myself healthy.

Let's face it, staying balance is a precarious past time.  You either over do it or under do it.  Being perfectly balanced happens for only an instant in time.

So, tips and tricks and workouts...OH MY!  Coming soon,

promise,

C

Digital Zen

As a martial arts guide, I hear a multitude of questions that are both humorous and sad at the same time.

A legitimate question from students is "What exercises can I do to increase my punching power?"

Punch is the answer.  Punch the air faster, punch targets and shields.  Punch the heavy bag and even punch cinder block walls.  When I was younger, I outgrew the standard heavy bag and tried out one of the water bags.  135 pounds of resistance for punching.  I eventually ruptured the inner bladder.

As I cleaned up the 20 gallons of water, I designed a heavy back in my head.  I created a heavy bag layered with foam and sand that weighed 275 pounds.  It was beautiful and scary at the same time.  I also wrapped my forearms in heavy chains to practice my punching power.

It is really about taking the time and making the effort to be good at something.  There are no shortcuts, mystical Qigong, or video games to help walk the path.

Another question, "Do you teach mixed martial arts?"  This question is like asking "What kind of water do you drink?"  Is not all water H2O?  Is the H2O different from a mountain spring versus the H2O from a reverse osmosis system?  I realize people are referring to MMA, but to answer yes is to betray their definition of MMA.

I do not believe folk know that the ancestor of MMA is Pancratium.  Check it out.

MMA is a combination of punching, kicking, sweeping, throws, joint locks and submission holds.  Yeah, I do teach all this.  But this is a narrow slice of what the martial arts are.  Think of this, you go to the Smithsonian (world's greatest collection of museums) and you look at one dinosaur bone.  It is the thigh bone of a Brontosaur.  Cool huh?

And then you leave to tell everyone what you saw.  Um...what about the other 4.5 billion years of earth's history? 

Despite my disagreement with MMA's narrow focus, I have high regard for their training.  Hour for hour, MMA fighters are tougher, stronger, and faster than most martial art systems.  But what is the training lifespan of these martial artists?  How long before they are on painkillers so they can continue training?

It is much easier to be tougher, stronger and faster than to train your Dragon's fist to be able to strike pressure points to end a fight quickly.

And now on to video games, or rather the new interactive Wii's and playstations.  Can you really learn yoga and martial arts from these?  I really like the idea, but where is the feedback from someone of skill.  How do learn about proper blocking or moving chi?

I realize this is a lot less intimidating than walking into a school to learn martial arts.  No one wants to fail, or be singled-out.  And heaven forbid, you have to fight a 3 or 4 stripe with decades of training.  How can you win?  It is not about winning, it is about cultivation.

A true proponent of martial arts creates a safe environment where students can grow.  A level of character, a level of skill is necessary to engender trust.  Once trust is established, the student can begin their ascension in martial arts.

It is my duty to make sure the training is challenging, enlightening, respectful and most of all, sweaty.  I use modulating workouts at the end to wring the last bit of energy from them.  When students feel they want more, they are invited to black belt workouts.  Same with black belts, when they want more, they train with me.  They all leave shaken, wide-eyed and appreciating the safety of their tough workouts.

To those not in the know, they will see my students down on one knee at the end of clas and say, "Wow! They dropped to one knee from that crazed workout."

As a martial artist, I look at the knee that is still up and say to myself, "Ah, their spirit is hungry for more.  I shall feed them more when they come back next time."

Over the hill

I believe the definition of frustration should be changed to, "standing around helplessly watching the world dissolve into a ooze of stress and unhealth...and having the key to reverse it."

oh, "and sitting in traffic."

I have had two separate people over the past few months tell my I am now over the hill in age.  I hear this a lot but these two people are ten and twenty years my junior and they were suffering from either flu or cold or both.

We use to call warriors like myself Long Fangs back in the day, old timers grizzled and scarred by combat.   They didn't move very well, but their experience made up for their decrease in strength and speed.

So I train to be my best.  Some days not so easy, but this is the true essence of strength.  If you ask me the last time I was sick....I have to sit and count on both hands the years.  What really makes me sick is how much is spent in the health care field; treatments, doctor visits, insurance, etc.  One article suggests the figure of 2.3 trillion spent.   A trillion?  Isn't that like a gazillion million?

I know I did not spend that much last year on "health care", but I am sure I spent it on being healthy.  My whole philosophy is to train to be healthy and to provide the best example of living well.  My first example was Jack LaLanne.  Remember him?  Back in the day of black and white TV?  The dude has been preaching body weight exercise and confusion principle longer than any of us.  And he is still alive, 96 years old.  Old fart still swims and pulls boats.  Boats full lazy couch taters.

I do not harbor any hope of stepping up to his fine example, I just do the best I can.  I realize it seems I show off, but I wish to inspire students to step up to my level.  I have like 5 different workout levels to keep the body going;

Easy
Medium
Hard
Daggum, he is f-ing crazy
Tell my loved one, I am not going to make this mission

We do a lot of the easy and medium workouts and occasionally a hard one.  I watch students stagger away wondering if this is all worth it.  It is.  They do not realize how far they have come, going from no pushups to 20 pushups at full range.

So, as I ponder the comment "you are over the hill", I say HELL YEAH!  Now that I am past the hills, I can truly start climbing the mountain.  What about you?  Feeling strong enough to follow the Long Fang, or is the couch just too coozy?

Embracing the 44

So I celebrated another birthday recently.  I love turning another year older.  Things grow dim, start to sag, balance decays, takes long time to rise from the dead of sleep.  I SAY BS ON DAT!

To most people I am weird anyway, but i see each year as another year stronger, another year tougher, another year healthier, another year smarter.  (Oops, that is over the line.)

I wander through my year watching people.  I watch them get older.  Yes, people get into the gym and get into shape.  And I watch them slide back into their aging patterns.  I do not think we get old by doing, I believe when we grow bored, we grow old.

This is why I love the martial arts.  Every day holds challenge, every workout encourages growth.  The students live in wonder and dread for my birthday workout.  I come up with a little challenge for them and they love to walk away grumbling breathlessly.

Here is the latest.



4 rounds for time.
11 Ball Burpees or Regular Burpees
20 Jump Rope or Jumping Jacks
11 Wrestlers or standard situps
20 Jump Rope or Jumping Jacks
11 Kipping Pullups or Ring rows
20 Jump Rope or Jumping Jacks
11 Squats

This workout took me 9 and half minutes.  Quite an easy one.  I did have to substitute ring rows for pullups due to my right arm.  But it is still a challenge.  Give it a whirl and see how you do.  Feel free to sub in exercises.  AND...remember to do all exercises full range.  Cheating the range, only cheats you.

A Burpee?  What is a burpee.  It is where you jump up as though shooting a basketball and then land and do a pushup.  This little exercise is named after psychologist Royal H. Burpee.  Who knew, a psychologist with upper body strength, go figure.  A Ball Burpee is where you hold a medicine ball and do the same exercise.  Balancing for the pushup is a kick in the shins.

Good luck and let me know how you fare,

C

Get a Grip

One of the most important and one of the most overlooked training aspects of martial arts training...is the grip.  We tend to train for strength; pushups, situps, squats and etc.  We train for speed and toughness, but we forget about the grip.

Having a strong grip means we can train longer.  Normally, our grip strength is used for making fist, blocking, holding and manipulating weapons.  Without grip strength we rely on clamping down and using more forearm and upper arm strength to compensate.

Grip strength comes in different forms, there is crushing, pinching and extensor strength.  These three uses of the grip are necessary for long term training.

I find every so often my tendonitis flares up in my right arm.  This causes the grip to fatigue rapidly.  I use grip training to rehabilitate.  I start with a 15lb gripper.  This is really weak.  Average strength for most people is 35 to 40lbs.

As my grip improves, I move up to the next level of gripper.  Grip strength training should be done every day.  Just a few days without training and your grip slides back in strength.  My left hand is still strong and gaining.

So just for reference my grip training is as follows:  50 reps of 30lbs for the right hand.  The left hand starts with 20 reps of 200lbs and then 30 reps of 145lbs.

I recommend grip training for anyone and once you start...keep it rolling.  Anyone can have grip strength, but it takes true dedication to keep it.

Train well,

It is the unsaid part that matters

I spend time in conflict with myself. I train hard to inspire my students and yet I seem to do is elicit comments like "you are scary strong" or even "well....you're Charles." When folk comment on me being atypical, I point out that I am simply normal. It is what I do not say that people should be listening to.

Today, when anyone leads by proper example, we deify them as heroes. We make them greater than ourselves so we can go through life with our comfortable misery and suffering.

When students first join, they are out of shape. Even the ones in shape, are out of shape. They struggle through reps of ten, and then twenty and so on. Students watch me occasionally due reps of 50 to 100 and wish they had my strength. Strength is earned in the first ten reps; once you get to eleven…you are working on stamina. Simple. No tricks.

Then students reach mid level (Brown belt) and they are working towards reps of 40 to 50. Yes, they are training stamina. This is necessary for upper level training. It feels pretty good to be able to keep up with the teachers.

At black belt level, students become disciples. The warm-up is over and now onto serious training. If you have kept up with the progression, the disciples should be hitting reps of 70 to 90. This sounds really cool, but the workouts take 20 to 25 minutes. And with 15 minutes of stretching, and some sparring, some two-person drills, hitting a couple of your 21+forms…well an hour goes fast. And whaddayou mean? Learn new material? OY! You are joking.

This is where the program changes. We start with Black belt conditioning, six rounds of body confusion workouts. Then we add Weight Vest conditioning. Weight vest starts at 10% of the black belt’s body weight. Does not sound like much, but it is. My weight vest is 60 pounds. No, I don’t weigh 600 pounds…it is the Gi that makes me look fat.

And still, I hear about my atypicalness. No…I’m normal.

Did you see what I did not just say? Then let me say it out loud. Today at work, I spent two and a half hours moving dirt into trenches. That is about 3600 pounds of dirt. Then add in an hour of moving concrete blocks weighing from 60 to 80 pounds. I carry them 60 feet, lift them over my head and throw them up over the eight foot tall trailer wall.

Of course, not everyday is this demanding. Some days, I just climb up and down scaffolding wearing my 15 pound work bags. Filled with every tool I need for construction and destruction.

So…Black Belt conditioning, Weight Vest conditioning and everything else I put my students through, is not so much. Not easy, but not crazy.

On the flip side, I watched my dragon warriors pick up weight that was 20 to 25% of their weight and go through a workout without complaint. My first thought was to snatch the weight away and ping them over the head with it. But, I watched to see what would happen. They made it okay and I am sure they slept well that night.

And this is the dilemma as an instructor. One hand must become heavy and reign in the charging horses before they can harm themselves and the other hand cracks the whip on the stubborn mules who wish to be dragged to greatness. And here I thought leading by example would be easy.

The next time your teacher speaks, listen to what they say and hear what they do not say.

Good training.