Fall back into good habits

I love this time of year!  It’s back to school time.  It’s the changing of the leaves and the cooler weather.  It’s the increased pace of life from the lazy days of summer.  Hopefully, you had a nice, fun, relaxing summer that recharged your batteries.  But, now is the time to re-dedicate yourself to your training, your fitness, and your effort to improve yourself. 

Take the start of fall classes to act like a kind of ‘new year’.  Promise yourself that you will increase your attention to your fitness level and your karate training.  Now is the time to act!  I recommend the kaizen approach.  This approach features small, incremental changes, which over the course of time will prove huge results.  For example, if you don’t currently run and want to start, you don’t just go out and run 10 miles.  You start slowly with a much shorter effort, say 10 minutes of walking/running. Then, you slowly increase the amount of running you do until you build up to longer distances. 

The same kaizen principles can apply for any kind of improvement.  Practice your karate just 5 minutes more a day.  Want to know an easy way to do this?   Try the following.  Pick a 30-minute television show that you are watching at night and every time there is a commercial break, do one of the following:

• Hold your horse stance for 30 seconds
• Do 20 crunches
• Do 10 pushups
• Go from Choon-Bi stance to Fighting stance and back 10 times, checking your toe-heal alignment and your foot distance at the end.
• Work on the split stretch for 30 seconds

Doing this for one 30-minute show a day over the course of just a week can show improvement.  Just think what you can do if you work on this over the course of a year!

Don’t just cruise into the fall season, but attack it!  Use this change of seasons as an excuse to re-invigorate your training and your effort.  Make this the time to start the next level of your training.  Make this the time to improve your diet.  Make this the time to get the proper amount of sleep you need.  Make this the time to properly hydrate.  Make this the time to work on your flexibility. 

You will be so happy you did.

-Coach David-