October newsletter
Don't expect too much...
Welcome to our October newsletter.
The season is changing and winter is coming!
It’s a good time to start taking some vitamin D supplements to make up for the lack of sunlight, it’s suggested that we need 4000 UI per day although you would need to take vitamin K2 (MK7) to counteract the large quantity of vitamin D’s affect on our bones.
We have a lot going on over the next few months and will be focussing on getting ready for the Chinese new year which will be on 5th February, which means we will be doing our Eastgate display on the 4th I should imagine.
Don’t expect too much...
One of the greatest skills the martial arts has given me is the ability to focus, learn and enjoy the repetitive boring stuff, Master Lu said to me many years ago that my kung fu was good (his words not mine, he was being kind) because when he shows me something I repeat it over and over. You see as a child I wasn’t very good at learning, some things just didn’t compute. I remember clearly the information given to me not making any sense whatsoever, to be fair it still takes some time for certain things to get through my thick bonce, I put it down to having a lot of bone in my skull… One time I remember being very young and painting a nose in the shape of a triangle , my teacher showed me how to paint it as an L shape…. I drew another triangle, again she showed me and again I drew another triangle and on it went until she gave up. I just couldn’t get it…. And don’t get me started on maths.
Other than me being a bit thick (skulled :D) I believe it had a lot to do with association and relevance, I wasn’t interested in learning or being good at things, I wanted to have fun, not great for my teachers…. But what I was learning had no relevance to me and I couldn’t associate it with anything else in my life at the time…
I see this with a lot of students, young and old, a youngster may struggle to copy the way I punch or kick because they don’t know what it is to really punch or kick someone (this is a good thing). Someone doing Tai Chi may struggle with the complexity of the movements and find it hard to relax because they are having to build new neural pathways, which is difficult at the best of times but when you have decades of forming neural pathways, trying to build new ones to take over from the established old ones has your mind fighting itself.
The good news is you only need time and consistency to succeed, because it’s only those that quit that fail. Keep going long enough and you’ll get there. Of course you can speed things up by training more regularly and immersing yourself in what you want to learn…. read, watch videos, train, analyse, train and analyse. Become obsessed and you’ll become the best as they say…. Just don’t expect too much, focus on enjoying the journey rather than the outcome and you’ll keep going longer. For both adults and children we should focus on fun first, and then learn organically.
I know this because I was a kid that couldn’t draw a nose and yet I ended up studying art and becoming and illustrator.
Stretching
Getting flexible doesn't have to be hard and the benefits are huge. In fact studies have shown that you only need to stretch each muscle group for 30 seconds per day for 5 days per week, and that is the biggest takeaway, consistency and persistence (I know I bang on about that but really it’s the only way to succeed at anything).
And they found that passive static stretching, where you aren’t in pain, had the greatest benefit. It’s that easy simply pick a muscle group and hold a stretch for 30 seconds per day.
You increase your range of motion, increase pain tolerance, reduce stiffness and lactic acid build-up.
Start by doing a quick 5 minute warm up to heat up the muscles choose a muscle group and stretch it for 30 seconds, alternatively you could do a sun salutation (you can find these on you-tube) and hold each move for 30 seconds for a full body stretch.
Dates to remember
Chinese new year display
Probably on the 4th February in Eastgate shopping centre
7-13s grading days:
Next Grading = The week of December 12th
Knife sense and defence for 7-13’s
Starting in November through to February
4-6 years
We have been working through our ninja levels congratulations to:
- Oliver, Rory Isaiah level 1 Ninja
- Joshua level 3 Ninja
- Nihal level 5 Ninja
- Jeevan, Ethan level 6
Our youngsters are really starting to move well, this is great because they will have such a head start for the bigger syllabus when they get to the 7-13’s, those that have moved up already have proved this.
7-13 years
- Congratulation to everyone that passed their grading, good work there were some great forms displays
- Well done to Darius and Teodora on moving from the 4-6 years class to the 7-13’s they’ll soon do their first grading.
- Nearly at the end of Mizong Kao, ready for the grading in December and the Chinese new year.
- We’re getting ready for our knife sense and defence course running through, November, December and January.
adults
- Mizong dagger form and knife self defence. Trying to defend against the soft knife is some of the most tiring, frustrating and best fun to be had. Wait until we get to the counter ambush….
- Yan qing jia: Moving through the framework form to really understand Mizong and it’s shapes.
- Lizard, frog and bridge moves for strength and mobility…. Everyone still loves it :D
tai chi
- We have looked at different stretches to target the various muscle groups.
- Healing meditations from the Silva method and Reiki
- Understand the uses of the 4 basic Tai Chi energies of ward off, roll back, press and push
What I’m learning/ reading at the moment
training
9 section chain basics (trying not to hit myself in the head with this chaotic weapon)
Running through our 9 sets of 2 person forms.
OBE’s, (out of body meditations). I get very deep into a meditative state, but not out of body, more dreamlike…. It’s an interesting experiment.
Courses
Building a website funnel… (still working on it)
How to set up a linked in profile
books
The forever dog…. well I love my dog, but it also brings up some very interesting correlations between how we and our canine companions have evolved in what we eat and our lifestyles and the similarities and differences in our health and well-being.
Dates to remember
Chinese new year display
Probably on the 4th February in Eastgate shopping centre
7-13s grading days:
Next Grading = The week of December 12th
Knife sense and defence for 7-13’s
Starting in November through to February
