A Benefit of Aging

I finally got back to two classes Friday night, for the first time since I was sick last month. It felt good, though I was ready for bed when I got home.

I am often unwise enough to complain about the encroachment of age. But lately, the thought has occurred to me that I've lived long enough that some defects have turned into positives--or, to put it another way, some curses have turned into blessings.

Take my build.

I recently found stuck in a book of poetry a health certificate I got from the city of Houston when I was 19, something I needed for a summer job in construction. I weighed 165 pounds, and I was 6' 2" tall (well, 6' 1.5"). In metric terms, I was about 1.87 meters tall and weighed 75 kilograms.

I was really, really skinny.

I had a few kind people in my youth suggest that I needed bulking up. A coach at a basketball camp suggested heading to a gym and working out with weights. In my sophomore year of college, the first girlfriend I really, really liked gently dropped me after we had dated a few weeks; years later she told me one factor was I was just so ... skinny.

Eventually of course I gained weight, and ended up in a state where my cholesterol was too high and my waist line was pushing 40 inches. I started training in martial arts because it was a form of exercise I figured I would enjoy enough to stick with it. I lost close to 30 pounds, and was able to go off cholesterol pills. I weigh around 190 lb. now (~86 kg), a lot more than when I was 19, but a lot less than I did 10 years ago at 44.

I'm not very muscular. But recently three different guys who are trying to lose weight have remarked enviously on my slender figure. And it occurred to me that I've lived long enough that my build, which once seemed a hindrance to getting on the basketball team and keeping a girlfriend, has become an asset.

Job Taps Bob Out

Well, no grappling tonight, I had to work late, got home without dinner with less than half an hour before class, wife out, daughter has friends (including a couple of boys) over.... It just didn't work tonight.

On the plus side, it was nice to spend a little time with my daughter, and we reminisced about an old show we used to like called "MXC: Most Extreme Elimination Challenge," in which a goofy Japanese game show called "Takeshi's Castle," full of weird contests and pratfalls, was dubbed into hilariously incongruous English. A U.S. version called "Wipeout" is on now, with Americans speaking English. While it's funny, it's no MXC.

My daughter's here only here a few more weeks before college, I can miss a class now and then.

Running: Maybe This Will Work!

Well, I did run Sunday AM at a local school track, and I also ran today, Tuesday, in the work gym on the (blah) treadmill. The limitation on my running at the moment is my legs and feet; I felt fine in terms of cardio, but my legs are hurting and I don't want my plantar fasciitis to flare up. I consulted with Marathon Michelle, a running colleague at work and former member of the Jersey City Fight Club. She says; 1) get really good running shoes, the right ones for YOU (as fellow martial arts blogger Sue C suggested); 2) start with short distances; 3) increase no more than 10% per week.

The good things about running: 1) you pack in more cardio training and calorie burning per minute than lots of other cross training; 2) I really like how much stronger my legs feel afterwards, even though they hurt. Running outside can be interesting; at work, at least there are TVs near the treadmill. And I can't really keep my BlackBerry on call while I'm running, so it's a real, true break from work.

It would be awesome if I could consistently run as cross training for my martial arts, and my feet and legs stayed healthy. Fingers crossed. At some point I will consider whether one of my three days a week of running should be interval sprints, but first I want to just get aerobic running down.

Tomorrow night, back to grappling class.

Cross Training Question

Happy 4th. Question for the day: Does it make sense to run once a week as a form of cross training?

I'm getting cardio workouts at the gym on a bike or elliptical machine, aiming for twice a week. I'm getting good workouts three days a week (more anaerobic) for four hours in my MA training.

So is running on my Sundays going to help build my cardio in addition to all this? Or is it going to just be an opportunity for injury? (I suppose I could run on a treadmill at the gym, but yawn.)

Karate Kid

I got back to my martial arts school this week, for three hours, almost the four hours I usually shoot for. I also made it once to the gym at work, though I spent so much time stretching I didn't work up much of a sweat--my legs felt sore.

I've also switched to moderating comments since I've been getting so much Chinese spam in the form of comments. So apologies if any comments take time to show up.

This afternoon, my wife and I saw the remake of Karate Kid with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. I loved the original movie and hated the sequels, so I really wondered how I would like this one. I also stayed away from the reviews, which I didn't read until just a few minutes ago.

Well, I liked it a lot--much more so than a couple of reviews I read. Much of the plot structure is familiar, but it's transformed by moving the boy to China instead of to California. One of the coolest things about the movie actually was China; the vastness of the terrain, the modern busy-ness of the urban settings were really striking; it made me want to visit.

There are places where the elements of the plot change quite a bit. For instance, there's a car in this movie belonging to Mr. Han (the Mr. Miyagi character), but it serves a very different purpose. I thought Jaden was great, though it was really tough seeing him get beat up; his mom, played by Teraji Henson, was excellent.

Jackie Chan played a very different character than he normally does, and his Mr. Han is fairly different than the Mr. Miyagi planed by Pat Morita, which was probably a good thing, though both characters do fulfill the same function in the plot.

Definitely worth seeing for martial artists. It won't replace the original, but it's enjoyable.

Fragile Father

Physically, I'm feeling fragile today. I'm on antibiotics for sinusitis--very high white blood count indicated a bacterial infection. (My doctor doesn't hand out antibiotics like candy, she needs a reason to prescribe.) I was really sick early in the week, left work half way through Monday, and didn't do any work until Friday--and then from home.

I've also got a very stiff neck, and I'm starting to wonder if there's a pinched nerve or something. We were working for two weeks in grappling on D'Arce chokes, and I think they weren't good for my neck.

I haven't worked out in a week and a half. Times like this it's hard to picture getting back on the mat, though I know I will.

Interesting boxing match Saturday night. There's a very interesting tournament being hosted on Showtime (not PPV, either) where six excellent 168-pound boxers compete. Last night, the tournament leader, skilled boxer Andre Ward, out-hustled and out-thought Al Green, a dangerous knockout puncher. Green had a long reach advantage, but Ward would duck in and begin infighting, and he won every round.

While I train at a MMA school, and find the ground element (grappling) to be complex and interesting, I prefer watching standup, whether it's boxing or Muay Thai or what have you. Call me old fashioned.

It's been a nice Father's Day so far....

When I'm 54

I turned 54 yesterday. I was 44 when I first joined my school; at the time it was called a karate school, but was transitioning to the mixed martial arts school it is today. In January, it will be 10 years since I first joined.

I had a nice birthday. I took the day off from work, and when my wife got off at noon, we went to a local beach town, had a sinfully good burger lunch (Five Guys Burgers--I'm not a burger person but it's great). My wife's joke was that I was very Buddhist in ordering my hamburger: "Make me one with everything." Then we spent time poking around the town and hanging out on the beach. In the evening, I went to my usual two-hour Friday classes, first a kind of cardio class and then kickboxing, which I enjoy a lot. My college-bound daughter made me delicious lava cupcakes.

Since my last post, I have been training pretty consistent lately--an hour of grappling on Monday and Wednesday evening, and the two hours on Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday, I get to work a little early and go to the nice, inexpensive gym there--I usually do lunges, pushups, crunches, planks and 25 minutes on a bike. The theory is to take Saturday off and, on Sunday, do some type of workout (that hasn't been so consistent).

Part of the idea for this schedule is that at my age it's best to be very steady in terms of working out--not take breaks of multiple days between working out. I think its working. I feel like I'm in better cardio condition than a couple of months ago. I've lost a little weight--for the first time in years, I've dropped below 190 pounds this week (I know that sounds like a lot, but I'm 6'2" and I'm happy with my weight).

I do feel a bit frustrated this week about the skill level I am reaching in grappling and kickboxing. I am getting better at grappling doing it two times a week, but it isn't an art that comes naturally to me. When presented with new situations, I have trouble finding a solution. In kickboxing, it's easy to forget about the need to focus on moving (feet and head). I need to look at how I'm improving more than how I fare against classmates.

Later this month I will get my annual checkup; I'm wondering how my cholesterol is. There was an interesting article in the (subscription) Wall Street Journal about how to calculate your arteries' age; I would like to see what mine are.