A recap!

Well despite the resolutions i keep, making it seems that the regular blogging has gone out of the window. For now i'll reside to the fact that it may have to be one or a week.

Anyways enough of that. Tuseday is here a full week since my last entry by all accounts so its time for a catch up. I am currently buzzed up on building my club. I have come to the conclusion that marketing activities, when building a club, do not have to be hours upon hours of leafletting or tireless letter writing etc. Working on the little, but often principle, i have deliberately neglected my training in order to spread the word.

Although i do feel some what ashammed for missing out, i'm trying to up my training in other areas to compensate.

Last weeks training included:

• 2 stints in CIT before work,
• squad training - point stance training maintaining balance and using less energy
• 4 sessions in the gym
• I nice technical session of Tae Kwon Do on friday night
• black belt circuit and stretching training.... whilst the other instructors were 'on manourvers'
• Finally, Sunday TKD Black Belt training in Derby

Saturday 18th – CIT and the Black Belt Circuit.

 

Saturday morning was again instructor theory training at the Stealth Black Belt Academy.  These days I tend not to enjoy it so much as I know that we have to rush off to Barwell and teach.  I guess its not that I don’t enjoy it I’m just wary of getting to Barwell and relaxing ready for the mornings classes. 

 

In CIT we looked at our Stranger danger lessons plans we had created and then were given further assignments based on these.  Myself and lazy have been tasked with creating a assembly plan that we can take into schools, in promotion for stranger danger days on the 8^th of May.  From there we moved onto the main thrust of CIT session which was listening to Tony Robbins and discussing the concept of choosing your own destiny.

 

This re-iterated to me that in order to achieve my dreams of being a full time instructor I need to work harder… you get out what you put in.  Over the next ten days I intend to make a noticeable difference to the academies prospects!

 

After class, once the students had left, I treated dozer and Sophie to the black belt circuit.  6 rounds seems hard at the moment, but I loved it.  I reckon if we start training like this now I can get them 8-10 rounds fit by November, or even two circuits back to back…Now there’s a challenge for  Dozer!

Friday 17th – Tae Kwon Do

Friday 17^th – Tae Kwon Do

 

TKD was good fun on Friday, not to technical plenty of fitness.  After the usual warm up and a bit of technical we moved into patterns.  From there me and the other black belts did our advanced patterns for 30 minutes.  After which Mitch decided that we should work on our fitness and do 15 secs hand 15 feet and 30 combined drill on the wave master.  After each one another person steps up to the bag and we rotated in our group of 5.  Despite using more techniques, some of which are more tiring than continuous, with such a long rest between your turn I found it pretty easy, ended up doing press-ups whilst waiting. 

 

We did this for about 20 minutes on and off amongst all of us.  Good calorie killings stuff and formed the inspiration for the adults fitness class on Saturday

16th April - Back on the straight and narrow!

Having my focus removed from training recently with all the things I have discussed already… boring. Sunday night I decided that this week would be a good productive one.

Been back to the gym; mixing cardio, and weights to get into the swing of things. The cardio side was moiré to ensure I get back to the trim physique I once had. I want my body shape to be bigger but toned.

Last night went back to Coalville for 1st time in what seems like ages. Did a small 2mile run before class, still feel heavy and fluey when the cardio kicks in, and the sore ribs are still preventing full / easy breathing. But I have resided to the fact that students don’t know this and hence if I slack off or take it easy then the students will think I’m unfit and not capable of keeping up. Neither my pride nor my opinion on instructor fitness levels will allow this.

The core class consisted of an arm workout, using medicine balls, kettle bells and gloves. In groups of three, punching combo’s with gloves, then change to the kettle bells, before finishing on arm busting exercise with the medicine ball. I enjoy almost all classes but these horrible ones I particularly like, especially when I see little old me pushing myself to do one more rep when my arms are burning and the bigger guys who should be knocking the reps out have long since stopped. One for the ego I reckon!

Sparring class consisted of 20 minutes light points sparring just warming up, nice and easy changing partners after a minute. Initially I felt heavy, having not stretched my legs properly after the run. With only Mat in the class to really challenge me, I concentrated on teaching the lower grades and trying to loosen my legs up. Felt more confident towards the end and really enjoyed dispensing a few pearls of wisdom to the younger students. Although they play me up from time to time, in a more sparring context they seem to give me more respect. Perhaps cos they think they might get whacked!!!

Last 15 minutes we did side kick, sweep and back fist drills. Need to improve these.

Military Fitness gone mad!

Its is always dangerous / scary when Sensei Craig Smith, The Chief Instructor of the Stealth Black Belt Academy, gets ideas. For the everyday students the ideas that he brings to class are fun, different and usualy hard work. However for his devoted instructors, these 'ideas' have first to be tested and moulded before they can be used with his students.

This morning was no such exception to the 'testing' of such ideas. Using the US marine Corps martial arts system, as seen on 'The Human Weapon', me and the other instructors were subjected to one minute rounds of weights. Not particualry heavy but the emphasis was one continual effort and burnout making your arms and body as tired as possible.

Whilst we toiled with the weights the remaining two would fight in an almost full contact fashion, using boxing gloves rather than mma gloves to put more emphasis one using your arms and hitting hard. Work rate and accepting what was coming your way was pretty much the name of the game.

All in all it was great fun, loved it and i'm sure the barwell guys will tommorrow night too. I have adapted it in order to make it safer and also included thoes without sparring kit. Can't wait.

Barwell Boys and Gals... tommorrow bring a drink, towel and good work ethic, your gonna need it!

Back to the Black Belt!

Had to pop upto Barwell Bank Holiday Monday to grab some things and also take up the studios new fan dangled play items. Namely a climbing ladder and some hand swinging gymnastic ring type affairs.

Whilst i was there i decided, that having been in what can only be described as the early signs of an 'alcoholic', i would put some training in.

With dozers first dan this year and also my second, i thought what better way to get back into the mind set than to start back on my back belt solo training method. Dozer helped me with this during my time at Desford and i think its fair i should repay the favour.

This method, which i dont think anyone other than dozer is aware of, came about from BB syllabus which stated that during my grading i would be subjected to 6 rounds of 2 minutes continuous drills on the wave master with 30 sec break in between each round.

I adapted this in order to make it more difficult and thus 'over train' for this particular part of the grading, in addition i also trained with a weighted vest and added a further 8k's to my body weight. The end result was greater fitness and by far my best ability to perform round by round. With this tried and tested method in my pocket i set to work on what i simply call:
'the black belt circuit' PLEASE SOMEONE FIND A LESS BORING NAME FOR THIS!

using a round timer set to 2 mins rounds 1 minute rest you do the following

1. 2 minutes hands and feet on wave master
2. 30 secs - (1st part of s30) Push Ups
3. 30 secs rest

Repeat changing the part of the s30 each time.

After the last (6th) round you finish with a whole S30.


After this your pretty bushed, especially if you have given it everything. As with everything in life, you get out what you put in.

Both Dozer and Sensei Craig will be subjected to this very soon, especially as one of my 2nd Dan targets has been to ensure that Craig gets under 100kg.

“gold luck is heavier than silver”

I think I’m going to have to stop making excuses for missing writing the blog. Basically I need more time in my life. Trying to write it sneakily at work is currently not working very well for me. Well what have I been upto since last week at Garys.. truth be told, not a lot . The dreaded man flu well and truly took hold last Friday, despite being on the cards for 3 days before I though I might be able to shake it off. My failure to orange juice, vitamin and lemsip the hell out of it before it really took hold has meant I have felt complete crap all week, with no motivation for training.

2 weeks of trying to work on the club during lunch times rather than going to the gym combined with the dreaded man disease has basically left me feeling very unfit and loosing my body tone.. As sensei Craig would say the last 7 days I have been about a ‘6 coat’.

One saving grace was the ITF Tae Kwon Do regional competition Held last Sunday at the Moore ways Centre in Derby. Having only passed my black belt in November I headed to the competition with mixed feelings. Having won my sparring category comfortably last year I was confident I could hold my own, yet apprehensive about how differently the BB category might operate.

After what seems like a very long wait finally my category was called. Having been there near on 6hours already and the pills and relaxing bath from the morning wearing off I began to feel slow, tired and heavy. Truth be told by now I was not looking forward to it and just wanted to get it over with. Totally the wrong attitude to step on the mat with.

Won the 1st one, the guy had no idea what I was doing… fighting points confuses the tkd guys the second the ref shouted ‘fight’ I threw the best reverse punch I could muster and the look on his face was price less.. Tough fight though, being a less experienced opponent he just wanted to brawl and the end result was both of us expending far too much energy.

After that and thanks to some brill coaching from a very knowledgeable guy, who I’d only met that day,I managed to fight in a tactical fashion and made short work of the second opponent

Then into the final with for 2 1.5 minute rounds… god it was hard work. I got a full on roundhouse in the ribs and 100’s of sidekicks in the arm. One thing about adopting a more point based style in a tkd competition is that you inevitably get kicked, a lot. You have to trust the judges to make the right decision and realise that despite taking a battering you are in fact not being scored upon. My opponent’s size and weight advantage certainly helped give the barrage of yop chagi’s extra clout.

After the 1st round I was struggling to lift my arm, being knackered I had nothing left in the tank to see past the pain. The end result was that I narrowly missed out on first place. At the time I was elated, having worked so hard and taking away a 2nd place in a pretty tough category. With the benefit of hindsight I can see that had I have not felt quiet so awful and stiff I could have taken it.

Pat was proud though and said I had done exceptionally well. Although, as my new found coach on the day said “gold luck is heavier than silver”.

hand foot way of life!

With the ITF competition fast approaching on Sunday and none of my black belt patterns down just yet i thought it best to get some TKD training in today.  With that in mind it was M1, A50, A38 and 90 minutes with Sabum Gary and the guys at the Littleover Tae Kwon Do club.

 http://www.littleovertkd.co.uk/Welcome.html

Ordinarily i love training at Stealth and no doubt today i would have just as much, however it way nice to break the cycle

and travel. Again this type of experience i find truly beneficial. Also i was somewhat of a pilgrimage to the hall where i earnt

black belt belt, having not been there since the grading.

We touched on the usual stuff, a gentle warm up before cracking on with patterns. Hopefully it will help me avoid making

mistakes on sunday. Although my main aim is to win the sparring section. More difficult this time due to the

advanced category. As a colored belt you only compete at your belt level. This time round its black belt and beyond.

bring it on ITF i won last year.. i can do it again. Make me a regional champ

DREAM IT - BELIEVE IT - ACHIEVE IT!