QUOTE
In This Issue
> Two Important Questions
> Complex Carbs Or Just Plain Complicated
> Relaxing Is Key To Self Defence
There are two important questions we need to ask ourselves regularly.
Q1. What do I really want?
I know achieving your black belt is something all of you want to accomplish, even if you are at a stage where maybe you can’t see how, or even believe, that you can do it.
Let’s think for a moment on ‘why’ getting your black belt is such a great goal and more importantly, what it means to YOU.
What will achieving your black belt say about you? Sure, it will mean you can handle yourself and people shouldn’t want to mess with you, but it means a lot more doesn’t it? It says you’re a person of character and integrity, someone who has beyond normal levels of determination, commitment, persistence and most importantly, courage. Think about the self-esteem you will gain from becoming one of the elite black belts, the confidence that you will have gained. You see, achieving your black belt is a personal journey of not just physical but also mental, emotional and spiritual development.
How will it feel for you to achieve your black belt? What will it mean to you? Imagine for a moment you are wearing one right now! How does that feel? How proud of yourself are you? That’s a healthy emotion. Take a sheet of paper and write this down. Yes, that means right now.
Achieving your black belt is one of the most worthwhile personal achievements a person could strive for, because it makes you a stronger, more well-rounded person not just for your benefit but for every one you love.
Here is a sobering question; if you didn’t achieve your black belt would it be something you would regret? How would that make you feel? Write this down too.
Q2. What am I prepared to do to get it?
For any achievement to have value (to you) you must put effort in. If it was easy would it mean anything? The biggest rewards you will receive in life are for when you displayed great courage.
Sadly most people in life quit when the going gets tough. They take the easy path, the path of least resistance. Greatness was never achieved by someone who took the soft option. How can you increase your self-esteem and feel good about yourself if you never try hard enough to tap into your potential to strive for improvement and step up to the challenges of life.
Bearing that in mind, let’s answer the second question: What are you prepared to do to get your black belt? There are always great reasons for success and poor excuses for failure.
In all the years I have done karate I have never met a black belt who said “I really regret getting my black belt, it wasn’t worth the effort” But I have met hundreds of people who said “I started karate but I quit, I really regret not going all the way” The difference between black belts and quitters is simple. The black belts never took their eyes off the prize, they never looked at the cost of their time and effort. Those who don’t achieve their black belts just let everything else get in the way. Failures in life are not usually huge catastrophic events; they are usually simple neglects of daily disciplines, which over time lead to an overall failure.
So what are you prepared to do in order to make sure you achieve your black belt or beyond? Think about your training habits, how regularly do you attend and is once a week enough? How hard do you train? Do you really push yourself every time? Do you take feed back well? Are you striving to take responsibility for your own progress?
Write down on your sheet of paper exactly and in detail what you are prepared to do to get you black belt, start off with the things you know you could be doing better with and put your self on a program of improvement.
Is there anything more confusing than food these day’s? Apart from the theory of relativity, and why the Spice Girls want to get back together, I don’t think there is.
Nowadays almost every food product comes with an amazing claim to make you slimmer, healthier and more energized and it has become almost impossible to separate the genuine nutritious foods from marketing cons.
For those of us in the UK, we now have a coloured ‘traffic-light’ labelling system?
To me this makes things even more confusing.
The problem lies in that the system is insistent that certain parts of the food are good or bad. For example, fats are bad, low sugar is good, calories are bad. Red segments are bad, green segments are good. Mostly red equals bad food and mostly green equals good food, right? Wrong!!
Calories can be pretty handy, especially in the sport that we do. Fats are often good for you, the kind you get from oily fish for example. Low sugar can often mean we have taken out sugar but replaced it with a load of dodgy chemicals. The label still says ‘healthy’ so eat me.
The truth is there are no good or bad foods only good or bad diets and habits.
So what is the information on a pack for? To help the buyer make a better more informed choice or to help the seller sell the product.
Some Nutritionists say that the system is a scam to sneak unhealthy foods under the radar. More to do with putting there best polish on their products rather than informing us of its contents. If you think about it, most shoppers won’t turn over and read more detailed ingredients, which is exactly what supermarkets want.
I looked at a ready made Sheppard pie the other day which the system said was healthy, when I turned it over, it delivers 4g of salt – two thirds of your daily limit.
Over previous weeks we have discussed the merits of being relaxed through kata and kumite, but what about self-defence?
As karate training aims to equip us for real life combat, the principle of being relaxed is as important for self-defence as it is for sharp kata or explosive kumite.
Here is what we have established thus far in these articles on ‘relaxed technique’:
SPEED
By ridding tension from our movement, and maintaining relaxed muscles until the very end of technique, we add speed. This is because tension in the muscles works just like the brakes in our car, slowing us down. So faster movement means less reaction time for your real life assailant.
POWER
Tension in the muscles not only slows us down, it minimises our power output. Power is derived partly from speed (making it obvious why we lose power) but also from a coordinated effort from all muscles in the body. Our whole body is involved in generating power, starting from the ground (our feet, calves, quads etc) and energy filters evenly up throughout the body (working up through our torso and into our arms and finally hands). When a muscle group is tense, this coordinated flow is interrupted and we lose power.
ACCURACY
What happens when a footballer (soccer player) has a shot on goal and tenses up with pressure? The ball goes sailing over the bar. What happens if a golfer tenses up during their shot? The ball goes flying off to the side. Point being:
Try hitting a tiny target (such as the centre black dot on a focus pad) when you have relaxed technique, it’s quite easy. Then try to hit it again when you have tension in your muscles. It’s almost impossible!
In real life combat, you want to be sure your attacks are hitting vulnerable areas (groin, throat, nose etc), so it’s important to stay relaxed.
MENTAL PRESSURE
Its one thing to be relaxed during kata and kumite but another thing altogether to be relaxed in real life combat. This is because of the amount of fear involved. Suddenly there is so much on the line and its easy to tense up with fear, anxiety and nerves.
This is where the power of breathing comes in. Just as breathing controls our muscles during kata, it does the same in real life.
Your natural tendency will be to hold your breath and grit your teeth.
By controlling your breathing and focusing on your training, you will be able to stay relaxed and hence, be far more effective.
> Two Important Questions
> Complex Carbs Or Just Plain Complicated
> Relaxing Is Key To Self Defence
There are two important questions we need to ask ourselves regularly.
Q1. What do I really want?
I know achieving your black belt is something all of you want to accomplish, even if you are at a stage where maybe you can’t see how, or even believe, that you can do it.
Let’s think for a moment on ‘why’ getting your black belt is such a great goal and more importantly, what it means to YOU.
What will achieving your black belt say about you? Sure, it will mean you can handle yourself and people shouldn’t want to mess with you, but it means a lot more doesn’t it? It says you’re a person of character and integrity, someone who has beyond normal levels of determination, commitment, persistence and most importantly, courage. Think about the self-esteem you will gain from becoming one of the elite black belts, the confidence that you will have gained. You see, achieving your black belt is a personal journey of not just physical but also mental, emotional and spiritual development.
How will it feel for you to achieve your black belt? What will it mean to you? Imagine for a moment you are wearing one right now! How does that feel? How proud of yourself are you? That’s a healthy emotion. Take a sheet of paper and write this down. Yes, that means right now.
Achieving your black belt is one of the most worthwhile personal achievements a person could strive for, because it makes you a stronger, more well-rounded person not just for your benefit but for every one you love.
Here is a sobering question; if you didn’t achieve your black belt would it be something you would regret? How would that make you feel? Write this down too.
Q2. What am I prepared to do to get it?
For any achievement to have value (to you) you must put effort in. If it was easy would it mean anything? The biggest rewards you will receive in life are for when you displayed great courage.
Sadly most people in life quit when the going gets tough. They take the easy path, the path of least resistance. Greatness was never achieved by someone who took the soft option. How can you increase your self-esteem and feel good about yourself if you never try hard enough to tap into your potential to strive for improvement and step up to the challenges of life.
Bearing that in mind, let’s answer the second question: What are you prepared to do to get your black belt? There are always great reasons for success and poor excuses for failure.
In all the years I have done karate I have never met a black belt who said “I really regret getting my black belt, it wasn’t worth the effort” But I have met hundreds of people who said “I started karate but I quit, I really regret not going all the way” The difference between black belts and quitters is simple. The black belts never took their eyes off the prize, they never looked at the cost of their time and effort. Those who don’t achieve their black belts just let everything else get in the way. Failures in life are not usually huge catastrophic events; they are usually simple neglects of daily disciplines, which over time lead to an overall failure.
So what are you prepared to do in order to make sure you achieve your black belt or beyond? Think about your training habits, how regularly do you attend and is once a week enough? How hard do you train? Do you really push yourself every time? Do you take feed back well? Are you striving to take responsibility for your own progress?
Write down on your sheet of paper exactly and in detail what you are prepared to do to get you black belt, start off with the things you know you could be doing better with and put your self on a program of improvement.
Is there anything more confusing than food these day’s? Apart from the theory of relativity, and why the Spice Girls want to get back together, I don’t think there is.
Nowadays almost every food product comes with an amazing claim to make you slimmer, healthier and more energized and it has become almost impossible to separate the genuine nutritious foods from marketing cons.
For those of us in the UK, we now have a coloured ‘traffic-light’ labelling system?
To me this makes things even more confusing.
The problem lies in that the system is insistent that certain parts of the food are good or bad. For example, fats are bad, low sugar is good, calories are bad. Red segments are bad, green segments are good. Mostly red equals bad food and mostly green equals good food, right? Wrong!!
Calories can be pretty handy, especially in the sport that we do. Fats are often good for you, the kind you get from oily fish for example. Low sugar can often mean we have taken out sugar but replaced it with a load of dodgy chemicals. The label still says ‘healthy’ so eat me.
The truth is there are no good or bad foods only good or bad diets and habits.
So what is the information on a pack for? To help the buyer make a better more informed choice or to help the seller sell the product.
Some Nutritionists say that the system is a scam to sneak unhealthy foods under the radar. More to do with putting there best polish on their products rather than informing us of its contents. If you think about it, most shoppers won’t turn over and read more detailed ingredients, which is exactly what supermarkets want.
I looked at a ready made Sheppard pie the other day which the system said was healthy, when I turned it over, it delivers 4g of salt – two thirds of your daily limit.
Over previous weeks we have discussed the merits of being relaxed through kata and kumite, but what about self-defence?
As karate training aims to equip us for real life combat, the principle of being relaxed is as important for self-defence as it is for sharp kata or explosive kumite.
Here is what we have established thus far in these articles on ‘relaxed technique’:
SPEED
By ridding tension from our movement, and maintaining relaxed muscles until the very end of technique, we add speed. This is because tension in the muscles works just like the brakes in our car, slowing us down. So faster movement means less reaction time for your real life assailant.
POWER
Tension in the muscles not only slows us down, it minimises our power output. Power is derived partly from speed (making it obvious why we lose power) but also from a coordinated effort from all muscles in the body. Our whole body is involved in generating power, starting from the ground (our feet, calves, quads etc) and energy filters evenly up throughout the body (working up through our torso and into our arms and finally hands). When a muscle group is tense, this coordinated flow is interrupted and we lose power.
ACCURACY
What happens when a footballer (soccer player) has a shot on goal and tenses up with pressure? The ball goes sailing over the bar. What happens if a golfer tenses up during their shot? The ball goes flying off to the side. Point being:
Try hitting a tiny target (such as the centre black dot on a focus pad) when you have relaxed technique, it’s quite easy. Then try to hit it again when you have tension in your muscles. It’s almost impossible!
In real life combat, you want to be sure your attacks are hitting vulnerable areas (groin, throat, nose etc), so it’s important to stay relaxed.
MENTAL PRESSURE
Its one thing to be relaxed during kata and kumite but another thing altogether to be relaxed in real life combat. This is because of the amount of fear involved. Suddenly there is so much on the line and its easy to tense up with fear, anxiety and nerves.
This is where the power of breathing comes in. Just as breathing controls our muscles during kata, it does the same in real life.
Your natural tendency will be to hold your breath and grit your teeth.
By controlling your breathing and focusing on your training, you will be able to stay relaxed and hence, be far more effective.
Thoughts?
(
QUOTE
So what are you prepared to do in order to make sure you achieve your black belt or beyond?
apart from "getting friendly" with the senior instructor 
)
And I don't know many people who watched the Spice Girls with the sound on 
