Training

I haven't been able to post in a bit because our electricity has been off for a few days.  Even that was a blessing in disguise though.  It really made me think about how much time I waste on electronic devices.  I've done nothing but be outside this week and it has been amazing.

My training is progressing incredibly fast.  I feel like the Bo Staff has to absolutely be the most beneficial thing I have ever trained with.  It is helping everything I do.  I'm becoming stronger, faster, more aware of my balance, I'm learning how to generate power with my body in ways I didn't know I could.  My reflexes are increasing rapidly, I'm becoming more confident with other weapons because I'm more aware of how circular motion works.  My timing is improving, I'm finding ways of supplementing the staff I never thought about before.  It is helping me learn balance with my kicks and ensuring that I have a perfect pivot when attempting any full rotational kicks.  Honestly, this staff is the best thing I have ever purchased.  I'm addicted to spinning it, attacking with it, walking with it, it really is becoming and extension of me and I can understand why the samurai felt their swords possessed a warrior soul within them.  I'm activating muscles in my body more efficiently than I ever have before.  Before I started using the staff lifting in the gym was more of my main workout and martial arts was supplementary, but now it is the other way around.  I spend the majority of my time outside working on moves, closing my eyes and developing new techniques, figuring out ways to run and jump while using the staff.  It has opened up my mind to new possibilities and is making me understand angles and leverage much better.  I'm starting to feel like if someone were to throw a punch at me, I would be able to grab their arm and rotate it in the same way I do with my staff to use their own momentum against them.  I can understand how Judo and Aikido came into existence now, because I can feel how they can be so powerful.  Once I began to understand the economies of motion, I feel like it has unlocked so much potential inside of me.  There are so many things that I want to try, so many training aids I want to build.  I need to increase my reaction time slowly over time until I can generate such tremendous speed that people won't even understand how it is possible.

The only potential downside to my love for the Bo Staff is how sore it leaves me.  I wake up everyday with aches in my shoulders and my hands have had some skin ripped off in several places, but the Jow I am using seems to combat most of the aches and pains.  I'm not sure if I would be able to train as consistently as I have been without the use of it, because before I put it on I struggle to even put a shirt on.  Because the Dit Da Jow I have is actually for advanced stages of Iron Palm, I have been diluting one of the bottles so that it won't be so incredibly potent on my muscles.  I know it is a very powerful formula meant for repairing broken bones and healing bruises, so I don't want to abuse it on sore muscles and have some adverse side effects.  Not that I know if it could happen, but I think in this situation it is best to err on the side of caution.

Another positive note about training with the staff is my muscle is becoming much more defined.  I have unlocked my abdominal region and activated it in most of my techniques, so I am starting to see some very real definition in my obliques and my abs are noticeably more solid.  I always tell myself I need to do more ab exercises,  but now that I am training in the way that I am, I feel that typical ab exercises in the gym might no longer be necessary.  Instead I will just use heavy weight on the ab machines in the gym with low reps to actually make them stronger and just continue training outside to see where those results take me.

I've also been training with my three sectional quite a bit lately.  I had a realization while swinging around my nunchaku and ran home to grab my three sectional.  The realization I had was correct and I am very confident using that weapon now.  Like I have said before, I do still feel like there is a misconception about how to actually use the three sectional.  The way I have found makes it much more realistic and practical to use in a real fight.  I will post more to it when I start sectioning things off better on this page.

Day 2: Training

Training with my 3 section staff last night proved to be just as dangerous as I talked about the day before.  As I was attempting to spin it like a bo staff, I didn't respect its power and manage it made me pay for it.  The 3rd section of the staff swung down and cracked straight across the shin.  I'm lucky though, I purchased some Dit Da Jow just a week ago and I applied it directly over the lump on my leg and rubbed it in for several minutes before going to bed.  I assumed when I woke up I was going to have a massive bruise on my shin due to the fact that a fairly large lump had already formed.  Shockingly though, the Dit Da Jow did just what it said it would do.  When I woke up I looked down at my leg and the swelling was minimal and no bruise has appeared.

I'm fairly certain there should have been a nice big bruise on my shin!

Because today is a Tuesday, I will be going back to the gym for my weight training and then after work I plan on spending a few hours in my backyard again, hopefully not hurting myself anymore.  To be honest though, I really love using hard wood weapons because when you make a mistake, you remember that mistake.  If I was training with a 3 section staff made out of rubber or some lighter material, I feel it would be much harder to learn from mistakes.  Although now that I have this Jow, I do feel like I can be a little reckless and still heal easily, but in reality I should really be more careful!

Today's main focus is stretching, power, and strength.  I've had some problems in the past with my squat, so I will be really focusing on my form today.  The problem I have is simply that I get so caught up in my head at times, telling myself all sorts of ridiculous things that it very easily impacts my workouts.  For instance: My whole life I've been told that bad knees run in my family.  Although this is true, I continuously tell myself that.  I paint this picture in my head that I have bad knees and that plays through my mind as I place the weight on my back.  Thinking like that just seems to doom me to failure and I believe is one of the reasons why I have trouble progressing my squat.  I also have had some lower back problems in the past, so when I get up to the rack I sometimes am nervous about that too.  What martial arts teaches me though is quite simple.  The more I tense up, the more I think about failure, the more I think and think and think, the more likely I am to fail.  If I get up to the weight and rather than thinking about it, I just visualize perfect form and then just go with it, I find I feel much more natural.  It's so easy to get caught up in mind games about something so simple.  If you have the same problem as me, give it a shot.  Always visualize yourself accomplishing whatever it is you are doing, you should see dramatic improvement!

One of my greatest weaknesses right now is my lack of flexibility.  I've always wanted to be able to do a split, but I've never really seriously worked on my flexibility.  If I were to attempt a split... ouch, it would not be a pretty sight!  I also have problems with my kicks.  It's difficult to kick higher then a certain point, which bothers me.  How can I solve this problem? Am I sure I'm not just genetically predisposition to never be flexible? Am I too old to start flexibility training?  I really don't think so.  I'm going to track my progress with my stretching as well as the height I can kick at and the power I can generate with my kicks on either a daily or weekly basis.  I'll make a page for it, so if you are interested in what I do and how long it takes to progress, feel free to check it out!  I haven't decided exactly how I will go about measuring my stretching progress, but I think I will go off pictures, videos, and perhaps create one of those measurement boards that I can touch my fingertips to and see the actual measurable distance.