Monday, November 22, 2010
need to keep those joints happy
That knee tweak was no fluke. I felt it again on Saturday. So I avoided any serious repetitive kicking work. I went 5 3-min rounds on the bag, focusing on not stopping work. I think it's helping the cardio. After that, I did a few minutes of jabbing on a sliding heavy bag. It was pretty useful having to keep moving forward to stay on the bag. I took a break and went back to that. In the second half, I focused on slipping aggressively after the jab. The mechanics felt good and I think that'd be a good way to avoid counters, but I also knew I'd have to work a lot on muscle endurance to be able to keep that up for 3 minutes.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
running for fun
or for a workout. I did a little bit of free weights tonight and then hit the elliptical for some minutes. Then did a 10 min run on the treadmill at only 6mph. It was ok. Feels nothing like sparring or drill work. For the last couple minutes, I went up to 8mph and gutted through that. I walked a few minutes and tried again, but this time the hotspots on my feet were too much. I guess I shouldn't run barefoot, but it's so convenient. My feeling is that if I can run 2 miles at 7min, that will be sufficient for my combat needs.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
guard while kicking
I need to revamp the way I kick. I used to swing the kick-side arm outwards as a counterweight and bring up my other hand to cover my head. That's less conservative and tends to tell the kick. It still has its place, but I need to be able to start the kick without shifting my guard much. I had a really good session with this on Wednesday. I found that I could get the best power if I watched myself in the mirror. Not sure why. Best guesses are 1) my head is up and aligned with my spine 2) I'm delaying rotation of my trunk by a beat and that builds more momentum into the kick.
Either way, I've got a start, with a decent lead round kick that doesn't require me to shift my hands. I did it for a few rounds until my knee starting complaining. I need to make sure the technique is safe and doesn't take too much of a toll.
Either way, I've got a start, with a decent lead round kick that doesn't require me to shift my hands. I did it for a few rounds until my knee starting complaining. I need to make sure the technique is safe and doesn't take too much of a toll.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
hook combos
now that my China trip blogging is over, I can use this blog for other stuff.
I've been working on hooks, particularly lead hooks at the gym. The problem is that everything is easy on a heavy bag. It sways like a pendulum and generally doesn't present the same space and distance that a moving fighter's body does. So while my form on the heavy bag is ok, when I try to link it up with combos, I forget everything.
The 3 things I need to do in alive drilling for the lead hook are:
- sit down and pivot during the punch
- keep the rear hand up
- don't open the arm up too much. All of the power can be generated without swinging wide.
Right now I'm popping up into the hook instead of sitting down. That's probably my worst problem.
I've been working on hooks, particularly lead hooks at the gym. The problem is that everything is easy on a heavy bag. It sways like a pendulum and generally doesn't present the same space and distance that a moving fighter's body does. So while my form on the heavy bag is ok, when I try to link it up with combos, I forget everything.
The 3 things I need to do in alive drilling for the lead hook are:
- sit down and pivot during the punch
- keep the rear hand up
- don't open the arm up too much. All of the power can be generated without swinging wide.
Right now I'm popping up into the hook instead of sitting down. That's probably my worst problem.
Friday, November 5, 2010
concluding thoughts
When I started this travelogue as a text file, the scrollbar was over an inch tall. Now it's hard to click on when I try to read over it. I don't think there's any conclusions I can give for a trip that spans almost a month and divers locations, but I will leave some thoughts:
- your family is your family for life
- your life is what you make of it, so try to make a lot of it
- eat in moderation, or you'll get really fat
- the amount of umami delivered in Chinese food is consisently high. And I'm not talking about through MSG.
- if you see something you might never see again, take a picture of it. If you don't get a pic, write it down. Failing that, remember it as sharply as you can in your mind.
- I wish I had spent a little more time with my relatives, particularly the ones down south. I think it was easier for my parents to accept leaving early, because they've been back quite a bit more frequently than I. It would have been nice to further understand their lives.
If you're traveling to China, be ready for some things:
- meat in every dish, which might bother the more stickling of you, and pork in every other dish
- really dirty bathrooms and relatively low hygiene standards. As an example, I saw a total of 7 snot rockets while I was there, all out on the street somewhere
- a corollary -- bathrooms without toilet paper. Absolutley, at all times, have toilet paper on your person. You never want to be without your own supply
- have your drinking water situation planned out ahead. At airports and train stations, there'll be stations with hot potable water, but you have to let that cool before you drink it. The only place that had cool drinking water was at the Expo.
- flying into Tibet will give you almost no time to adjust for the altitude; take it easy. You should also bring something for the lack of humidity, like Ayre, which I really regret not having.
- an increasingly robust yuan, which means things aren't that cheap anymore.
- a totally different facet of the country no matter where you go.
- difficulties getting to interesting places if don't have a guide or friend to lead you around
I'll leave you with one more anecdote, about deciding what to do with your life. When we were at my dad's old home, Lin Jin sat down with my cousin. My cousin does electrician labor and occasional subcontracting out in Guangzhou, several hours' bus ride from home. He and Lin Jin were discussing the future fate of the family farm land. Lin Jin said, "you know, if you ever want to get some income on the side, you could start growing ginger. It's low maintenance -- you just bury it and keep maintaining the shoots." Lin Jin kept pouring out tips about ginger, like how many seasons you can go before you have to let the field lie fallow, how deep you want the roots, how to get the roots to fan out like you see in store-bought roots. On and on and on. I couldn't tell you how closely my cousin was paying attention. He seemed noncomittal. The only time he seemed genuinely curious was when Lin Jin dropped a figure on him. He said with a few acres, you could get a ginger crop of 10, maybe 20,000 RMB a year. And what with the rampant commodity speculation going on in China, ginger prices could skyrocket.
Lin Jin was just being friendly, tossing out a random idea that my cousin could try out with fairly low opportunity cost. And who knows, maybe he could go somewhere with that, instead of grinding away at a low paying job in the city. The points I take away from this exchange are this:
- you always have to be learning and looking out for opportunities. Lin Jin learned all of that stuff about ginger by just reading about it online after his friend mentioned that he was trying to grow it. If you aren't constantly seeking out something new, you'll never find anything.
- what you do with your life is in your own hands. Sure, there'll always be setbacks and misfortune, but you're fundamentally in charge of where you go next. If you want to do something, you have to chase after it and work hard.
- your family is your family for life
- your life is what you make of it, so try to make a lot of it
- eat in moderation, or you'll get really fat
- the amount of umami delivered in Chinese food is consisently high. And I'm not talking about through MSG.
- if you see something you might never see again, take a picture of it. If you don't get a pic, write it down. Failing that, remember it as sharply as you can in your mind.
- I wish I had spent a little more time with my relatives, particularly the ones down south. I think it was easier for my parents to accept leaving early, because they've been back quite a bit more frequently than I. It would have been nice to further understand their lives.
If you're traveling to China, be ready for some things:
- meat in every dish, which might bother the more stickling of you, and pork in every other dish
- really dirty bathrooms and relatively low hygiene standards. As an example, I saw a total of 7 snot rockets while I was there, all out on the street somewhere
- a corollary -- bathrooms without toilet paper. Absolutley, at all times, have toilet paper on your person. You never want to be without your own supply
- have your drinking water situation planned out ahead. At airports and train stations, there'll be stations with hot potable water, but you have to let that cool before you drink it. The only place that had cool drinking water was at the Expo.
- flying into Tibet will give you almost no time to adjust for the altitude; take it easy. You should also bring something for the lack of humidity, like Ayre, which I really regret not having.
- an increasingly robust yuan, which means things aren't that cheap anymore.
- a totally different facet of the country no matter where you go.
- difficulties getting to interesting places if don't have a guide or friend to lead you around
I'll leave you with one more anecdote, about deciding what to do with your life. When we were at my dad's old home, Lin Jin sat down with my cousin. My cousin does electrician labor and occasional subcontracting out in Guangzhou, several hours' bus ride from home. He and Lin Jin were discussing the future fate of the family farm land. Lin Jin said, "you know, if you ever want to get some income on the side, you could start growing ginger. It's low maintenance -- you just bury it and keep maintaining the shoots." Lin Jin kept pouring out tips about ginger, like how many seasons you can go before you have to let the field lie fallow, how deep you want the roots, how to get the roots to fan out like you see in store-bought roots. On and on and on. I couldn't tell you how closely my cousin was paying attention. He seemed noncomittal. The only time he seemed genuinely curious was when Lin Jin dropped a figure on him. He said with a few acres, you could get a ginger crop of 10, maybe 20,000 RMB a year. And what with the rampant commodity speculation going on in China, ginger prices could skyrocket.
Lin Jin was just being friendly, tossing out a random idea that my cousin could try out with fairly low opportunity cost. And who knows, maybe he could go somewhere with that, instead of grinding away at a low paying job in the city. The points I take away from this exchange are this:
- you always have to be learning and looking out for opportunities. Lin Jin learned all of that stuff about ginger by just reading about it online after his friend mentioned that he was trying to grow it. If you aren't constantly seeking out something new, you'll never find anything.
- what you do with your life is in your own hands. Sure, there'll always be setbacks and misfortune, but you're fundamentally in charge of where you go next. If you want to do something, you have to chase after it and work hard.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
9/26
9/26
The weather is horrific. Cold blowing sheets of rain pepper us as we weigh our options for getting to Shanghai Pudong Airport. We could take a bus shuttle, which is slow. We could try to borrow a ride from Bao Gongjing, which would be asking a huge favor. We could try to squeeze our full compliment of luggage into a taxi, which seems tricky. The first thing we do is go to check out some possible eating situations for lunch. I'm still not 100% and very crabby. I regret taking it out on my folks, but I did snap at them a few times as we wandered aimlessly without deciding hard on one of our options. As you know, I can't stand that sort of uncertainty. In the end, we decided to eat at the hotel's restaurant, which was terrible, and to get a taxi. Our luggage when packed very tightly, all fit. The cabbie flew down the incredibly well kept Shanghai highway toward the airport. The only thing I remember seeing that really intrigued me was this giant blue sphere in a mostly glass cube building. It must have been a few stories tall at the smallest. Wonder what it was.
Once we got to the airport, we relaxed and said our goodbyes. I flew back to Boston, and my folks to Greensboro. I managed to stay up for all 3 meals in flight. Switching back over from the jet lag wasn't too bad.
The weather is horrific. Cold blowing sheets of rain pepper us as we weigh our options for getting to Shanghai Pudong Airport. We could take a bus shuttle, which is slow. We could try to borrow a ride from Bao Gongjing, which would be asking a huge favor. We could try to squeeze our full compliment of luggage into a taxi, which seems tricky. The first thing we do is go to check out some possible eating situations for lunch. I'm still not 100% and very crabby. I regret taking it out on my folks, but I did snap at them a few times as we wandered aimlessly without deciding hard on one of our options. As you know, I can't stand that sort of uncertainty. In the end, we decided to eat at the hotel's restaurant, which was terrible, and to get a taxi. Our luggage when packed very tightly, all fit. The cabbie flew down the incredibly well kept Shanghai highway toward the airport. The only thing I remember seeing that really intrigued me was this giant blue sphere in a mostly glass cube building. It must have been a few stories tall at the smallest. Wonder what it was.
Once we got to the airport, we relaxed and said our goodbyes. I flew back to Boston, and my folks to Greensboro. I managed to stay up for all 3 meals in flight. Switching back over from the jet lag wasn't too bad.
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