Back to Training

Having been absent from CMA for a month I am now back starting tomorrow. For two of the last five weeks I have been covering for my boss at work, so have not been finishing until 7:30 at night so have not been able to train. Instead I have been getting home from work, grabbing a beer or five from the fridge and not training at home. I know this is a blog about Chuldow and NOT about me but I felt the need to write this for my own benefit to realise the mistakes I have made over the past few weeks.

After 2 weeks of sorting out personal issues, I will start back training on Tuesday. I have however become determined to step up the pace in readiness for Novembers gradings. If I do not act I will not be ready.

I will describe the self training I intend to do on non Chuldow nights, this is training I did do in the very recent past and it did improve fitness levels and improved technique. I just intent to stick to it more rigorously.

Firstly I will start with a warm up on the treadmill and work my way up to 30 minutes of running on the flat, and walking up inclines. When I get my weight down by about 1.5 stones I will also start wearing my Beargen (rucksack) with the military standard 42lbs of weight in it (I used to do 10 miles in 1hr 45 with this on).
Following this I will then do some bodyweight excercises until failure, for more information on bodyweight excersises see http://www.bodyweightculture.com/ (lets face it I have a lot of bodywieght to use), I am currently only at level 3 of the 20 level plan.

Added to this I will do sledge hammer training, which is basically hitting a tyre with a sledge hammer for 30 secs non stop for 3 to 5 sets (times will increase when fitness allows).

Then I will either go through the entire syllabus of techniques and combinations, full speed and power or go through every kata full speed and power with no rest in between.

Then comes the dreaded tube training, I will use resistance bands to do certain techniques, such as, gyaku zuki, mae geri, oi zuki, and general moving forward in freeestyle stance and execute a variety of techniques. This generally leads to me not feeling too well at all. (see below gyaku zuki with resistance band)

When I can achieve the above I will further intensify my training, and will post more on that when it happens.

So the main point of all this is to get ready for November, If I fail in my training regime I might not be ready to grade so it is important that I publish this plan so people know what I want to do and can chastise me when I slack off or see no improvements.

Coupled to this I need to loose 2.5 stone before November, which is just over two months away (a very hard target to achieve), but non the less it is one I would like to achieve. So I will regularly update my weight loss success (See side bar for results). I know that I am probably the only student who realy needs to loose weight, but if anyone wants to join me on the weight loss quest, we might be able to have our own little weight loss club at Chuldow and help each other out.

Remaining Dates Added in Side Bar

All

I have just added the remaining calendar dates into the side bar. I will add nexts years dates at the beginning of the year for all to see. Obviously I will update them if changes occur

In Memorial of Tetsuhiko Asai

One year to the day today (15th August) the world lost one of the great karate masters, Tetsuhiko Asai (10th Dan). Sensei Asai was the World Chief Instructor of the Shotokan karate association that I was a Member from 1990 to when I stopped training. Although I never had the priviledge of training and meeting him, I feel I must write this little section on the blog dedicated to him. He was the head of our association and if not for politics he would have been the headmaster of Shotokan karate. Even though CMA karate is Wado Ryu and we take our inspiration from Master Ohtsuka, it must be said that which ever style of karate we study, we all try to uphold the true spirit of Karate Do, we are all part of the greater martial arts fraternity and respect to others should be given.

I have recently viewed some footage of Asai Sensei on youtube and watching it saddened me to think that he is not alive today doing what he loved. Even though I have no relationship to him except the one mentioned above it is a sad loss to the world as whole when someone of honour and integrity passes away, whether karate related or not.

RIP: Tetsuhiko Asai

If anyone is interested in seeing the footage on youtube, just search the site for Tetsuhiko Asai and be prepared to be amazed by this 70 year old master doing what many younger people will never be able to do