Due to bronchitis, I haven't done much physical activity in the past 1.5 mths except for the dragonboat pool practice last week. Today, I decided, enough ... I think the only reason I am STILL coughing is 'cuz I stopped training.

Went to do weights at the Y for 1 hr, then headed straight to kung fu. I know how I became good a few years ago. I remember, part of my training, was right after doing weights, when my arms and legs were burning, I pushed myself to train some more. Yup, this is what next term is going to be like. Pure training.

Vince told me this over dinner last week: he said when I do Northern, it is so "me". With white crane, he sees something "missing". That is true, I so agree with him. I love the open spaces, the big power moves. I felt that today. Yet, there are things in white crane that appeal to me ... must start Shaolin again too I suppose. Problem is, I like drilling .. and with space being limited, there is too much time spent "waiting" in Shaolin. Must get body temperature up and start training in the snow.

Tue
35 min eliptical
1000m ERG (working on intervals)
ab crunch - 10@70, 10@90, 4@110
twists - 10@50, 10@70, 10@90, 5@110
back ext - 10@90, 8@110

Going back to full body workouts .. skipped legs as I did it yesterday

Monday
Dumbbell press - 9x(60x2), 4x(75x2)
Pulldowns - 8x90, 10x130 (hand kept slipping .. will try for higher weights next time)
Shoulder press - 6x(50x2), 6x(45x2)
Lat raise - 10x(15x2), 10x(15x2)
Arm curl - 8x(35x2), 5x(35x2)
Pushdown - 8x50, 5x60
Pushdown(cable) - 10x(@6), 8x(@6)

35min Elliptical
20min Swim

Tues
35 min elliptical

ab crunch - 10@65, 10@90, 5@110
back ext - 10@90, 10@110, 4@130
ab twist - 10@70, 10@90, 10@110

30 min swim

Wed
dumbbell bench - 8@65s, 4@75s
pulldowns - 10@130, 8@150
shoulder press - 7@50s, 3@50s
rowing - 8@130? (can't remember)
lat raises - 10@15, 5@20
rear delt row - (can't remember)
squat - 3@135, 6@225, 1@295
leg ext - 8@90 (?)
leg curl - 8@50, 4@70
arm curl - 5@35s, 5@30s
arm ext - 8@60, 5@70
tricep pushdown - 8@6, 5@6
wrist curls - picked up some random weights

1000m ERG
35 min - Elliptical (X-train)
30 min Swim

Thursday
1 hr Yoga
1 hr Pilates
(didn't get to the cardio part 'cuz of lack of food intake .. i.e. very hungry)

Well, I always thought that overtraining was due to putting too much stress on the muscles. Now, I learnt that overtrianing is putting too much stress on your CNS. The prolonged need for sleep is not due to the time needed to heal the muscles. I always thought that as I would wake up sore if I didn't sleep enough, my muscles weren't healed enough. In a way, sleep does help heal your muscles. (Stage 4 sleep)

However, more importantly, it it the re-wiring of the brain so that more motor-neurons are activated for the action, as well as the replenishment of the neuro-chemicals used in those actions that is that you need the prolonged sleep for when you overtrain.

I now understand what I read somewhere a long time ago, about how people who do martial arts a lot should also meditate a lot. Is it really for the "qi gong"? In a way, I suppose the qi gong helps. More importantly, it helps them replenish and rewire their CNS so they can move more efficiently because qi gong, as with much meditation, helps the calm and relax the brain.

It also bring to mind what my friend Vivian said about how doing qi gong 30 minutes a day allows her to funciton normally on 5 hours of sleep! When she told me this a long time ago, I would have thought that the extra qi gives her a boost. While I still hold that belief, I realize now again, that it was the relaxation of the brain that makes the difference.

Finally, the last bit of what I learnt in a while comes into the picture. In psychology, we learnt that people who are sleep deprived skip (or skim through) all the other stages of sleep and go straight into REM sleep. REM sleep is where the brain re-wiring occurs.

I love how I just woke up, and everything just hit me. Life's lessons from many years, along with remote memories of what people said or done, just come together at an instant for an epiphany. For the people who train a lot, I hope this bit of information helps you.

My training log

Mon
35 min eliptical
30 min swim

Tue
Weights: Chest, Back
(started doing twists again, this time standing, but daymn, it's hard to balance)
35 min eliptical
40 min swim

Wed
35 min elliptical
core workout
40 min swim

Thu
35 min elliptical
core workout
40 min swim

Sat
Shoulders
35 min elliptical

Sun
Legs
Core

Wednesday was pretty fun, practicing with York Seawolves. They had an insanely high stroke rate. Not only that, we raced through waves high enough to make our boat jump!

We just kept doing starts, turning it around, starts, turn around, starts, then looked at the time, it was getting late. So we did races, back and forth, with that insanely high stroke rate, with and against amazingly strong currents and high waves.

We ended practice at 9pm. It was so dark, you couldn't even see the other boat across the harbour. That was definitely a fun interesting dragonboating experience!

As you all might have noticed, I haven't updated on Kung Fu training in ages. That is because my focus has been on my dragonboat season.

Last week, I coached/practiced with Swordfish on Tuesday, then coached them again on Thursday, doing remarkably well with coxing and looking at their for at the same time.

After racing SIX races on Saturday and coming in 3rd in A div with Swordfish, I woke up at 7am on Sunday to head to Waterloo for a two hour practice with the Waterhawks. We did an hour of technical drills, followed by FIVE mock 500m races in the last half hour of our two hour practice.

Total races in two days: 11

I am glad my endurance was keeping up such that on my last 500m race of the day, I was giving it all and yet still didn't die. The swimming and constant paddling is definitely helping a lot!

So was talking to Jennylin about ab workouts. This is what I try to do almsot every night .. almost usually ends up being only 3 or 4 nights a week though. =)

20 crunches w/ both knees up
20 with left nee up
20 with right knee up
60 bicycle kicks
30 trunk rotations
20 V-ups
120 seconds, back freeze
75 seconds front bridge
75 seconds each side for side bridges

Well, there was not much training to be had this week. Monday was a writeoff 'cuz of major sunburn and being in the heat two days in a row. Tuesday was another training write-off, mom's birthday dinner, although I did do a few laps. Somehow, feeling really fatigued, the laps were really difficult to pull off, unlike feeling like my laps were turbo charged last week.

Wednesday
Now this was a decent training day. I started to do two man drills with the class. Now, the point of the drills was sensitivity and then adding a few extra strikes. Kinda annoyed that we ended up being asked to train something we've trained a million times instead of helping us refine slight variations on the training. It has been 10 years almost and everytime, it's one of about 4 moves that we are asked to train. That is what I mean by stunted skills.

There has to be some variation. One could argue that anything goes and that is a very valid argument. However, if we were to keep things within a style, variations in technique that are executed with sound mechanics from the style such as power generation should be encouraged. Afterall, that's how the style grew. Have a base, then branch out with everything that fits in that base, as long as it is "technically sound" from the basis of that art.

A good analogy is a painting. Your base, is black chinese ink. So just because you started learning to paint only straight lines, doesn't mean you cannot paint curves. However, your paintings must make sense in black and white. You cannot paint a picture the way you would paint with color. So the paint is your base. Your style can be as varied as the clouds in the sky. If you always paint with only straight lines, well, that stunts your skills.

On the plus side, I regained one of my lost skills for my kung fu. I re-discovered that when sparring with Alex. I guess I will spend more time refining that skill. My days sparring with Alex are numbered as he is about to be called up for the RCMP. Too bad, 'cuz he actually has a good understanding of training kung fu.

Right now, I'm pretty defensive still. I need to work on more explosion. I will try to turn to nothern training for that.

Thursday
Didn't get to kung fu again 'cuz of Dragonboat capt's meeting. That blows. I did however rush out of the meeting to get to the club just so I could see Xu sifu's class in action. This sifu teaches us a lot of good applied stuff. I will compile a list of his training exercises thus far.

This week has been refocusing on forms.

Monday
I spent Monday working on form and making sure my motion was fluid and precise. For example, in white crane, we use the turning of the body a lot. So, not only does the timing of your body and your arms have be precise, so does the timing for the strike if you do a counter.

I guess it is the same in many arts, but that is what I worked on for Monday.

I also swam laps on Monday. My front crawl is getting really fast. My endurance for it is pretty good too.

Tuesday
I worked on power. Three hours straight of punching that punching bag and kicking it left me a lot more confident about my kicks. Usually, my side kicks are ok, but I didn't think I had as much power in them as my front kicks. So, I did explosive front kicks (well, controlled ones anyways, there is a stupid cabinet in front of the bag in one direction and a mirror in the other) and then did the side kicks to the bag as it was falling. This ensured that I needed to be that much more explosive on my kicks, or risk getting knocked over.

I also swam laps before the 3 hour punching bag marathon. That really put endurance strain on my body, but all the same, I think it was a great workout. My laps are getting much easier.

Wednesday
More forms. I injured myself however on Tuesday as I caught the bag at a wrong time while doing my spinning combo attacks which resulted in an injured elbow.

I spent most of the class teaching the juniors how to use their body and their blocks and counters more effectively.

Thursday
As Gary had pointed out, most of my strikes were circular and non linear. Today, I tried to use more linear attacks instead of going around their defenses, I tried to fight right through them. It actually worked well because while some of the other styles I have been taught use a bit more circular attacks, White crane attacks are more linear so the advantage of attacking linear is that it not only tries to attack the opponent's centerline, it blocks my own.

So I took Wed, Thu and Fri off from swimming and the whole week off from weights as I am dragonboat racing on Saturday at Caimbridge!