Ow. My Balls.

Ha.

Today’s workout in conditioning class was very upper body intensive. It was a partner workout so, I’m not quite sure how to score it. You have to do 50 reps BETWEEN the 2 of you, so each person actually does only 25 (if you are fair and evenly splitting tee-hee).

50 medicine ball slams
50 medicine ball sit ups
50 medicine ball overhead throws
50 medicine ball Russian twists

I partnered with Hugh and our combined time was 20:10. Not bad. I was really tired by the 4th round.

As our punishment for finishing before the rest of the class, we were instructed by our ~~slave driver~~ benevolent leader, to do the following:

30s plank
30s rest
45s plank
30s rest
60s plank
die

Once I was resuscitated, the follow up workout was 2 rounds of:

1 minute bag work (I held)
2 minutes of hard kata work (1st round – 1st black tiger, 2nd round – 1st road of meteor fist)
1 minute bag work (I attacked)

… I’m freakin tired.

WOD did you say?

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Today’s WOD was really challenging for me. I am starting to battle the soreness of the weekend and first 1/2 of this week. I wasn’t feeling all that hot going into it, but I still vowed to give it all I had.

Here’s the workout:

10 burpees
20 kettlebell swings
30 situps
400 meter run

My time: 22:39

I think I could have actually saved some time here but I had to take some breaks. More than I would have liked, but I was completely gassed a few time during this workout. I was able to complete 1.5 of the runs without stopping, but after that, it was a run/walk/run/walk sort of deal.

Still though, I am happy I finished under 25 minutes.

Less than a month away…

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My 29th birthday (ugh, sigh, kick, scream) is now officially less than 1 month away. That being said, here are some things that, if they magically appeared before me on that day, would be really cool, not imperative, but really cool:

1) Vibram FiveFingers – http://www.rei.com/product/783340

2) Some new training shorts for crossfit, something like this >> http://www.mmawarehouse.com/Sinister-Evolution-II-Fight-Shorts-p/sin-1046.htm

I’m sure there’s some other stuff too, but that’s all I can think of for now. Perhaps the birthday fairy will be good this year as she was last year. Remember this awesome gift? (PS, there are way more belts on the middle one now as V is almost a black belt in TKD)

Soreness

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What would a workout, especially a crossfit blog be if there was no mention of soreness?

To be completely honest, during and after yesterday’s workout, I was expecting to be immobile today. I was expecting to be hurting with every move to sit, stand, walk, lift a fork, etc. Much to my surprise, I am pretty mobile and have minimal pain. I am only a little sore.

I’ve got a good friend coming over today so that I can help him with his tai chi. His name is Sean and he runs the Pflugerville Shaolin-Do. He’s been needing some help with his Chen form and, well I love that one and am always interested in helping out good people. My help to him will by proxy help all of his students so that makes me happy too. The Chen movements should hopefully loosen me up a bit in the legs. I will most likely gridroll today as well.

Hopefully, by the time black belt class rolls around tonight, I’ll be ready to rock =)

1st Official Crossfit Workout

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I didn’t get very much sleep last night. Surprise, surprise. I woke up in a pretty bad mood and very groggy. When we got to crossfit, there was no one there, but eventually Nikki showed up and we got started.

I did have a sense of apprehension about this being my first official workout. I knew that, as the universe operates, it would a workout that was aimed right at my weaknesses. In a rare turn of events, I was actually dead on right. Well… bring it, I guess.

As she was writing the workout on the board, I thought “this sucks, but not TOO bad”. Then she said “hey, let’s go do some tabata sprints outside”…. awesome. I was gassed before the workout even STARTED.

Warm up

– 3x {10 jumping jacks, squats, sit ups, back extensions}

2nd Warm Up (?)

– Tabata sprints, 8 rounds.

Workout

– 100ft Lunges

– 21 pull ups, sit ups

– 100ft Lunges

– 18 pull ups, sit ups

– 100ft Lunges

– 15 pull ups, sit ups

– 100ft Lunges

– 12 pull ups, sit ups

– 100ft Lunges

– 9 pull ups, sit ups

– 100ft Lunges

– 6 pull ups, sit ups

My time: 13:01

V’s time: 14:49

I pretty much sucked wind the entire time during this workout. The ride home was tough too. Because of the lack of sleep, horrible food from cheat day, and nothing in our stomachs, we both felt completely horrible on the way home. It didn’t help that I felt like I hit every red light and got behind every slow person too. What can you do…

V had it worse than I did. When she got home, she had to lay down for a bit and eat a banana. Her blood sugar had bottomed and she wasn’t feeling too hot. After a rest, she felt better.

I went to KF which turned out to be a good thing as there were some people there that needed some pakua help.

Reflections on the last few days…

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As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, this week/weekend has been a very kung-fu-tastic. Some really good things happened during this time. Additionally, I have had some realizations about some things that I wanted to share here.

Starting off with the “good things”…

1) I tested up to 2nd degree black sash. Yay! Now, it’s time for some new material. I am very much looking forward to learning some Hsing-Ie – Wikipedia from some very talented members of the Shaolin family.

2) Speaking of the Shaolin family, I got to see lots of people that I have a great deal of respect for and are just overall great people and good friends. That is always a good thing and something that makes me happy. I love my Shaolin family and wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

3) I got to be in the Round Rock school’s demo with Master Joe. That was a big highlight for me. I was really flattered that he would as me to do ANYTHING with him for a demo. He’s been a fantastic teacher and someone to show me what martial arts should look like and be all about.

4) I got to re-learn the 1st Road of Meteor Fist (Lui Hsing). As I had learned this 3-4 years ago in Lexington, the seminar wasn’t THAT bad on me, but it was good to be able to help Victoria, Troy, and some others get it down. This is definitely one of the most powerful (not just physically powerful, but powerful in other ways) katas that I have ever seen. I am sure that as the years go on, I will continue to learn from it.

5) I was able to schedule 1 time per week to help one of my good friends with their Tai Chi. I am looking forward to being able to make a positive impact here as my assistance will, through this person, help many others.

Now, on to some realizations…

1) The Round Rock tournament felt pretty different from the North Austin tournament. I am not sure what that means, but there’s definitely a palpable difference. I saw some really awesome talent at this tournament as I always do at Shaolin tournaments, but well, I didn’t really feel great about being there.

2) I think that an organizations “feeling” is a direct result of the most influential people at said organization. This isn’t an accident. It may not be planned, but it’s not an accident. Most times you can get the feeling of a place the second you walk into it. Have you ever just showed up somewhere and just felt, “this feels stuffy and I don’t want to here”? This is similar to meeting a person and instantly disliking them for some unknown reason. Anyway…

3) Luckily, Victoria and I got to have some conversations with Grandmaster Sin at varying points throughout the weekend. He is such a happy guy and really, the complete antithesis of what you assume a “Shaolin Grandmaster” would be like to interact with. In talking to him, he’s really just another guy that knows Kung Fu. this is not to down play his importance. It’s because of HIM and subsequently Master Joe that I have this wonderful art that I can practice. It’s because of HIM that I know all of this amazing stuff and have these amazing people as friends. I, we of Shaolin-Do owe him a great deal. Some of my favorite moments from this weekend were just talking to him to get his take on some things. It’s rare that you can meet a person that can laugh like he can. I hope to one day be a fraction of the person he is.

4) Not to be a jerk or anything, but I don’t care about your kung fu. I don’t care if you don’t give you all during class. I don’t care if you CAN do a double-smash kick, but don’t really even try to do it in class or whatever. That’s YOUR choice. I would say that in MOST cases, I do try and give my all even though there ARE days where it’s just not there. Everyone has off days. What I am talking about here is the general pattern of actions. Do you usually give your all or do you sorta kinda half ass it most of the time? Is it really important to you? What YOU did used to be important to me, but I am starting to move away from that.

I feel that this weekend, I got caught up in a few conversations about this and that and this one and that one. Some were started by me, some were not. Part of this realization is that I don’t want to have these conversations anymore and I will do all that I can to not. As my time goes on in Shaolin and, well, life, I find that I am responsible for my journey and mine alone. I can only control what I can control. One of my good friends and favorite teachers at the school says “how you do anything is how you do everything”. It’s a truly powerful saying.

Don’t get me wrong, if I teach you at some point, I AM concerned about your personal development and will help you with whatever you need help with without ever judging you. However much or little you want to push yourself during a test or class has nothing to do with me. As Morpheus said, “I can only show you the door, YOU have to walk through it.”

5) Grandmaster Sin reminded us today of looking at the said and un-said aspect of everything. I remember him talking about this in Lexington the first time I saw Lui Hsing. I hadn’t really thought about it since then, but it’s really important! How much of what people communicate is un-said?! Quite a bit, I imagine. I will be working on paying more attention to this as time goes on.

6) I need to breathe better. I had a conversation with one of my Sifus earlier this week. He was talking to me about meditating to prepare for learning Hsing-Ie. I have been slacking on this b/c of time and energy. I always feel like I need to make time for meditation but it just never seems to happen. He started talking about what about right here and right now? Why not just breathe deeply all the time, whatever you are doing?

Since that conversation, I have been catching myself a lot more often falling into that short breathe cycle. I am sure I have gotten a few hours of, at the very least, deep breathing this week.

That’s all for now… I am going to crossfit tomorrow at 530am, then KF at 730am. This week marks some drastic schedule changes. I don’t think that I will be around the KF school so much at night anymore.

Hope you all had a great weekend! I certainly did.

Updates and stuff…

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I love this time of year. Every 6 months, the Grandmaster comes to town. We do testing, a tournament, and a seminar. Since I got my black sash and belt, the testings have been less frequent for me, but still, it’s great to see the people that I go to school with test and pass milestones.

This particular time around, however, I did test. 2 years ago I got my black sash, so, by the calendar, it was time to test for my second degree black sash. Lot’s of people seem to give me that confused look when I tell them I have a black sash in tai chi. They don’t understand what that means. When you say “tai chi” to someone, they immediately think of some slow Yang style tai chi that old people do in the park. Yes, we do that, but oh, so much more. I will explain.

When you join Shaolin-Do, you can join the internal program, the external program, or both. Well, what’s the difference between internal and external? This isn’t really common knowledge, so I will try to explain…

Internal Martial Arts: Slower, softer movements. More focus on internal power generation, concentration, and control. Internal martial arts encompass such practices as Taichi (various families), Pakua, Hsing Ie, Meditation and some others.

External Martial Arts: Harder faster movements relying more on muscle power and strength. When you see most “kung fu” you are seeing “external” martial arts.

I don’t want to go into a long winded explanation of this and there is quite a bit that I am leaving out. If you really want to read more on it, there is a ton of information out there.

I digressed. Sorry.

So, this time around, I tested for my second degree black sash and passed. This test includes 8 animal pakua, Yang Taichi broadsword form, and Yang Taichi broadsword form 2-man set. I can now learn a bunch of new stuff.

Tomorrow, the Round Rock school is having their tournament. I will be competing in the taichi portion of things… wish me luck! There are some really talented people over there that will put up some pretty good competition. I will do my best.

Sunday, Grandmaster Sin will be teaching out the 1st road of meteor fist at the Round Rock school. Although I have taken this already, it was about 3 years ago in Kentucky. I can still do this form, but the review will be great. I am really excited for Victoria to learn it too. It’s one of the most badass katas I have ever seen.

Thankfully, I am finally getting sleepy again… I need to be up early tomorrow, so I’ll wrap it up here and end by saying congratulations to everyone that tested and passed. Don’t forget your “old” material and get ready for lots of new stuff!

Fight… gone… puke/passout… bad…

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Despite going to sleep pretty late last night and being utterly exhausted, I dragged my sorry ass to conditioning class this morning b/c I told Hugh I would be there after testing. Turns out that I am still pretty damn tired, but I am really happy that I went.

We haven’t done a “fight gone bad” in a while. FGB is meant to mimic how an MMA fighter would feel during a fight. The format is 5 exercises done for 1 minute each with a minute of rest at the end, all repeated 3 or 5 times. Today, we did 3. The idea is that after about 1 minute of an exercise, you should be at just about muscle failure, so you stop, change gears, and do something else.

Anyway, today’s workout was 3 cycles of the following:

Step ups (20lb dumbbells)
Push press (55lbs)
Medicine Ball Sit Ups (12lb medicine ball)
Medicine Ball Cleans (25lb medicine ball)
Kettle bell sumo dead lift high pulls (1 pood, I think)
Rest

I was able to get out a total of 295 reps. This is WAY harder than it sounds… Here’s the breakdown of my reps:

Exercise	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Total
Step ups	27	20	17	64
Push press	30	22	21	73
Med Ball Sit Ups	21	18	16	55
Med Ball Cleans	16	12	12	40
KBSDHP	22	20	21	63

WOD Tracking

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In a moment of inspiration, I wondered if anyone had an app to track crossfit workouts. Since one of the key aspects of crossfit is the attempt to fascilitate marked improvment over time, you DO need to compare times from previous workouts. Who in their right might wants to flip through a book to do this!?

Anyway, I found this site:

http://www.wodclub.com

Into the adult pool, please…

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Finally, Victoria and I have decided to take the step into real crossfit. We have both been doing the workouts on and off in the garage. I go to the Friday morning class at the KF school taught by my friend Cindy (not to be confused with the workout, “Cindy”), but well, it’s just not the same as going to the actual place itself. I equate it to trying to learn a martial art from a book. You can maybe discern the moves, but you will never get it down the same as someone who goes to a school of that same art.

At any rate, I am very excited to finally be taking this step. I feel like I am finally getting out of the kiddie pool of fitness, so to speak and getting into the pool with the rest of the grown ups. I have heard throughout my life that it’s really important to surround yourself with people that you want to be like and I really want to be like these people. When I look at the gains and well, just overall health that my friends have accomplished, I want to be like them. I know it will be hard and there will be times when I will want to quit. I am sure there will be times when I will ask myself “what are you doing all this for?”, but I am sure those will be balanced by how good I will feel .

We went this morning and did a baseline workout consisting of the following:

500m row
40 air squats
30 sit-ups
20Â push ups
10 pullups

Here’s the sheet that was filled out by my coach:

Bryan Baseline

My time was 5:40 even. The only modification that I had to make to the workout was to do jumping pullups instead of regular. Pullups are going to be a long journey for me, but one that I am ready to make, I think.

Lastly, I know that this blog started off as a food blog. Although I might start actually blogging food again, I will also use this blog to track these workouts and my times. If anyone’s curious about crossfit, I’d be happy to talk to you about it or refer you to someone.