Weigh In + Kung Fu Grading

So today Saturday, its been an awesome day and I'll tell you why

I had weigh in this morning and after being stuck at around the same weight for a good 5 weeks (well sometimes going up a little and then back down again) I had a huge loss of 1.6kg this morning at weigh in! So stoked! I had previously felt like I had lost my mojo and this week I definately found it again.  I tracked, made great food choices and walked 3 day- clocking up 13km, and trained Kung Fu for 2 days.  I am now weighing in at 113.2kg.  I have planned my meals for the week and training and I will make it another great week!!

This afternoon I had my grading for Kung Fu, I got to the Kwoon at around 1.45pm, thought I would get there nice and early and get warmed up and seemed like everyone else had the same idea!! I would say about 50% people were already there warming up, but I figured 45 minutes would give me plenty of time to warm up and run through a few things.  Then came 2.30pm and we were ready to go, Sihign Ben took us through a form of Tai Chi to calm us down and any nerves we had, then it was time to break off into our grading groups.  

Us white (now yellow sashes) went off with Sihign Ben for our grading and he was brutal to say the least!  We went through all the things we learnt in class, so lots of horse stance work, blocks, snap kicks, kick lunge punch, Wushu 1, self defence, and some sparring.  We got through all the horse stance work, kicks, blocks and Wushu 1.  Then it was time for sparring, now I've only had minimal exposure to sparring, being during class, so when I saw one of the other guys I was starting to grade with start sparring with Sifu I started to panic a little! I started to worry that I wouldn't be able to hold my own and I might fail, but both Sifu and the black sash's were great, they coached me through and gave me some tips for future competitions and gradings.  

I have to admit, I did screw a couple of things up, like defending on the kicks with Sihign Ben and screwing up my sparring a little, but otherwise I think I did okay.  Well I must have done well, because I past and left with my new yellow sash!  Awesome- can't wait til Tuesday now and learn some new things!

New Yellow Sash!

Now, just needing to recover.  I am feeling it my thighs- especially from the horse stance work.  Time for epsom salts, massage and rest

New Motivation + Kung Fu and Tai Chi

Recently I had been feeling a bit stuck, loosing then gained and so forth and really, just not in a good space.  

I started taking Qi Gong or Tai Chi where I train at Emerald Dragon, and it really put things back into perspective for me.  I started revisiting why I was loosing the weight and what I wanted to achieve out of the changes I was making and not just to lose weight, but to improve my mental state and calm and to also learn new skills.  

Martial Arts and especially Kung Fu is something I have been wanting to try for a long time but have always been too scared to, but now I have built the confidence to do and have even earnt a stripe on my first sash.  And tonight also was doing tumbleturns and flying kicks and things that I would never have been game enough to do previously, so I definately feel like I have come a long way since starting my training at Emerald Dragon

Basically my mind set is to know that I can achieve and do anything I put my mind to!

I realise this a quiet a short post, but will definately be posting some more things soon, but be sure to check out the videos!

Kung Fu- Sash Grading

I am going to start off this post with a little bit of a whinge.  The last 2 days or so my back especially the left hand side has been exceptionally sore. Just feels like I have strained it, but today it was really acting up and starting spaseming.  Not good!! So unfortunately for me exercise has been extremely light!  

I had been stretching it out all day trying to loosen it up, which definately helped.  

I always look forward to Tuesday and Thursdays because its Kung Fu days.  Tonight I was presented with my first stripe on my sash!

Which we passed our stripe grading last week, but only presented with it tonight.  But this symbolises for me, one of many goals I can achieve its only onward and upward from here.  

Tonight was tough, we were given the bo staff's and told to balance them on our thighs while we sat is Horsestance, and wow that was tough! I had so much trouble doing this, but again something for me to work on!

Then we started learning some new things, which included our blocks.  Which were:

Upper Block

Outer Block

Inner Block

Lower Block

Groin Block

All done whilst sitting in horsestance, needless to say my legs are completely shot right about now.  But just going to keep practising and will post some videos of all this + Wushu 1 soon, just gotta get someone to hold the camera!

Tomorrow I am also getting Chinese therapy done on my back, so hopefully this helps.  Going to see Sihing Ben tomorrow and see how we go with it!! Fingers crossed it helps!

Weigh In + Past Week

So I know that I haven't really been blogging all the much but that's all about to change.  This week for me has been all about commitments for me.  Whether it be to blog more, compete in a tournament or race, committing to run twice a week or even just to have coffee with a friend.    For me right now, it's about committing to things and staying committed to it.  

This week, I also had a stripe grading for Kung Fu, which was really cool! Our Sifu - Dave- said that I had just passed my first stripe grade, which required me to do blocks and counters and also Wushu 1 and I will probably do this tomorrow and video it and post it here on the blog.  We get our presentation next week, so hopefully I will have some photos to be posted as well!

This week was my birthday - well not the whole week, my birthday was on Tuesday so Mum had made a Coffee Carmel Ice Cream Cake, which was so good, lots of espresso coffee! 

Which was so good, and only 5PP per slice.  I like coffee, but this one was so strong, which was good, because it allowed me to only have it small amounts, which was perfect!! I also made some banana and malteser muffins, which were nice but I don't think they are worth the 7PP that were allocated to them!  But hey, that might just be personal opinion, other people might love them!

But I managed to spread them out over the week and only used around 15 of my weekly PP, but earned 32 exercise PP.  

I had weigh in this morning and was actually really surprised to pull a 1.7kg loss, (I mean not surprised in bad way),  I stuck to my PP and made good choices, but was 1.7kg after 2.8kg last week is huge- anyway I'll stop whinging now!!  

So now I'm onto a new week, time to start a fresh and if the body plays nice, a good loss next week!

Kung Fu + Mental Disipline

As most of you know from this blog and my facebook is that I enjoy martial arts.  Up until about 3 weeks I was doing Muay Thai boxing at Jabout. Now don't get me wrong I do enjoy kickboxing, but for me I was feeling like I had reached my limit, and to be honest I was starting to get a little bored with it.  We do the same combinations every night and I was just not feeling like I was going anywhere with it.

In saying that I had always been interested in Kung Fu, watching it from when I was young.  So I decided to take a leap of faith and went down to our local Kwoon and tried 2 casual classes.  I loved it, all new types of training to try, they didn't shun you because you were new, everyone was so welcoming.  I loved and have been going every since.  

At the moment we are currently learning WUSHU 1, which is a fairly easy form, but takes a lot of practise to get right!!

I feel in a much better place now than I was even just a few days ago, I found something that I am loving and I'm feeling much more motivated and energised because of it!

Bring on this weeks weigh in!