Sunday, February 07, 2010
Setting priorites
I've been thinking about my priorities for a while, and have wanted to put my two cents in for trying to figure that out. While I would like to say my health is a priority, I don't think I can claim it as a top priority. As a full time employee, a part time grad student, furmama, future taekwando black belt (one can hope) and a bride to be, sometimes my priorities conflict.
The obvious first one for me is work. First off, they pay me, without which I would not be able to focus on my other priorities. I have a fantastic health care plan through my company, which offers me benefits towards weight loss and fitness. But part of my job description requires a week pager rotation every 5 or so weeks, which causes a lot of stress, missing gym classes, and sometimes sleep. But not carrying the pager is not an option unless I find a new position.
Dogs - as cute as Daisy was as a puppy, it is a huge difference being a puppy and a dog. The girls for the most part are good at doing things on our schedule, and the fiance helps a lot, as does having my parents living nearby. But sometimes I have to work late, or I get paged and I can't take them for a long walk. The benefit of the dogs though is that they do make it so you need to get out and walk, which is good for them and for you.
School I would consider a close third to the dogs, though fortunately for me this is about 3 months off, 1 month rotation, and I have 2 classes remaining. I'm about 1/3 through my second to last semester, but at a graduate level there can be a lot of work. This semesters class is online, which means I'm spending at least an hour a day working on class, either doing the reading, postings, or working on my term paper. If somethings comes up (like last Tuesdays birthday dinner), then more work may be spend on later days.
The next priority is a tough call, but I would say sleep. While sleep can be interrupted by work (though I do try not to stay up too late on school work), if I've had a late night or I'm just exhausted, at this point I feel that sleep trumps working out.
Eating well and working out - some days one or the other of these can slip, but I do try to keep in mind that when I'm eating well and working out, then I feel better, which helps my other priorities. While I do get exercise every day from walking the dogs, I have a goal to try to earn my black belt in taekwando, though this could take years. I try to see this as a holistic approach - I don't focus solely on taekwando practice, I try to incorporate other workouts such as yoga, spinning, pilates and step.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
I like to move it, move it
I enjoy spin class, but sometimes you hear songs that give you a little extra umph. Tonights CD was a late 90's dance mix which is fun, but how can you not enjoy spinning when you imagine when you imagine dancing lemur thingys?
Monday, January 04, 2010
Doing the Wave
The focus of the class was on the "wave", where you use your use subtle (ideally) movements to give you more force. Try throwing a punch just with your arm, then try with using your core. It's tough to do, but it does make a difference. Practicing it is a little awkward - you're supposed to be able to do them from standing, using your arms to help guide you down, an arc roll from chest to legs into an up dog. The reverse is pretty much the the worm from breakdancing. We then used the idea from the wave to give more power to punches working with the bags. It was harder than I thought, it takes a lot of effort to figure out the coordination to get the power really needed.
And then we did some juggling with the weighted mini medicine balls - very hard for someone who doesn't know how to juggle, but that was tough on the arms too! Maybe I will have toned arms by the wedding!
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Your Shape
Saturday, January 02, 2010
New Year, same fear...
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
White Belt...
Saju Makgi(four direction blocks) and Saju Jirugi (four direction punch) forms (AKA Patterns) are needed to progress from the white belt to the yellow stripe. I've been working on these since I started in July/August, though I've been a little slackerly lately and haven't practiced outside of the gym. One of the yellow belts was helping me to practice
My next form is Chon-Ji, which is the form I learn before moving up to a yellow belt. The trick for the forms is to learn patterns in the forms, hints to guide you to the next move. For Chon-Ji:
- 4-downward outer forearm blocks to start, 4 upper inner forearm blocks
- Turn towards the pinky edge of the punching hand (or front foot); right turn is 180, left turn is 90 degrees
- If the punch is followed by a block, it will be blocking with the same hand as the punch (after the turn)
- Punch always follows a block, but blocks don't always follow punches
- Punches and outer forearm blocks are forward stance. Opposite arm ends up in an elbow block
- Upper inner forearm blocks are L stance (I think; this is where I got a little fuzzy)
- End with 4 punches; 2 going forward, 2 going back
In general with forms you are supposed to end up where you started. The Master wants to see us engage our whole body as if we are fighting (envision an opponent), instead of just going through the motions. He had one of the black belts go though Chon-Ji with just upper body, then lower body, as a way to think of the patterns in a new way.
Additional examples of other forms shown at http://www.natkd.com/tkd_forms.htm under Chang Hon(Non-SineWave), ITF Tuls*(Sine Wave) seems to crash IE. I'm not even going to look at those until I get to the next belt. In my school we follow the International Taekwando Federation (ITF) for patterns; and follow the World Taekwando Federation (WTF - this makes me giggle), for grappling.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Be the Turtle
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Working through the aches
Since I'm trying to get back into my 5-7 day a week routine, I decided to work thorough it and go to step BOSU this morning. The quad is still sore, but warming up did help both my quad and neck, I just needed a less puffy BOSU so I felt a little steadier.
After a quick shower, I met up with my parents to talk the dogs out for a walk. New England weather is tough this time of year, and wind versus no wind makes a big difference. I went with a couple of fleece layers, which helped keep me warm (maybe a little too warm). And with all the rain I've needed to switch back over to my winter hiking boots instead of sneakers, there were some very large mud puddles on the trails today. It's not good when your yellow lab mix comes back in shades of brown.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
New uniform, new start?
I have still been able to pick up a lot of stuff, some practices are a little easier to me than others. What I like about the class is that there is a wide array of skill levels and ages, though Wed nights I am sometimes the only one over the age of 18. With the teacher working on his 4th don (which he passed yesterday, now making him a Master. I'm still having trouble calling him Sir, seeing as he's only a year older than I am.), the past couple of weeks we had been working on some pretty advanced one-steps, which involved some breaking falls, some somersaults etc. I'm still not a fan of things where I might fall on my head, I like to consider that a healthy fear.
Today's class was focused on breaking falls, a refresher class for almost everyone else, but new to me other than what little I practiced in the one-steps. The main focus is that you want to spread out the force with which you hit the ground, as a way to protect yourself. You don't want to land on your arm and break it or dislocate your shoulder. And landing on your hip or you ribs (which I managed a few times today), also smarts a bit. The aim was to land on your side pretty much at once, with your bottom leg bent slightly, your bottom arm parallel to the leg (that was tough for me), top leg landing with your foot flat on the floor, and top hand up protecting your face. It takes a lot of trust in yourself to fall, and that's why, more often than not, I think I ended up landing hip or ribs (ouch) first. And occasionally landing on my arm trying to stop myself from landing on my ribs.
I've managed not to get any major bruises like I did in the first few weeks, though we've done all sorts of different exercises since then. But with a wedding in 11 months, I do have to be somewhat conscientious about not doing too much damage.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Taekwando - fighting stances and Jenny Craig
Unfortunately my other classmate was also on call for work, he had to head out halfway through class. So I got a semi-private class, where we worked a bit on stances and my side kicks.
So for the stances, there are 2 main fighting stances I need to be concerned with at this point, and another stance which is mainly used for training:
- L stance - front foot facing forward, backfoot facing to the side, about a shoulders width apart. weight is about 70% on the back foot, 30% on the front, this is mainly a defensive stance. Want to make sure that the front foot is not blocking the rear, so that when I need to shift into a kick, I don't have to go around my front leg and lose momentum. Shoulders are facing over the front facing foot.
- Forward stance - I'm a little fuzzy on this one, but legs/feet are similar to the L stance, but about a shoulders width and a half apart. It felt a little awkward, it doesn't feel like a very ladylike position. Weight is more forward, and facing is almost at an angle.
- Horse stance is not a fighting stance - feet are parallel, about shoulders width and a half apart. Balance is more on the outside of the foot, knees above ankles. It's like a squat. This pose is mainly used for training, since you don't have much stability front to back. It works the legs, which should eventually help with the kicks.
We also worked a bit on my side kicks, since they were feeling a bit like my roundhouse kicks. Leg swings up to a table position (flat with knee bent, facing back), and then knee extends to hit the target. Important with the side kick (and front kicks for that matter), is that you are kicking down a line, to strike the target straight on, where the roundhouse comes a bit from the side. Another point we worked on was the counter balance. Similar to the punches we worked on earlier in the week, the reaction to my kick is a slight twist of the torso. It sounds awkward, but going through it a few times it made sense, and I felt like a had a little more power behind me. I also need to work on power, not neccessarily height which I have a good grasp on. Targets will not always be on the same level, it's good to have a variety of methods to choose from.
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Sunday was also my first WI for Jenny Craig, and I was down .8 lbs. I have to admit I was a bit dissapointed, but with my history of weight loss I know that's decent for me. Since I was struggling towards the end of the week with being very hungry, I've temporarily been bumped up from 1500 calories to 1700 calories. So far so good, but tonight will be the first test. I have also found that hot tea helps me get through the afternoon a bit better, so I have be substituting tea in for my afternoon hot chocolate. I do have to admit though that I miss the milky way hot chocolate, but I'm trying to keep my potential wedding dress in mind.
The food on JC has been suprisingly good, with a few exceptions with the shelf stable lunches. My councelor said that other people have had similar comments, and was more than happy to swap the similar lunches. I've been quite happy with the breakfasts, dinners, snacks and the majority of the lunches, though the anytime bars could use some work. Though I always felt that I ate a lot of fruits, veggies and dairy, I'm making more of a concentrated effort now to get these in. And I'm learning to substitute - I don't drink milk except in my coffee, so I'm eating a lot more yogurt. I'm keeping a variety of fruits & veggies in the house as well so I don't get bored.


