From My Journal: October 19-25, 2008

Home training:

Weekly totals

Drop Kick, back shoulder roll: 92
Sit ups: 140
Pushups: 1050
Squat Thrusts: 140
Cross stepping back kicks: 560
Round House kicks: 700
Inner quad repetitions from sifu Laurie's Shaolin fitness: 12 sets of 8
Slide stepping stretches from sifu Frietag's Friday night class: 100
2.5 km run: 1

As I perform my nightly kicks, I find myself analyzing what I'm doing. Thoughts this week were:
1. Board breaks: I'm thinking that for the test, a plain old side heel kick is an easy shot. But its not my most spectacular kick. Why should I not try to break the boards with my most spectacular kicks? By aiming to do this, then I am forcing myself to work on my strengths with same intensity as I work on my weaknesses. So I'm thinking that I should start home training in January with the reverse round house and spinning back kick: by doing 100 of these kicks per night, and then later I should start breaking a few boards.
2. Perfecting the kicks: I feel myself improving alot of techniques that go into each kick. But I also wonder whether I'm starting to incorporate some bad habits into my nightly repetitions. Is my timing correct on the roundhouse, what should a high rising kick really look like, what should I be doing with my guard as I move in and then move out from a cross stepping back kick? I need to get a reality check by having a sifu watch me perform 10 repetitions of the kicks in question. Then I can be told what I need to correct. I also had one crazy thought - cross stepping kicks performed on the balance beam: I wonder if there's any advantage to be gained by doing this?
3. Drop kick back should roll: This is a struggle. I know the repetitions are improving my ability to perform this technique - but so far, my progress is marginal. There must be something fundamentally wrong. I'll need to demo this kick to a sifu as well.

It was hard this week because I was unable to attend any of the classes. I managed to keep up my nightly training, but it led to alot of introspection and no input from outside. I can see that it would be very easy to get off track, or go in circles.

Home reading: I've made my boss my reading mentor right now. He doesn't know this, and, eerily, he is sitting right behind me as I type this in the St. Albert Library. So I'm in the middle of reading '3 nights in Havanna' which is about Fidel Castro's and Trudeau's relationship leading up to and following Pierre's historic diplomatic visit to Cuba in 1976. There's another book about Castro that Alex highly reccomends, and it will be next. Its hard keeping up to my boss - he's reading Gwynn Dyer's most recent book, "Environmental Wars" and I want to read that too.