Wintertime - my favorite time of year for training!

Not because I like it so cold.... but because some frost gives beautiful scenery. And since a lot of people stay in, it is a lot quieter in the park and more animals show up (looking for food, so please help our little friends out a bit and share some of yours).

Cold is nasty for the muscles, but I do love running and doing Qi gong in the cold. Somehow it is easier to get in the 'focuszone' when you can see yourself breath...

I really start to like this spot for training and active mediation :)

A little training update:
For the last weeks I have been trying out what I can and can't do with the latest injury (my hip/lower back has a problem again). Sitting still does not improve the pain, so that is a good thing. Stretching seems to relieve the pain. Kicking seems to make it worse although last week I tried 'bag' practice with kicks, and it has not really got worse. So maybe it is mainly the stretch kicks when I am tense.
This evening I will try stretch kicks again, see how it feels tomorrow.
I was doubting if the injury felt like a jammed nerve, or an infected joint... but the pain has moved a bit now, its more in the hip and less in the back, so I think it is the joint that is acting up. Had that before, so that will just take some time to heal. At least I can run and train, I just need to be care-full with kicking high and fast.

Did I already tell you that Shaolin Kung Fu is not just sports... it is also teaching you a lot about your body.
A Kung Fu friend of mine told me he always is inspired by how I put myself in pain when I train even with injuries....
I told him: "I do not put myself in pain, I am exploring what causes the pain and what makes it better, but I will not stop moving just because I feel a little pain"
For me that is also part of Kung Fu and Chan. Pain will come, pain will go, but life goes on in the meantime and it is not use full to sit still and wait when you are in pain. Explore and find what you can do and let go of the pain. Then all of a sudden you'll notice the pain is gone... just because you put focus back on your practice rather then on your pain :)

Needles and stretching

Amituofo,

The pain in my hip/lower back has not really decreased since last week. I'm trying everything to get rid of this issue, and I feel that eventually it will... now just find the most efficient way.

Last Sunday I got introduced to acupuncture. Sam always has acupuncture done when he feels his lower back acting up again, and he is really helped by it.
To be honest I do not know if it helped me. It was a fun experience really and felt really strange to 'trigger' muscle activity by sticking needles in your butt...

For the moment I will stick to not doing kicks, and doing lots of stretching. That helped me before so lets see how it feels in a week.

Yesterdays Kung Tao training was awesome (yes, injury does not mean no training). Sam decided to do sparring every two weeks and I really missed that a lot in the past year. Its just fun to work on some skill application.

Amituofo!

Old injury gone, time for a new one....

Pfff... the downside of training a lot is that the change of hurting yourself also increases...

Last week Friday I did something wrong with kicking exercises and I hurt my hip/lower back. Saterday it was just a bit stiff, Sunday after training it felt pretty ok, but monday after training it started hurting again, and during our Tuesday evening Kung Tao training the pain was getting worse with each kick I did. And after the training I couldn't lift my leg without pain.
So yesterday I give my body some rest, and it feels a bit better now.

Today I will only do stretches and some Tai Chi/ Qi Gong... see if that makes things better...

Amituofo!

The mental benefits of Qi Gong

Amituofo!

Last week was a good week. I got an opportunity to share my experiences in Qi Gong.
My little brother asked me for some help on clearing his head, since he has been going through some rough times last couple of years and is now trying to get his life straightened out.


I started doing Qi Gong and regular exercise a while ago when my own head was to clouded to handle everything I wanted to handle and I feel really great about it, I try to do Qi gong every day now. So I hope I can teach my brother these exercises and I hope it will help him in the same way that it helps me.

I will teach him the movements and breathing patterns of Ba Duan Jin. I started out with the first 2 movements. We also did some physical exercise to get some excess energy out of the body.



Was a good weekend. Hope he enjoyed it to.

Amituofo!

Little more running today

Amituofo!

Today was the start of week 2 of running build-up. So instead of 3x5min running with 60 sec breaks, I did 3x7 minutes with 60 second breaks. No pains... so this week I'll repeat this twice more, and than I'll go up again next week to 3x9 minutes. The rest of the time of my lunch I spend doing stretching experiments... I am trying to find easy to do isometric stretches to replace all stretches I normally do in Kung Fu.
Why? Because I feel the isometric stretches have a far better effect then the stretches that I used to do. The trick is quite easy, I'll make some video's later on it, but it is basically: Instead of bouncing in the stretch, like we tend to do in our kung fu training, you go to your maximum stretch, stay there for a little while and relax till you feel that you are not stretching further, and then instead of bouncing in deeper, try to push yourself out of the stretch with the actual muscles you are stretching at that moment. On the last stretch you go to your stretch limit again and relax there for a while, then you repeat this. Do the pushing part 20 times, and do 3 sets in total. You can pretty much do this in any stretch that you do for which you use bodyweight.

Also found a very cool Wing Chun demo video online. It's still a demo but it nicely shows the applications of Wing Chun.

Some more info on stretching can be found here:
http://people.bath.ac.uk/masrjb/Stretch/stretching_1.html

Beautiful autumn day!

Amituofo!

Beautiful autumn day today. Since we couldn't join flying lessons today it was a beautiful day to spend a couple of hours on training.

Did Gun and Jian practise today.... traded in my 'competition' wu shu jian for a tai chi jian that is a bit heavier and less flexible. Better to train the chi flow and relaxation in movements :)

Here's a nice slow-mo re-cap of my afternoon.... never mind me running out of the video a couple of times ;)


Amituofo!

Back in the flow

Amituofo!

As you might have noticed I have been posting less last week. Thats not because I haven't been training, just had other priorities then blogging.

I have been training every day last week and I am getting in the flow again of daily training. Even in the rain. Actually after a while you don't even notice it anymore...

Coming weeks I will also be spending a little less time on blogging have some exciting stuff up ahead which I rather spend time on then blogging... Training will continue on daily basis ofcourse!

Amituofo!