From My Journal November 1 -8, 2008

Home Training:
Drop kick back shoulder roll - 60
Say shen - 10
Long I&II - 10
Sit ups - 140
Pushups - 1050
Squat thrusts - 140
Cross stepping kicks - 560
Round House kicks - 700
Side heel kick concentrating on speed, above waist, and no bounce - 304

Shaolin Class with Sifu Laurie: We worked mainly on the side heel kick and also the flexed arm hang. For side heel, we started with dynamic stretching and I would like to continue this to improve the height of my side heel thrust. We worked on each component of the side heel; getting the technique right and then focusing on doing each component of the kick with speed. Each of us in the class notcied something that was wrong with how we execute our kick. For me, it was that from horse stance, I had eliminated having to pivot my foot and this is incorrect. Finally, we did the fitness test for side heel kicks. I was disappointed with my performance as I only got 32 on each side (though I did notice that I usually score at least 5 kicks less on my weak leg and this is not the case now). I was aiming for 40. Sifue Laurie wants us to remember our scores (mine was 4) so that we can compare our results in four weeks. In the meantime, she has assigned some home work for us that will help progress in our kicks. We must do 20 kicks per side each night, focusing on proper technique. We reviewed 10 things that need to be perfect and she wants us to write these 10 things down so that we can focus on them when we do our nightly kicks. Sihing Lilienskold and I wrote them down right after class, as we knew we would forget. They are:

1. pivot on the ball of the foot when executing the kick
2. start and end in proper horse stance
3. 2 crane stances should be evident in the complete kick
4. Power
5. Look at the target
6. Keep arm guards up
7. Kick should be waist high
8. The hip, knee joint and heel should be in alignment when the kick is at full extention
9. Kick with the heel, and the toe should be pointing down, the foot properly bladed
10. Chamber properly

Everyone seems to be improving for the flexed arm hang, especially Jon and sihing Langnor. Sifu Laurie assigned us home work for this week to help improve our progress. We have to do a modified plank (arms in narrow pushup position and body low to the ground) for one minute and the do 10 narrow pushups each night. We will test again for flexed arm hang next week.

Home Reading: I read something in the Edmonton Journal this week that caused my Luddite heart to race. The article, "Exergaming Touted for Getting Kids Moving: All Limbs used in New Video Games", begins by stating that 'after years of being blamed for contributing to obesity in children, video games are now being used to promote physical activity.' Linda Carson, a professor of physical education at some university in the united states states that exergaming (thats things like dance revolution and Wii sports) is a wholesome activity and should be recognized as an exciting alternative to traditional physical education. Someone has even done a study, that shows that obese and overweight children who play exergames don't gain weight and improve their physiological funtion.

There's alot I can say about that, but I will focus on one aspect - which is how readily the masses will 'embrace technology' to the extent of expecting it to solve the problems caused by technology. What a crazy vicious circle we are in! Let's just focus on physical fitness for a moment and its relation to the looming energy crisis. I'll try to be breif here. Technology, which has made possible such things as cars, labour saving devices in the home, central heating, and home entertainment, has caused two problems in our society.

The first, is that we have all become increasingly reliant on fossil fuels to produce energy (oil for our cars and homes, and coal to produce electrical energy). We all know what that is doing to the environment and that if the other half of the world began to live the same way as we do, our planet could not support it, due to the lack of sustainable resources, and the environmental dammage it would do to our planet. We all know that we must seriously consider alternative forms of energy production and reduce our present levels of energy consuption. Instead, we are happy to stick our heads in the sand, and 'embrace technology'; technology will solve our problems. Indeed, it will, if we focus on having it do just that. Albertans in particular don't want to focus on solving the energy crisis, or even reducing the damage we are doing to the planet. Oil is king here- we just want to keep producing it to make our money and maintain our lifestyles, no matter how it affects the boreal forest, water fowl, the air quality, global warming, sustainability of resources and our own physical health. While European countries support the installation of wind power and solar power systems in buildings, and the concept of credits for unused energy, Alberta practically bans alternate energy producing infrastructures.

The second problem that technology has caused in our society is our physical fitness. Technology has caused us to become inactive. Our kids have become obese, overweight, and muscularly under-developed. We battle weight issues because our jobs are sedentary, and free time is taken up operating labour saving machines such as cars, and filling the saved time operating machines for our entertainment such as tv's, computers, and cell phones. What's craziest about this whole picture is that we expend even more energy produced by fossil fuels as we attempt to battle our fitness and wieght issues. Go to the local gym for example. Hundreds of us, who wish to reverse the effects on our bodies produced from a technologically driven, energy consuming, inactive lifestyle at home, school, and work, drive to the gym which is in a very large building requiring massive climate control and lighting systems, to operate machines such as the treadmill. It takes energy to operate the treadmill, so that we can expend our own surplus energy stored in our fatty tissue. Now we are expanding this whole crazy concept to include our kids - get them exergaming.

Where does all this energy from us operating treadmills and exergaming etc go? It goes into thin air. When you think about all those treadmills at the gym - 20 of them going most of the time - you would think that the energy expended by the people operating them, if captured, might be converted to the energy required to light the room, run the little tv attached to the treadmill, or chill the water in the water fountain. And the kids at home, exergaming - could their expended energy be stored up to operate a 2 hr movie? Like I said before - technology will solve our problems if we focus on having it do just that.

"If we keep on doing what we're doing, we'll end up where we're heading".