Slowing down, speeding up and Iain Abernethy seminar....

I decided to slow down a bit this week. I don't think I've been giving myself enough time to recover between sessions.

Over the last few weeks the schedule has been:



Monday 1.5 hour workout at home in the morning followed by 2.5 hours of karate classes in the evening,
Tuesday push-up challenge,
Wednesday 1.5 hour karate class,
Thursday push up challenge,
Friday 1.5 hour workout at home,
Saturday push up challenge and
Sunday 1.5 hour kobudo class.

So, not a lot of time for recovery between sessions! My muscles have been aching and I've been more stiff than usual following a session so I think a slow down was definitely needed.

This week I've laid off the push up challenge. I repeated week 5 last week and still failed to achieve 45 consecutive push ups in the exhaustion test. I decided that rather than repeat week 5 again I would take a week out and then try the exhaustion test again to see where I'm at.

I've still managed to fit in my two long home training sessions but I've concentrated very much on karate rather than general fitness. I had been determined to pin down my ippon kumite techniques this week but alas time ran out on me. This will definitely be my job next week...

Sensei was clearly not aware that I was trying to rest up a bit this week and decided to have a fitness binge with us on Wednesday. This consisted of push ups, sit ups, squats, burpees, running around....and that was just the warm up. We then moved onto pad work and after doing a few minutes of punching we were straight into doing the following sequence: 10 kicks with each leg of - front kick, roundhouse kick, back kick, side kick, spinning hook kick and jump kick! Just when we thought it was all over Sensei shouts 20 push ups! Followed by a 1 minute plank, followed by standing in shikko dachi (horse stance) for 1 minute. Get a drink! Then immediately into kata with bunkai demonstration. After doing 3 different kata : Get your sparring mitts on! Two rounds of sparring was then followed by some stretching. There was definitely some soaking wet gis after that session!

Last Sunday I attended a seminar with Iain Abernethy. This is the second seminar I've attended with him and it is always a great experience. I can't believe how fast that guy can execute self-defence techniques - you just wouldn't stand a chance against him! Anyway we focused on the bunkai from pinan nidan (there's always more to that kata than meets the eye) and then looked at bunkai from Bassai Dai. This was especially useful for me as Bassai Dai is one of my kata for shodan grading. Iain is such an easy, approachable guy with lots of amusing anecdotes to tell in between teaching us. Apparently he was impressed with our standard of kata which he said made it easier for him to teach us bunkai. Nice to know I can do something right!

The photo above shows left to right: Steve Hegarty (my instructor), Iain Abernethy and me!

Training review and update

Where is the time going? When I started this fitness program and my black belt training I had 24 weeks to go - that's nearly 6 months, now I only have 14 weeks left and that doesn't seem very long at all. So much to do, so little time to do it!

One of the problems I'm facing is proportioning my time between general fitness training and specific karate training, particularly the stuff on the black belt syllabus. Over the last couple of weeks I've moved from doing mainly fitness training to doing mainly karate training. This is because there is so much to cover and I need to make quite a lot of progress in certain areas, particularly in some of the kihon (basics) which are very detailed and prescriptive.

A kick can't just be any old kick it has to be a super high-quality 'Marks & Spencer' style kick. Well some of my kicks are only 'Tesco' quality at the moment (some may even be 'Budgens'). No disrespect meant to these supermarkets - they operate in different customer markets but you get my drift. 


So how do you get from Budgens to Marks & Spencer with your kicks? Well it's just a case of checking your technique is correct and then practice, practice, practice. So this is what I have been doing. Lots.

However, spending much of my home training time practising basic kihon has meant that I don't have a lot of time to follow my general fitness program so I have had to prioritise and double up where possible. So instead of shadow boxing for endurance training I now go through all 12 of my kihon combinations several times. Believe me, when you are putting all your power and effort into performing these you really work up a sweat and get your heart going!

I am still doing squat training, balance training and the push up challenge on a regular basis and I try to do the flexibility exercises at least twice a week. The push up challenge has actually become the most constant exercise in my week. I have been following the program with almost religious zeal and I'm making progress. On Saturday (the end of week 5) I managed 120 push ups divided into 8 sets (with 30 done in the last set). However, I didn't do so well with the exhaustion set - I could only get to 35 whereas I needed to get to 45 to move onto the next week of the program. So I am repeating week 5 again this week. But hey, 120 push ups in 15 minutes (with short breaks between sets)? No way I could have done that a few weeks ago!

So, where to go now? I think I will be reviewing my training aims and re-planning my program a bit to reflect the need to spend more time practising specific karate techniques. I need to be thinking about by ippon kumite techniques (1 step sparring) and self defence techniques as well as continuing to practice kata and kihon. However, strength, fitness and flexibility are also important so I still need to fit this in somewhere.....

Keep you posted. Happy training!

A private lesson experience

I've been a little distracted this week with sorting out my computer virus problems (see: Computer Virus Frustrations!). This has now been sorted out but it has made me a little late posting on this blog this week!

Despite a few wasted hours fixing my computer I have still been following my training program, though not as frequently as I would have liked. I suppose the real highlight of the last fortnight was having a private karate lesson with my instructor. I've never had a private lesson before but my instructor offered it to me for free as a thank you for helping him with the junior class over the last 18 months.

I found the private lesson both exciting and scary. Exciting because it was an opportunity to specifically work on things I needed or wanted to work on and receive lots of individualised feedback and advice but scary because all the attention was on me and all my negative points were exposed and dissected in detail. However, this is the nature of martial arts training - one improves more quickly if negative points are highlighted and corrected early so I was very grateful for the feedback.

My instructor filmed me performing my punching and kicking combinations and also my kata. Seeing yourself on film is a revelation and not necessarily a pleasant one! My punching combinations didn't look too bad but I thought my kicking combinations were pretty awful on the whole. My back kick is too low, my front kick doesn't snap back enough, my roundhouse kick is off-line and my side kick lacks power. I can work on all this though, at home, and it WILL get better. Seeing yourself look bad at something really motivates you to want to get better at it. The other negative thing about seeing myself on film is that my gi makes me look enormous, especially around the hips - these things really aren't designed to flatter!

My kata performances are a work in progress. My Bassai Dai performance has strong points and weak points. I hadn't realised until this lesson that I had actually misinterpreted some of the moves and was doing them incorrectly. These errors have now been pointed out,  so I can work on them in my own time. In fact I've been working on them quite hard since the lesson and I reckon that if I was filmed again you would already see some improvement in my performance.

The lesson focused entirely on basics - punches, kicks, stances and kata. These are things every karate-ka needs to work on constantly so it was very valuable to work on this in a private lesson. The hour flew by and left me feeling pretty tired, both mentally and physically. I would definitely recommend a private lesson, particularly if you have certain issues that you need to work on. 

Have you ever had a private martial arts lesson? Did you enjoy it or find it too intense? 

Push Ups are mental!

I've just completed week 3 of the push up challenge and I've decided that push ups are mental! By mental I mean psychological. By psychological I mean that your mind controls how many you can do - or appears to...

Take yesterdays effort for instance: The first set required me to do 11 push ups. I did this but could barely have pushed a 12th out. The second set required 13 push ups. I did this and easily pushed out the 12th but could not have pushed out 14. The third and fourth sets only required 9 push ups each. I could not have pushed out more than 9 for each - my arms were literally trembling! Then for the 5th set I had to push up until I maxed out but had to do a minimum of 13. I set the target at 18 because I had achieved 16 the last time and wanted to feel I was making progress. I did 18 easily but could not have pushed out a 19th!

What's going on? It's as if my mind tells my body what it is capable of doing for each set of push ups and enables me to access the required physical resources to achieve the task but no more. It definitely feels like a case of mind over matter. My husband has experienced the same phenomenon with his push up challenge.

Is this a working example of the unification of mind, spirit and body?

I decided to apply the principle to my training this morning. Instead of doing shadow sparring I set myself the task of going through all my punching combinations. We have 6 different combinations but the format is similar for each, consisting of : start in yoi, step into zenkutsu dachi with kamae, punch 1, punch 2, kamae, step back into yoi and then repeat on the other side. I decided to set myself the target of doing each combination 10 times on each side, making a total of 120 punch combinations. I thought this would test out my endurance, particularly as I intended to do every combination with maximum vigour!

I decided that a stepped approach similar to the push up challenge was required, so I did each of the six combinations in turn, 10 times on each side and then had 60 seconds rest before starting the next combination. The whole thing took less than 15 minutes and I didn't even collapse in a heap at the end of it!

It was as if once I had set the target and a schedule for achieving it, my mind just instructed my body to get on with it and released the necessary physical resources to do it.

I think I'm learning a lot more about myself from this push up challenge than just how to do push ups.....

Some ups and downs this week.....

The last two weeks training has gone a bit slower than planned! Unfortunately some of my training has been thwarted by illness (heavy cold) and injury (pulled deltoid muscle). Typically, the days I was unable to train because of illness or injury were the days I had the time to do it!

Last week I managed to fit in the program twice by doing different bits on different days as I felt up to it but this week I didn't do anything significant until today. I managed to get off work early so came home and spent an hour in the gym doing some fitness and weights training and some karate stuff. I feel I've made up a little bit for not training on Monday (my day off) but my left shoulder was so sore I thought I'd better rest it.

Strangely this did not stop me doing a double karate class on Monday evening (I'd have to be on my death bed to miss that). Unfortunately, Sensei had decided to dedicate the whole week to kihon training, mainly punching - which was good but very hard on my poor shoulder which was really throbbing by the end of class! We did some stretching at the end and Sensei showed my partner how to stretch out my shoulder.

Next morning I woke up expecting my shoulder to be really sore but to my amazement it felt fine. I don't know if it was the stretching or the kihon or something else but it's not bothered me much since.

The part of my training that I have consistently managed to maintain this last fortnight is the Push Up Challenge (see my left side bar for results). I am now on week 3 and have been following the program to the letter. My husband has joined me in the challenge so we can motivate each other to keep going. It is a hard challenge but I'm slowly making progress. At the end of last week (week 2) I maxed out with 16 push ups. I know this doesn't sound many but that only represents the last set of push ups out of 5 sets. You do a prescribed number of push ups for the first 4 sets with a minute rest between, then you do as many as you can in the last set - that's the number you record. However, if you add the 5 sets together I did 61 push ups - which sounds more respectable!

I have another day off tomorrow so I am hoping that now I am free of illness and injury I will be able to get up to speed with program again and have a good long session of solo training.

Happy training....

Don't forget about facial fitness as well.....

How many hours a week do you spend exercising your body? Two, five, ten, fifteen? No doubt if you are reading this you are interested in fitness or sport and spend some hours every week exercising; be it cardio training, weights, flexibility or whatever. You are probably careful about what you eat too. It's important to you; you want to be fit, toned and trim; you want to stay healthy into mid life and old age. You want to stay looking youthful for as long as possible. Am I right?

Well, what about your face then? Do you exercise that too?

Have you ever had that experience of walking behind someone (usually a woman) who looks slim and attractive, well toned and stylishly dressed, then she turns around and you recoil a bit in horror because her face is much older than you expected? Sounds horrible I know but would you like to be that woman? I wouldn't.

Don't worry, this isn't about to turn into an advert for cosmetic surgery or botox - I wouldn't advocate either. I think cosmetic surgery should be reserved for people who have genuine need i.e. facial deformity or disfigurement following an accident or burn. What I am actually advocating is a more natural remedy for staying youthful - a facial exercise program....

Here are some facts: There are around 60 muscles in the human face. The facial muscles differ from the muscles in our bodies in that they are directly attached to each other and to the skin. Many of these muscles are not frequently used and, as with somatic muscles, the 'use it or lose it' principle applies and the facial muscles can sag and atrophy as we age.

As the muscles in our faces sag they drag down the skin with them giving the classic ageing signs of eye bags, loose skin on the upper eye lids, jowls, turkey necks.....   As the muscles continue to atrophy and thin our eyes and cheeks get that sunken appearance and our skin no longer 'fits' onto the shrunken frame causing folds and wrinkles to appear. Of course this will all be compounded if we ill treat our skin by exposing it to ultra-violet light and/or smoking causing it to lose it's elasticity as the collagen fibres break down. If you are a runner the news just gets worse.....jogger's faces tend to age more quickly than others because of the constant jarring of the face with each step, pulling the muscles down. People doing outdoors sports also tend to get more exposure to sunlight.

If we neglected our bodies as much as we neglect our faces we would hardly be able to walk! But we don't neglect our bodies in this way so why do it to our faces - the one part of us we really would like to keep looking good?

Have I convinced you that you need to exercise your facial muscles as well as your body?

I started a facial exercise program about 2 years ago and think that my face has definitely benefited from it. This is no miracle cure or quick fix, like any exercise program it takes a while to see results and you have to keep it up - for ever! The effects on my face are subtle but noticeable. The eye bags I was starting to develop have gone. I don't really have any lines across my forehead, the skin on my face is smooth and taut and my jawline is clearly defined. Don't get me wrong - I don't exactly look 21 any more but most people don't think I look my 48 years either. I don't feel I've rewound the clock a great deal but hopefully I'm stopping it from ticking forward too quickly!

The program I'm following is Eva Fraser's - check out her website, but there are other programs available as well.

Here's some pictures of Eva. She was born in 1928 and was 79 when these pictures were taken! She has had no cosmetic surgery.

The exercises are structured and address individual muscle groups in the face. They are not merely about pulling faces in the mirror. They start off without the use of resistance whilst you learn to find and isolate specific muscles. Once you can find the muscles and control them you move onto the advanced phase which involves exercising the muscles against resistance - just like you would your body. Once you get the hang of it the program takes about 10-15 minutes a day and eventually tails off to 10 minutes 3 times a week as a maintenance program.

Why not add facial exercises to your fitness routine and have the complete health and fitness look?

Week 5 - progress report

This is the beginning of the fifth week of my pre shodan training programme - just 18 more to go, eek, scary!
So, how is it going?

Endurance and speed training: I have focused pre-dominantly on shadow sparring and various kicking drills for my endurance training. I started to get on better with the shadow sparring once I had developed a set of sparring combinations to work on. This way I can get some combinations really drilled into my head whilst working on my stamina - kill two birds with one stone I say! The kicking drills do the same thing - they enable me to improve my kicking techniques and leg strength whilst getting my heart rate up at the same time. I do some of the shadow sparring hitting the air and some hitting the bag. I haven't managed to do as many endurance workouts as I wanted, just one or two sessions a week (I'd aimed for 3) but time is limited. However I'm going to aim for 2 sessions this week. This morning I did 15 minutes solid of shadow sparring so I was pretty pleased with that.

I know a lot of martial artists like to go running as a way of improving cardio fitness and stamina. In fact, I know some have to do a timed running test as part of their black belt grading. But does running build the right sort of endurance for martial arts? Martial arts usually requires short bursts of intense activity, particularly for sparring. A kata performance can be very energetic but it only last for a couple of minutes at most. I could understand sprint training as a good form of endurance training for martial arts, but jogging a few miles? I've never been a runner so I accept that I could be completely wrong on this issue - what's your view?

Weights and conditioning: I'm not aiming for big bulging muscles here, just improved tone and strength. I read recently on Fitness Black Book, that to improve muscle size you need to exercise the muscle to failure - the number of reps or weight used is irrelevant, it's the effort that counts. If you don't want your muscles to get overly large but just stronger and toned then don't exercise the muscle to failure. This presents me with a dilemma! I don't particularly want big muscles (not that women's muscles get that big anyway) but the hundred push-up challenge that I'm doing requires me, in the last set of reps, to do push  ups until I 'max out', i.e. exercise to failure. Not wanting to do the challenge half hearted I'm 'maxing out' on the push ups but I'm watching those muscles don't get too big!

Flexibility and balance training: I love doing the flexibility training. I find doing the long, slow stretches very relaxing - a good counter balance to the endurance and weights training. I tend to do the stretching exercises on the in between days (i.e the days I'm not doing the other stuff). I generally do the balance exercises first and maybe a bit of kata and then spend half an hour stretching. I've even tried adding 5 or 10 minutes of meditation onto the end of it when I'm feeling at my most relaxed. I'm really working on the hips at present. My instructor told me that my shiko dachi (horse stance) is not low enough when I'm doing seienchin kata so I think being able to open up my hips more will help with this.

I'm also working on various karate techniques, mainly basic kihon stuff but I'll talk about the benefits of doing that in a later post.