My Wushu Blog

This class was the most intense class I’ve had since I’ve been back. Jenny and I did a little jog for our lunch workout, and since I still don’t jog all the time, I was already sore by the time I got to class. Thats good though, I don’t mind, I feel like I accomplished something big.

Our warmup was brief, James led it and since he had a tooth pulled Monday, he wasn’t going to go all out. I think he forgot all about his pledge to not over do it half way through class, but more on that. We did some sprint relays with a 15lbs medicine ball, frog leaps (TWICE!), regular sprint relays.

I was already on empty by this time, so I was really glad that instead of the normal basics, we worked with leg weights and did 20 kicks for each leg. We did front-stretch, side kick, and outside. James has a pretty impressive side kick on both sides, I’ve got my one and it would be nice if the other leg would tear already. Then we did a lot of jumps and cartwheels, Patti also made up a little combo for everyone to try (that was a lot of fun). After all that I had to sit down, which was cool because it was about 8:50 anyway, it was hard for me to go any more.

James finished off the class with a lot conditioning. We did a couple sets for 50 crunches, some neck exercises, LOTS of push-ups… It was crazy how much he had us do, meanwhile he was all messed up from his tooth getting yanked out. I think he also wanted to pushish everyone just a little for Ben’s disruptive behavior. Both Johnny and Ben LOVE to talk, and last night Ben was yapping away while James was telling everyone what to do (in the nice instructional way). When James called him out on it, Ben kept trying to justify it. Its one of those times where you get angy because someone just lacks a certain amount of social skills. In then end, I think we all payed for it

mike Wushu conditioning, frog leaps, weights

Second class back (don’t worry, I’ll stop the counter there ), and I felt I had made a lot of progress since last week. Of course no butterfly-twists, but my muscles held up a lot longer and I worked out the entire class.

Kenny led the warm up, and after a quick jog around the room we did sprint relays for a while and then on to stretching. Last week my hip flexors started to spasm and it quickly became painful. That was absent this time around and I got to focus on my very poor drop stance along with every other stretch we do.

Basic kicks and combos was the same as last week, and we seemed to focus more on jumps. Patti gave a lot of individual comments for a lot of people, and it was nice to see they were able to apply it right there. I find that I can only work on one specific thing at a time, like jump higher, rotate more, keep the left leg up, keep the kicking leg straight… but never all at the same time. For me, just foing it over and over again every day is about the only thing that really works.

When people started to do combo’s, Patti asked if I wanted to work on some northern staff basics. So after James woke up from his nap (he fell asleep on the side while sitting down, the new job is tiring him out) he joined me. One nice things is my ‘wushu memory’ hasn’t faded much, I was still able to reproduce what Patti showed us the first time around. We did that for 30 minutes and my shoulders and forearms were pretty sore.

Great class, it was nice to see Kenny and Felicia again (they were not there last week), and Kenny is now off to Orlando for a competition.

mike Wushu staff, Wushu

At last, after a 6 month break, its nice to be back. Once a week for now, but that will be more than enough.

I was thinking Monday night about how I don’t have that persistent aching feeling, and how walking is just that, walking with out a limp. Today is the end of that; my hamstrings are sore, my hip flexors are sore, my back is sore. All of them in a good way and not in the scary injured way. My flexibility has gone down hill, and going to class once a week will not be sufficient to gain it back. I’ll have to work on that more during the week.

Before class started, James wanted to start off with some boxing. We did that for an exhausting 5 minutes, and tiring as it was it was still a lot of fun. The warmup was simple and I was glad we only jogged for 10 minutes. I can sort of jog for lets say a half an hour on my own, but their pace is faster and when you start throwing in jumps, cart wheels, high knee’s, etc… it really saps what stamina I have. Next was a set of brutal sprints (with a medicine ball), jump rope (150), push-ups (I did 20), squats with a medicine ball and a little hop.

After a quick water break it was on to stretching, then warmup kicks/basics. By this time, my tendons/muscles on the outside of my hips were cramping up, so most of the stretching became difficult and the outside kicks became a little harder. We then ran through all the jumping kicks and that was great. Lynda stressed that I should take a break, and I did after all that, I was pretty happy to get back to it again. I sat out during the forms and watched James and Josh spar. They went at for a while, it was very interesting to watch and very impressive how Josh uses Bagua effectively in a fight. It was a little unbalanced, Josh is slightly taller than me and has about 50lbs on James.

Great class, can’t wait till next Tuesday.

mike Wushu Boxing, Spar, Wushu

À l’intérieur (Inside)

Not that I need an excuse to watch a horror movie, but I tend to watch them around the Halloween season. Maybe its the weather, maybe its the decorations, either way this is the trend I’ve set for myself.

Inside was scary. It was incredibly gory in the realistic sense, and the tension that it built up was relentless. Most the the movies I have watched recently are from http://www.twitchfilm.net/, in their DVD Review category. As you can see, I started with the “A’s”, and I hope I don’t stumble across one this intense again

The short description is a pregnant woman (one day away from the scheduled birth) was in a violent car accident 4 months ago. She now lives alone, is a little anti-social, and on the eve of her childs birth a mysterious lady shows up on her door step and begins to terrorize her.

I had to watch something funny after this movie, which I don’t normally have to do. Also, a spider was crawling on my while I watched it. From then on I concidered sleeping with a baseball bat.

mike Movies

Chocolate

The only thing better then the food, is this movie. This is what I can expect from the same director of Ong Bak, which helped Tony Jaa become a recognizable martial artist. This movie is like Ong Bak, where the first half hour is pretty slow in setting up who the protagonist is but once you get past that its non-stop action.

I’d go over the plot but really, who cares? Go watch some scenes and stunts that would make Jackie Chan proud.

mike Movies

The Abandoned

I like simple ghost stories, and I’d prefer that above something that is gorey. The short premise of this was something happened on a farm in Russia, the only survivor was a baby girl. Years (40 or so) later she returns back to her family farm and all sorts of spooky things happen.

It always sort of surprizes me when a movie like this slips under the radar, mostly because it was better than your average wide release blockbuster.

mike Movies