Welcome to our April newsletter, it’s been another busy month. One of the things we want when we learn something new is to evolve and grow which will cause us to change, our training will change us psychologically and physiographically, in fact change is one of the only things we can be sure is going to happen in life. Some changes are good and some are challenging, so how can we make sure that changes are a positive thing?
C.h.a.n.g.e.s (I got this from a coach Gordon Burcham)
C. Choice, no matter what happens to us we have a choice in how we react. We are a product of our choices, we can choose to react badly or well, we can choose to quit or carry on. (The saying goes “quitters never win and winners never quit”).
H. Happiness, is a choice. As above, our reaction and happiness or sadness is a choice we make.
A. Affection and love, show love to others but especially yourself, give yourself a break. We spend most of our time in our own heads imagining all kinds of bad things that never happen… make your head-space a nice place to be.
N. Never judge, respect that another persons model of the world is different to yours. How nice would it be to live in a world without judgement.
G. Gratitude, the world is crazy at the moment but we still live in some of the safest and most prosperous times, we have a lot to be grateful for.
E. Energy, if you're going to do something go all in.
S. Self development, you should work harder on yourself than anything else.
Fajin (releasing power) is something we work a lot on in our classes, from our 4-6 years developing their coordination or our 7-13s learning to hit using the whole body, to our Tai Chi and adults classes developing reeling silk power and learning to move in the most efficient way. My instructors father LU Zhen Duo was nicknamed “fast hands Lu” for his ability to knock people out with his palm strikes in full contact matches, he was a small man and he couldn’t have done it without his ability to generate more power than his frame should allow, when I was younger I was known to have “thunderous kicks” due to the noise they made when hitting the pads and often had people stop and watch me kicking in a kick-boxing class. Studies have shown that in the animal kingdom there are creatures that can do this to:
It has been noted that Cuban Tree Frogs have a measured jump power of 1,047 w/kg while their muscular power is measured at 327 w/kg. This is three times more than the measured pure muscle power (Peplowski & Marsh, 1997). This indicates that their jump performance is not solely dependent on the muscle power.
All martial arts use waist power but in our kung fu we take it to another level by building corkscrew power from the feet, spiralling up through the waist until we whip it out through one of the limbs. Through these movements we create tension in the opposing muscle groups to build and store, for a short time, an elastic energy before releasing it and so generating far more power than we should be able, just like the tree frog. We use standing post exercises and sit in Mabu (horse stance), great exercises to build strong and springy muscles and tendons and our arm swings to develop whipping power. We also need to develop our type 2 (fast twitch) muscle fibres to get the proper acceleration needed to generate the power (our sneeze reflex training).
Nature has given us these fantastic bodies, martial arts allows us to get the most out of them.
4-6 years
7-13 years
adults
tai chi
What I’m learning/ reading at the moment
training
Jujitsu for the streets (ground fighting)
Chinese sword sparring
Courses
Jim Kwik - super brain
Journaling – I’m using this to understand my own thought process
Out of body meditations – This is an interesting one, I’ve used similar meditation methods to access my subconscious which is a great way to not only get a better understanding of your true thought processes but to break your programming and conditioning. We all have those annoying habits that we’ve been programmed with over decades that hold us back.
books
kung fu 1560 (general qi jiguangs book on unarmed combat)
Effortless combat throws
Dates to remember
Tuesday June 21st the hall is being used so classes on this day will move to Friday June 24th. Or you can use one of our other days if you prefer.
Our summer shutdown August 1st – August 14th although a part of our monthly fee you can make these classes up before and after August. I’m also working on a plan to keep the classes open.
7-13s grading days:
White yellow and white orange belts = May 9th 10th and 12th
Yellow and Yellow orange belts = June 13th 14th 16th
Orange belt and up = November, December or earlier if you're ready