What, Again?

For the last couple of workouts, I did basically what I did and cataloged in Saturday’s, directly below. Qi gong breathing exercises, then focus on a few kettlebell drills.

Don’t remember exactly what I did the earlier day, but today’s kettlebell component was:
– Single hand swings, several each side (24 kg)
– LCCJ, several each side (24 kg)
– Windmills, 10 each side (24 kg)

Diet: Fasted since yesterday evening.
Music: Pandora Calm Meditation station.

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A Twist Added

Two more little PTs from this weekend to document. Both were late in the evening (1930 or later).

Saturday

Similar to last Sunday’s, this was a simple kettlebell protocol using the 24 kg bell. After warming up with several minutes of loose striking on the heavy bag and floor movements, I did two sets of five minutes of relaxed kettlebell goodness.

First was a diagonal clean and twisted press combo, alternating sides every few reps for five minutes. Then on to swings, alternating hands for the single hand swings, and finishing off with two handed swings. Last minute or so was cool-down with salsa dance moves.

After that was an active meditation aikido style. This is helping stretch out my ankles nicely, as I sit in seiza as long as possible, then bowing (rei) to relieve the pressure for a tic before coming back to sit up.

Music: Pandora mix of Brazilian and samba, finishing with the Calm Meditation station.
Diet: Fasted since breakfast.

Sunday

Started with qi gong breathing and movements. Then went into the TACFIT Kettlebell “No Effort” day yoga and stretching/recovery. Finished with more of the meditation similar to yesterday’s.

Music: Pandora Calm Meditation station.
Diet: Fasted since breakfast.

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Brute Force, Averted

I took a week or two off from heavy physical training, and today, I’ve broken that fast. I was getting worn down by a lot of time at work, odd times at home, tension of various sorts, etc. And was just feeling like I needed to take a PT break, so I did.

Today, I’m back to it. I was really thinking about a super heart-thumping, gorge-rising in your throat, can’t breath-so-I’m-laying-on-the floor workout, but something told me to hold off a bit on that. So instead, in the vein of continuing to de-stress and remember to let go of excess tension, the whole workout was dedicated to projecting as much power, while remaining as relaxed as possible.

I’ve been re-cultivating my Daoist ways and making sure to remember to hold myself as loose as possible, to maintain good form and posture, breathe, all that sort of stuff. I have felt that I’m a bit separated from that, and it’s time to come home, as it were.

Having said that, it should be noted that I’ve been very good about holding true to that in my work life and political life (such as *that* is). As the site lead for my company at the facility where I work, I’ve been blessed with a really good team, and my role as often as not, is *not* to manage them, but rather to stay out of the way as much as possible and let their strengths shine through (as much as the team sometimes would like me to just lay down the law… but they are really good, smart people, so I’m not going to let them have it so easy 😉 ).

As for PT today, I started off with gentle movement, vaguely martial, progressing to weaponless striking of the heavy bags, with as much force as I can whilst remaining as relaxed as possible. Over the years I’ve become fairly decent at striking that way, and it just feels good. A friend was over the other day, and she mentioned something about hitting “like a bear,” or something like that. I don’t remember exactly the expression, but I know what she meant, because I was showing her elliptical, relaxed open hand strikes, which often don’t resemble boxing jabs and such at all.

I did some good relaxed floor work, changing levels and rolling and such. Then a short bout of kettlebells: five minutes of LCCJ, and then five minutes of single hand swings. Both exercises with the 24 kg bell.

Again, the emphasis was relaxed power; for the LCCJ, I went at an extremely slow stroke rate, making sure not to muscle it up or anything, but to sort of “let the bones” do the work. The motion simply came from movement, and I made sure to stop it at the top, and work my bones and posture into a good solid position, held it, then let the ball fall, starting the next movement. As much tension as possible gone from the movement.

Same with the swings. I swung the bell for ten reps, then switched sides, back and forth, holding it as loosely as possible, letting my body movement control the bell through the whole swing.

I followed up with some stretching, and some bodyweight squat/calf raises, then finished off sitting in seiza for quite a bit, allowing my shins and feet to slowly stretch out and rest my bodyweight further into the ground.

Feel pretty good right now, energized rather than exhausted, loose rather than tight (forearms a little tight, though). Good stuff. I’ve been fasting since breakfast this morning. Might get a little something in a bit, or just not worry about it. Don’t know, yet.

Music: Pandora yoga mix (Arabian/Indian electronica/trance).
Diet: fasted since brekkies.

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