Archive: 2 weeks off
Source: Gisoku no Jutsu
Original post date: 19 March, 2007
Hi all,
Apologies for the lack of blogging of late – it’s been hugely busy at work for the past two weeks, and it’s hard squeezing in regular updates with everything else happening. Before I go into much detail, I’d like to thank Pru for her comments for my previous-ish blog (thanks Pru!!!! ^_^) and big props out to Renato for his blogs that have been posted in response to some of mine. It’s been really great reading all about his experiences in martial arts and his thoughts on some of the things I’ve brought up. I guess this is part of the whole Web 2.0/MySpace community thing all those press releases always go on about 🙂
Anywho, to be honest there hasn’t been a lot to report lately – I’ve been working in the office till later than usual the last couple of weeks, and I’ve missed the last two weeks of karate and last week’s weight session as a result. Things are back in order now though – I’ll be at weights tomorrow night and going to karate on Wednesday. I’ve had a chance to catch up with Jyastin-kun and chat about what nights he’s free, and it looks like Monday’s best with him, and I know Hamez is free then, too. Now all I have to do is work out which class we’ll actually be able to make it to in time – if the class is a good ½ hour drive away, and it starts at 6:30pm, I’m buggered, ’cause I only get home from work around 5:45-6pm each night! If memory serves there’s a class that happens at 7pm, possibly on Tuesday night thought… and Jyastin-kun can make it on Tuesday nights as well (again, as can Hamez), so if Monday’s a no-go, there’s always karate training on Tuesday and I’ll move weight training to Monday instead.
I’m aiming to do some intense leg stretching over the next two days to get my body ready and back at things for karate on Wednesday night. Wifey recently picked up a foldable exercise bike (well, it’s kinda foldable – it can squeeze a bit easier into a corner for you ‘fold’ it up, which is handy for our place, but it’s not like it folds flat 😉 ), and I’m really stoked because I can actually use it! We have one of those stepper machines, and while that was good, it was a bit tricky to use when you only have one knee! Mind you, I managed to compensate for that by using my hips/waist and stuff, and it worked well, but the exercise bike is even better.
My training cycle used to be (nightly, separated by semi-colons): stretching/crunches/light weights; stepper; weights; karate; weights (fortnightly). My new training regime once I get to do karate training twice a week will be: stretching/cycling; karate; weights; karate; weights (fortnightly). I also might throw in some use of the stepper as well.
When I note ‘stretching’, I mean doing a variety of different leg stretches to increase flexibility, and then finish off by trying to hold a really strong horse-riding stance as low as I can get it for a set period of time – before I slackened off, I had it at 6 minutes. While that might not sound like much (and really, it’s not – I’ve heard of kung fu training that requires you to hold a low stance for a comparatively long period of time as a starting point), you really feel the burn in your legs (well, in my case leg :P) by that time. My aim is to eventually be able to hold a strong stance for over ½ an hour at least. I started at 5 minutes and kept at that for a few weeks, then increased it to 6 minutes… and then kept on getting distracted and stopped doing it 😛 That kinda sums up some of my training – I wouldn’t necessarily take the time out each week to fulfil that full training regime I noted above, it tended to be more like my aim, and not necessarily what I achieved (beyond karate and weights, that is). I’m hoping to be able to get back up to that level though in the next month… as always, I’ll keep everyone posted via my blog 🙂
Well, that should do it. I think I got carried away again 😉 But that’s probably not a bad thing – y’know, given I’ve been a bit slack with posting new stuff lately. Now that I’m back in the swing of things and work’s returned to its usual amount, I’ll be aiming to do three blogs a week, or at the very least, two. I’ll aim to get another one in by Wednesday, and then another towards the end of the week to look at how karate training goes. We’ll see what the week will bring!
