upnorthkyosa's reflective training journal

[Makalakumu]

This is my reflective training journal. I will be writing about a number of different topics. In particular, I will be writing about my time spent practicing, my time spent as a martial arts student, and my time as a martial arts teacher. Rather then keep three journals that separate the catagories, I'm going to split them with the following headings; Practice Entry, Student Entry, Teaching Entry. Comments from others on entries are welcome.

 

[Makalakumu]

1/14/2007 - Practice Entry

I've been recovering from an illness, so my practice time today consisted of a slower version of my normal weight lifting routine. This is what I accomplished today.

1. Warm - ups

Set of 50 push ups. 200 regular crunches. 200 twisted lateral crunches. 200 alternating twist crunches. Another 50 push ups. I followed this up with about 10 minutes of stretching.

2. Weight lifts

Bench Press - 155 x5, 175 x5, 185 x5, 205 x5, 185 x5
Leg Extension - 90 x10, 115 x10, 140 x10, 150 x10, 140 x10
Arm Curls - 65 x5, 85 x5, 95 x5, 105 x5, 85 x5
Leg Curls - 50 x5, 60 x5, 70 x5, 80 x5, 50 x5
Lat. Pulldowns - 140 x10, 160 x10, 180 x10, 190 x10, 200 x10
Sitting Pulls - 140 x10, 160 x10, 180 x10, 190 x10, 200 x10

3. Between Lifts

Between every lift I performed 10 fully extended V's on the ab-roller and 100 crunches on the yoga ball. I also checked on the kids, got my sick wife water, and ran around doing other odds and ends.

All in all, this workout took me about an hour and a half from start to finish. I moved slower today because I was sick yesterday and didn't do much at all yesterday because of that. I found myself reminded today why I work out early in the morning. Having the kids awake while I try to do something really complicates things. I can typically do the above workout in about an hour and still find time for cardio on a normal day, but with all of the distractions, this just wasn't possible.

Oh well. I'm still happy.

 

[Makalakumu]

1/15/2007 - Practice Entry

Today is COLD. I woke up this morning and I didn't even have to look at the thermometer to see that it is below zero. Right now, in my backroom (my personal dojo), its chilly. The dog chew some of the weather stripping off the door this fall and I haven't gotten around to fixing it because it was so warm this fall.

It's too bad MT doesn't have a smilie for kicking yourself.

Anyway, I'm off from work today. It's MLK day and my district is one of the few that scheduled a holiday for this day. Thus, the kids are at daycare and my plans today are to workout and go fishing.

My workout today will consist of Martial Arts Workout A. I have two forms of martial arts workouts that I interchange in order to switch things up and not get bored. On A days, this is what I do...

Martial Arts Workout A

1. Warm - ups

Set of 50 push ups. 200 regular crunches. 200 twisted lateral crunches. 200 alternating twist crunches. Another 50 push ups. I followed this up with about 10 minutes of stretching.

2. Tai Chi - Chen Men Ching 16, Yang Lu Chan 24, Yang Lu Chan 88.

3. Stretching - 10 minutes

4. Tang Soo Do Hyung - Gi Cho 1-3, Pyung Ahn 1-5, Chil Sung 1-4, Yuk Ro 1, Bassai Dai and Sho, Naihanchi 1-3, Tang Soo - slow and fast, GBH, Chinto, Rohai. No application work today...

5. Weapons Hyung - FMA basic knife work with shadow boxing drills, Tanto Hyung with applications, Unig Zyow with applications on left and right, Cane Form with applications, Stick and Knife form with applications and shadow boxing drills, Bong Hyung with applications, Tai Chi Sword.

6. Kicking sequences 1-9 and in between each, I practice my personal sparring combinations 1-10.

This workout will take me somewhere between 1.5 to 1.75 hours to complete.

Perhaps I'll fix the weather stripping when I'm done...burr!!!

 

[Makalakumu]

1/16/2007 - Practice Interuptus

My plan for this morning was to get up at 4:30 and do some lifting and cardio. I had a cranky 2 year old last night though. He had me up to 1:00 am searching all over the house for his comfort items.

Oh well, today can be a rest day.

I'm going to have to get in bed early tonight if I'm going to attempt to get up in the morning tomorrow.

...and now I'm off to guzzle a pot of coffee...

 

[Makalakumu]

1/16/2007 - Teaching Entry

Interesting day. Right after I make my first entry about my cancelled practice and cranky kids, I go upstairs and my wife is puking her guts out. I made it in time to hold back the hair at least. Then, as the day went on, the kids came down with the same bug.

Needless to say, I cancelled class tonight. Being a husband and a father comes first.

I will, however, have a little time to perhaps pick up the workout I cancelled this morning. If everyone goes to bed early, I may have a little time to myself. The key word here is MAY. As I said, it's not my priority, however, I'd much rather do that then watch TV.

 

[Makalakumu]

1/17/2007 - Practice Entry

I had a pretty good day with practicing. I did martial arts workout B this morning even though I had a dandy headache when I started. Sometimes I get dehydrated at night and I wake up in pretty poor condition until I work some water into my system.

Martial Arts Workout B

1. Warm - ups

Set of 50 push ups. 200 regular crunches. 200 twisted lateral crunches. 200 alternating twist crunches. Another 50 push ups. I followed this up with about 10 minutes of stretching.

2. Tai Chi - Chen Men Ching 16, Yang Lu Chan 24, Yang Lu Chan 88.

3. Stretching - 10 minutes

4. Tang Soo Do Hyung - Gi Cho 1-3, Pyung Ahn 1-5, Chil Sung 1-4, Yuk Ro 1, Bassai Dai and Sho, Naihanchi 1-3, Tang Soo - slow and fast, GBH, Chinto, Rohai.

5. Weapons Hyung - With kicking sequences 1-9 in between.

6. I practice my personal sparring combinations 1-10 along with various applications from forms that I was thinking about. Usually this gives me some insights into what I want to work on in class.

To top all of this off, I worked in another session of weights. I took my daughter to swim lessons and hit the gym for 45 minutes. My routine was similar to what I posted before, except that I added squats.

 

[Makalakumu]

1/18/2007 - Practice Entry

This morning, I worked on my third version of a martial arts workout.

Martial Arts Workout C

1. Warm - ups

Set of 50 push ups. 200 regular crunches. 200 twisted lateral crunches. 200 alternating twist crunches. Another 50 push ups. I followed this up with about 10 minutes of stretching.

2. Tai Chi - Chen Men Ching 16, Yang Lu Chan 24, Yang Lu Chan 88.

3. Stretching - 10 minutes

4. Tang Soo Do Hyung - Gi Cho 1-3, Pyung Ahn 1-5, Chil Sung 1-4, Yuk Ro 1, Bassai Dai and Sho, Naihanchi 1-3, Tang Soo - slow and fast, GBH, Chinto, Rohai. Between each group of forms, I get down and work the ab-roller.

5. Weapons Hyung - With kicking sequences 1-9 in between. Every three kicking sequences, I'll whip off 100 push-ups.

6. Pick one form and break down the applications. (takes about 20 minutes)

This morning's choice is Chinto. Needless to say, I'm hopelessly lost with a few moves.

Sigh...

 

[Makalakumu]

1/18/2007 - Teaching Entry

Here is a breif summary of what we hit during all of the classes tonight.

Red Belt - we ran through forms and kicking sequences as warm ups and then we worked hubbad with palm strikes and elbows. I introduced working some joint locks in on this, but we didn't get very far.

Weapons class - we worked the basic knife tapping drill and did not get much past the primary defenses. We also worked sinawalli by reviewing heaven six and starting earth six.

Sparring class - we worked one up and one down sparring. I went over positions on the ground, kicks from the ground, and sweeps from the ground. We culminated this by doing a round robin sparring session that had everyone sucking wind by the end. Good stuff.

Then we did a round robin submission grappling session. However, we had a clearly defined Uke and Tori because some of the students had never done this before.

A couple of notes...

1. Talk to my teacher about the hubbad switches next time you see him.
2. Order some new sticks, because banging away is starting to take a toll.
3. Work the concept of wrist control next time you have a grappling class. Everyone needs lots of work on this.

 

[Makalakumu]

1/22/2007 - Practice Entry

I worked Martial Arts Workout C this morning. I decided to take it easy. My poor elbow was killing me after I abused it all weekend drilling holes in the ice with my hand auger. Everything I did this morning seemed to flow just fine. I probably can work a little harder on my stances, however.

One thing that I'm noticing as I've tracked my progress over the years is that I've slowly been gaining weight. Intuitively, this doesn't make much sense since I eat well and I workout so much. Seven years ago, when I tested for 1st dan, I weighed 165 and I wrestled under that weight in high school. Now, I'm not fat by any means, in fact, if you look at me, you probably wouldn't even guess that I crossed the 200 lbs mark a few days ago. I really just think that my body is changing as I get older. I seem to be broadening out and getting more muscular. This really surprises me because I didn't expect it.

Oh well, I still have a six pack. It's not as defined as it was when I was 19, but that's okay.

 

[Makalakumu]

1/23/2007 - Practice Entry

I worked my normal weight routine this morning, except between the lat pulldown and the seated pulls, I added some stance work. I went into some deep stances and held them static for 2 minutes each. My legs were definitely feeling it, but I think I could have gone longer for each. Heck, I, at one time had gotten to the point where 15 minutes was easy, but then I stopped stance training for some reason...well I know what the reason was. Kids. I didn't have time to stand around for over an hour in each stance!

 

[Makalakumu]

1-23-2007 - Teaching Entry

My classes went well tonight. I have been working on my DvD project forever it seems and it is nice to have all of the basic lower belt techniques on tape.

During class tonight, I worked my way straight through the green belt list. I had all of my students huffing and puffing by the end...which is always good. Normally, I don't go that fast and I spend more time on each technique, but tonight, I had a student come who I hadn't seen in class for a while, so it was all just review.

Anyway, I really need to find a way to encourage some of my students to practice a little more on their own. I see the same problem again and again and give the same solution again and again, but no one is following through. This art isn't something that you can just practice at one level and keep getting better. You have got to constantly strive to acheive a new level in order to really advance.

How can I get them to see this?

 

[Makalakumu]

1/24/2007 - Practice Entry

This morning I worked Martial Arts Workout B. Not much I can say about it, except that I worked my stances a little more the normal. However, when I practiced some of the required curriculum, I was reminded of a student who happens to be rather resistent to learning certain aspects of it. I understand why. In many respects, its like a worksheet that gets handed out in school. If you understand the purpose behind the worksheet, then the activity itself has less meaning. The key word here, however, is less. Notice that it isn't NO.

Anyway, I think the end result is that I think that people really need to keep an open mind about stuff they are learning. In many KMA's students are taught not to question their teachers and while I really have serious problems with this...I can see some wisdom in this. Often people ask questions and seek answers that they already know. And sometimes people ask questions that hide their true intentions. And then sometimes people ask questions because they are impatient and cannot wait for the answer. Now, I would never say that a student should NOT ever ask their teacher a question, but I will say that I think that a student should have enough honesty, patience and humility to truly ask questions that will deepen their understanding of a topic.

This is what I attempt to do...

Oh, yeah, I also did a little more weight lifting while my daughter was in swimming lessons tonight. The biggest thing that struck me was the amount of high schoolers that were in the gym. God, I remember being like that!

I'm getting old.

 

[Makalakumu]

Teaching Entry - 1/25/2007

Interesting class tonight. Everyone that showed up was sick in some way. We either had coughs or sinus issues or sneezes or stuffiness or whatever. We still kicked *** though...and probably exchanged some germs.

I've been dilligently working on my 3rd dan project. My hope is that the Dvd that I create really helps my students learn the art that I am trying to teach. We've taken alot of video and shared a lot of laughs and I'm really greatful to all of my students because it tends to slow down class when we tape. I'll be done soon, though, so hopefully any irritation that may be building up melts away.

And, actually, I think some of my students are kind of excited that this DvD could be viewed by two 7th dans and a bunch of other high ranking TSD people. That scares the crap out of me, but oh well. I'm doing my best...and I'm attempting to not turn into a petty dictator.

Heh.

Class was fun. We worked some jump kicks and jump spin kicks. I wish those didn't hurt my back so much, because they are kind of fun to do. My teacher said that it's perfectly fine if I just demonstrate the kicks for my students and leave it at that, so I've been taking that advice. Right now, I've got an ice pack on my lower back in the hopes that I pre-empt any soreness tomorrow morning.

 

[Makalakumu]

1/28/2007 - Practice Entry

I worked Martial Arts Workout B this morning. My mother just told me that my grandfather died and this seemed like a good way to work things out.

 

[Makalakumu]

1/29/2007 - Practice Entry

I worked Martial Arts Workout C this morning. And I put a heavy emphasis on some forms that I had been screwing up. The opening sequence for Chil Sung Sa Lo was especially troublesome. I spent some time checking and rechecking my video of the moves in questions just to make sure it was right. When all was said and done, I got a pretty good workout from repeating the moves so many time. The deep stances really got my thighs burning.

When I think about the DvD project I've been working on, the above is exactly the reason why I'm doing it. My hope is that my students can use the tool exactly the same way I was. It is NOT meant to teach. It is meant to be a visual aid to help the student learn.

 

[Makalakumu]

1/30/2007 - Practice Entry

I woke up in the morning and lifted weights before I packed up the family and headed off to grandpa's funeral. There was nothing special about this workout other then the fact that I upped some of the weight on a few lifts. I'm glad I was able to find a little time for this...

 

[Makalakumu]

1-30-2007 - Teaching Entry

Class was cancelled for the funeral.

 

[Makalakumu]

2-1-2007 - Teaching Entry

Class was cancelled today. We just got back from the funeral and I just needed a day to get back into the swing of things.

 

[Makalakumu]

2-1-2007 - Practice Entry

I decided to lift weight before I went to bed. I realized that I hadn't done anything in the last few days and I just needed to do something in order to NOT feel like a slug. The new weight levels are really challenging. I'm getting about 4 reps on my max sets. I figure this is where I should be.

 

[Makalakumu]

2-2-2007 - Practice Entry

I slept in this morning and went to work. It had been a long and very tiring last few days and the extra hour and a half of sleep did wonders for my mood. When I got home, the kids really wanted to watch a movie, I I obliged them and then proceeded to work through Martial Arts Workout A. Everything felt really good yesterday. I had a couple of spin kicks that were a little off target, but that quickly corrected itself with a couple of reps. I think I'm finallly getting back into the groove. Next week, I'll start getting up in the mornings and teaching.