Home Training: This week was the first week of home training that incorporated the personal black belt requirements. Each evening, my home training should look like this at a minimum.
1. 150 pushups
2. 100 sit ups (20 regular, 20 crunches, 20 leg raises, 20 bicycle, and 20 side to side with a earthenware plant pot in my hands because it's the nearest think around the house to a medicine ball - luckily the plant pot does not have a plant in it.)
3. 100 round house kicks
4. 20 squat thrusts or the 4 minute TABATA method using squat thrusts
5. 40 cross step kicks
6. 1 dragon breathing
7. 4 Lao gars

I guess I'm ok with the fact that my first week of this new routine was almost a crash and burn. I did not do any round house kicks or squat thrusts or dragon breathing. I also don't know the complete lao gar form so I only did the beginning part 4 times. Never mind, I know what to do for next week - catch up on the stuff I didn't do and make an appointment with someone to learn a bit more of Lao Gar.

Personal Black Belt Requirement: 1000 Acts of Kindness through myself, Jill and Janet. We have a little diary to record this and we are sort of on track. A couple of hightlights. The first was at 7am on Saturday morning on the way to Janet's club volleyball tryouts. We paid for the order of the people in the truck behind us in the Tim Horton's drive thru. Someone did this to me last June. Janet got quite a thrill out of the act and told one of her friends at volleyball who thought the act was awesome. She told her dad . . . The second act didn't work out very well, but its the thought that counts. Driving to another volleyball tryout on sunday morning, we spotted a man struggling to keep his balance on the icy sidewalk as he made his way to church. Unfortunately, as I attempted to manouvre to the side of the road so that we could park and then help him to his destination, the car started to skid. We narrowly missed a well dressed female church goer attempting to cross the road. The car behind us lost control also but only momentarily. I decided that attempting a full stop would only make matters worse for everyone in the vicinity, so I continued on down the road. As Sifu Davies would say, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Personal Black Belt Requirement: The community project - help promote lifelong physical activity at Onoway High School.
I've put alot of energy into the planning of this one this week. Its significant that my experience this week has been that everywhere I turn, there is a huge need for adults that will support girls who want to be active. I found out that parents in St. Albert identified a huge need for opportunities for girls to play club volleyball. So three parents started a club with the intention of forming a team of 10 girls in the under 15 age category. Twenty six girls tried out. They came from Onoway, Edmonton, Morinville, and St. Albert. ALL of them were high calibre players - the coach said that they all deserved a place on a club team but there are not enough adults who will step forward to help coach more teams. Same story in Spruce Grove; one team of 10 players - 50 girls tried out. The numbers in Edmonton are not much better - more clubs, even more girls who will not get on a team. Its phenomenal how many 14 year old girls want to be active, and how few opportunities are provided to them through the community of adults in their lives. The rural population seems to be at a distinct disadvantage. I know of some girls whose parents refuse to do the driving involved in getting their daughters to gymnasiums in Onoway, Stony Plain and Spruce Grove.

As parents, we tell our children that physical activity, healthy lifestyle and good nutrition are important. But do we actually mean it?