Kung Fu Musings (An Update)

PC: IMDB

What's up?! (I know what you're thinking..."'What's up?!' After months of being away and her opening line is 'What's up?!'" There's every reason for you to stop reading at my terrible opening line, but I urge you, read on!)

So the last time we met, I had just gotten my new job! There's SO much to talk about with that, but I'll save that for a later post. Let's begin by saying I've been working out as much as I have been updating this blog--well, maybe a tiny bit more than that. I would say once a week if I'm lucky, but very light. I did lose much of the strength I had when I was exercising 2-3 times a week, which I found shocking and really painful! It took me a day or two to recover from simple chores like weed whacking. It hurt my pride. And my body.

After months of virtual atrophy, me and Tee decided to try a video I found on youtube: "Shaolin Kung Fu Basic Moves 1" uploaded by Shaolin kung fu (3 years ago, if you were wondering). Why? Because of "Invincible Shaolin"!

Another fun fact about Tee: she's a Shaw Brother's Kung Fu movie fan. Of course, it's easy to love any and all martial arts movies--they're so cool.We saw our first Shaw Brother's movie years ago on public access television called "The Crippled Avengers" (don't let the title deter you, it's simply amazing). The fluidity of the movements, awesome fight sequences and entertaining story lines are enough to capture anyone's interest. One of my favorite parts of kung fu movies is the iconic training

"Crippled Avengers" a.k.a "The Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms"

scene. The old sifu makes the heroes fight their way out of wooden boxes, balance on narrow posts and perform three finger push ups until their skills are good enough to counter the opponents. The heroes' initial failures are necessary for them to improve until they master their specialty kung fu. That could be me. I can be the hero(ine).

So I searched. First I looked up the original martial arts icon: Bruce Lee. His training, diet, philosophy, whatever I could find. One source I read revealed his diet was basically what we know as "eating clean" today with lots of protein and good carbohydrates. He focused on how much nutrition he could derive from a meal instead of eating empty calories. His training consisted of weight training and cardio, with an emphasis on listening to your body as opposed to over-training. Don't train so hard you can't do any kind of work out the next day.

With all that in mind, I decided to look for any beginning kung fu videos and stumbled on the one I talked about earlier. I previewed it last night, and the sifu talked about the importance of having a good foundation. Not just in kung fu, but in anything you want to be proficient at in life. It truly spoke to me. Mastering the basics and returning to them often is what will bring success. What we were learning in the video would take a year and a half to two years of practice before you could do anything else.

Going in, tonight I thought would be day one of 1.5 years of kung fu basic training. I was wrong. Tee and I got through roughly 12 minutes of the 47 minute video before deciding we need to work up to basic kung fu moves via other exercise videos. I don't know what could have prepared us for this. Then it dawned on me that any consistent movement over the past four months definitely would've helped.

I haven't given up on being a kung fu heroine yet. But I need to start with the basic basics before moving on to the kung fu basics--that is, any movement for at least 30 minutes, and at least decent nutrition if I can't get really good nutrition. I've decided for the next five days to try to eat as cleanly as possible and exercise twice this week. But it's all talk until you do it!

Up next: my (poor) adjustment to my new 9-5 lifestyle.

Wishing you love and good health,
The Daughter

P.S. Here's the video: