A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

Have you ever been to a restaurant where you wait for ages for your food to be served? I have. As a matter of fact, during my stay here in Dabki, Poland, I always had my biggest meal of the day in the same place. It's a small fish-bar (restaurant would be too much, really) a couple of minutes from my hotel. Although prices are really high for polish standards, there's always lots of customers patiently waiting for their fish. I guess none of them regrets the time he spant waiting. I certainly never did. Servings are huge here, the fish is freshly caught from the baltic sea just hours before it is served. The carrots and cabbage that's served alongside the fish is just about awesome. As I've already pointed out, it sometimes takes the staff here a really long time to prepare and serve the food. We've once waited for a full hour until we finally got to eat. Now you might ask in what meaning this might have for the martial arts practicioner. None, really. Then a...

When I woke up today, my knees didn't cause any pain at all. Just as I thought. Hence, I took to the opportunity to begin the day with a run on the beach. This is just plain awesome. Quite intense, too, due to the soft sand. Heart rate is climbing up pretty fast. Suits me just fine - I'm not much of a steady-state guy anyway. In the early afternoon, I went to the height park with my girl and my younger cousin. That's something in between a bouldering hall and an obstacle course. Below you'll find a couple of pictures, so you get the idea. Although I wouldn't tag this a proper training session, it did require some balance, coordination and even strength. Hence, it's probably best described as GPP-Training. I just wish I had a parcours such as this one in my Dojo - the kids would just love it... For a strong finish, I hit the beach again after sunset for 10 rounds of shadow-sparring. It's been a while since I did this, so in the beginning, I...

Another awesome day at the baltic sea. Unfortunately, I had to skip running due to knee issues. Guess it's nothing, I'll be fine again tomorrow. Instead, I went for a bicycle ride with my girl. Nothing out of the ordinary, you see, just taking care of some baseline cardio by riding through the woods for an hour. After that, more swimming in the baltic sea. So much for cardio. When it comes to strength, today's session called for deadlifting and bench pressing. Instead of just doing straight sets of 5, I mixed everything up into a mini-circuit that looked like this: Deadlift 5x 50% 1RM Pull-Up 5x Bodyweight Bench Press 5x 50% 1RM Pull-Up 5x Bodyweight Deadlift 5x 50% 1RM Pull-Up 5x Bodyweight Bench Press 5x 50% 1RM Pull-Up 5x Bodyweight Not a lot of intensity, but then I'm right in the middle of my deload week. I went through the circuit three times. In between sets, I took around 30 seconds of rest, sometimes a little less. Completed the whole thin...

It's been my second day at the baltic sea. What a great day. So here's what I did today: Get out of bed, go for a run on the beach Have breakfast Hit the gym for a lifting session Go to the beach to bathe in the sun and swim in the baltic sea Have lunch Teach my younger cousin how to deadlift, do some pull-ups Have dinner Sounds great, huh? Since I'm usually on the warrior diet, eating three meals a day seems like a huge waste of time to me. I'm under the impression of eating all the time. My diet here pretty much revolves around dairy(including lots of milk, cottage cheese, cream cheese and whipped cream), fresh fish, carrots, pancakes and sweet cakes. Guess I'll put on a pound or two during my stay here. Then on the other hand, I'm definately not passive. Starting the day with a run is nice. I don't usually run due to knee issues, but running in the soft sand is a compeltely different game. Breathing the sea breeze and feeling sand and littl...

So I've been here in Poland for two days now. Didn't yet have a chance to do any training whatsoever. So I compensated by eating lots of food, mostly sugar and fat. Great way to begin a deload week. Anyhow, today I met Jakob, chief instructor of the Ronin TeakwonDo group here in Warsaw [ www.ronin.waw.pl ]. Spent about two hours discussing rather random martial arts related topics. Here's what I consider to be the most important topics: Don't take blackbelt gradings lightly. If you think about taking your black belt exams, aks yourself honestly: "What have I done to deserve beiing a black belt?". Jakob told me that he refused to take that exam for quite a long time, because he just didn't feel worthy of wearing a Dan. Only after he won the european championships did he decide to finally test for the black belt. A black belt should take a long time to achieve, too. Receiving a Dan grading after two years of training is a joke. Obviously, a black belt only...