Saturday, its a saturday....

not a bad jam from the way back,
any way

The Saturday class was a good one, we covered some new stuff for some, and old hat for others

tension and breathing seem to be something that we will have to spend a bit more time on before we move on

the last few weeks have been devoted to the Hard Style, or Kalos Sthenos Turkish Get Up, and all who participated in those sessions appeared to have made incredible progress
In fact the group that spent 1 hour learning the movements, and managed to hit a full KS TGU with a water bottle balanced on their closed fists, on both sides, deeply impressed me
both by their dedicated practice of the technique, and by the effectiveness of the education I have recieved and the efficacy of the movement itself to teach through feedback, a very intricate and difficult manuevere to complete

you may not have mastered the KS TGU, but you all have learned well my young Jedi's
my hat is off to you



For the new faces, who as always are welcome, and for those that have received quality instruction from some folks that are my colleagues, compatriots, dear friends, and over all, I have a fair amount of respect for.
Welcome to the 5 Rings Fitness System of health and physical well-being, may it serve you as well as it has served myself, and my students

For the returning members
Thank you again for trusting me enough to follow my advise and at least consider what I have given you,
also
thank you for testing the veracity of my claims and doing your homework, there is no knowledge that can be gained from listening, you must research and place into perspective all new material, running it through the filter of your own experience and judgement

discrenment is the key to wisdom

knowledge without wisdom is a razor in the hands of a toddler-paraprhased from A. Einstien



For the world

A couple of notes

On the 5 rings of Fitness and why I dedicate so much time to achieving mastery of each one before trying to move to the next step.

Breath, Posture, Strength, Speed, Stamina
these are my "5 Rings"
Mayamoto Musashi had his, these are mine

Breath is beyond important, it is life, if you do not breathe, you will not live,
if you breathe badly, you will live badly
if you breathe well, you will experience life in a fuller, richer way, with less stress, and more joy

Posture, if correct, allows our skeletal system to accept loads that are amazing, perform feats of agility and athleticism that become the stuff of legend, and well, frankly, you feel better

Strength, this is relative to your needs and relative to the application, yet absolutely necesarry for the first two, and all that follow

Speed, Thelonious Monk is one of my favorite Jazz musicians, he new exactly when (timing) and what (position) to do, and at what rate
 besides, who cares if you can move 1000 lbs one grain of sand at a time, seeing someone move it fast without injury (breath, strength and posture) is amazing!

Stamina, can you do that again, can you do that again, can you do that again, .......
being able to complete a task is one thing, being able to comfortably complete a task repetitively for an extended duration is a whole other animal
Sprinting 100yds and then collapsing with breaks and tears in the muscles and bones is useless, unless you are being chased by something (see amygdala)

so, lets talk about movement and how it relates to the 5 Rings of Fitness

if you move badly, your performance will always suffer

your body is stupid, it will do whatever you tell it to do

without regard for the aftermath in some cases
(there is still a set of safety mechanisms built into our neurological systems that shut things down for us when the activity becomes dangerous to the structure, this is a survival mechanism though, and kicks in only when things start to get really bad)

However
If you try to lift a car, and ignore the lack of strength you seem to have "all of a sudden"
and you continue to try to lift the car
your body will say, fine! you asked for it, you got it!
your body will try, and it will likely fail, catastrophically in some cases ( herniated discs, strained, torn, pulled muscles etc. )

Let us consider the following though
if you gradually increase the demand on the system, be it cardiovascular, respiratory, muscular, skeletal etc.
your body will adapt to the increased demand by increasing its ability to meet the demand

you get stronger, faster, have more endurance etc.

this follows for the neurological system as well
if we overload our CNS (central nervous system) with information, it will shut down
come in to the Martial Arts side of our gym and I will easily demonstrate this with a stick, and you trying to sing the abc's song

if however, we gradually increase the demand on the system over a period of time that allows adaptation to the imposed demand
 ( SAID principle- Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand )
and we keep the threat level of the stimulus, whatever that stimulus may be,(mobility exercises, muscular control, visual, auditory, kinesthetic input etc.) as low as possible so as not to ever activate the "survival" or "fight or flight" systems in our CNS, the Amygdala

we can then teach the CNS that whatever the demand, it is not a threat, and therefore our CNS will begin the process of adapting to the stressor or stimuli by

adding new neural pathways to accommodate the demand (neuro-plasticity)
begin the process of adding volume to our tissue to accommodate the demand on our muscles and heart (muscular hypertrophy; Ventricular Hypertrophy)
increase the bone density to protect us from impact and increased load on the skeletal system (Wolff's law )
Increase the efficiency of the Respiratory System ( Sr. RKC Kenneth Jay, has imho the simplest method and frankly, the best method, detailed in Viking Warrior Conditioning )
improve the pattern and efficiency of movements to accomodate the demands


the list goes on



If on the other hand, you simply latch onto whatever seems shiny and fun, whatever the models (they are models, whoever they are, they do not likely use the products they are selling to get the bodies they have) on late night infomercials and slick ad campaigns are pimping to everyone with a bit of money burning a whole in their pockets and a desire to get it now, not later, now, without the effort and dedication that is actually required to achieve a goal

your body will adapt to that
whatever that is

so

go get a tens unit and strap yourself in, tell your self that electrocution is a better way to get your "core" in shape
go "confuse" your muscles (show me the Cerebral Cortex located in any muscle and I will give you a dollar!)
go get a coach that yells at you like the guys on tv, the ones that heartbroken mothers bring their fatherless, ne'er do well children to, the ones that are selected to make "the biggest loser" out of a handful of carefully screened participants in a program that was designed to generate advertising revenue and sell products
go join a box gym where you can keep paying your membership fees till the end of time, whether you come or not, they will not care, you can keep pushing your self to "the max" to "feel the burn" while you are stationary in a mobile dynamic world strapped into a machine that restricts your range of motion and provides zero feedback while your "trainer" checks his text messages and mumbles slogans at you
go jump on a bosu or physio ball and wobble around while you try to lift weight that you have a hard time lifting in a stable environment through ranges of motion that would make any elite athlete's joint scream for mercy

knock yourself out

I will still be the guy in a no-where gym, that no one has ever heard of, with a pile of cannonballs with handles and some other seemingly innocuous tools

and myself, and my dedicated students, will be getting stronger, faster, with greater flexiblity and range of motion, with full control of every joint in our bodies and every muscle in at our conscious disposal, and we will be smiling and laughing the whole time

I will not condescend to you or say "I told you so" when you show up on my doorstep, or at the door of someone like me, seeking to fix the damage, and take the road that leads to a successful outcome, rather than the easy path


I will however still charge you for my services


my generosity has its limits

selah


Get Strong, Stay Strong
and remember to Breathe

James