Tag Archives: involution

From Christmas Eve through New Years Day I don’t do much training.  Just my forms (Star of Ishtar, Fool’s Journey and my old Korean Karate forms) and my health maintenance stuff (grip health, therapy rollers and bands, etc.).

You don’t have to take the holidays off like me.  Push through if you want.  But I highly recommend you take at least two weeks off training per year — preferably in two, one-week chunks.   I usually take off 12/24 – 1/1 and then a second week in the late summer for my annual beach trip to OBX.

But, whether you’re on a break this week or not,  you should take some time to complete a Year-End Review.

If you don’t review your year, how are you going to do better in the next?

I just finished my new Action Plan for 2019 — you can look at it here.  What I do is print this thing out once per month and paste it into my training journal.  Any unrealized goals from the prior month get moved the new sheet, and all month long I put the hash marks in the “(     )” slots to keep track of how I’m doing on the daily/weekly/monthly tasks.  Here’s a pretty thorough rundown of my organizational method over on my Patreon page.

Year-End Review: Training Involution #137

Most people set New Year’s resolutions that are largely arbitrary and then fail to establish any performance metrics.  Don’t do that.  Set meaningful goals with valuable payoffs and then monitor your performance to insure progress.

1. Get out your training log and spend some time reviewing your entries.  You do keep a training journal, right?  Training journals are not optional in Cabal Fang martial arts.  Look, we don’t have very many rules, but keeping a training journal is one of them.  So if you aren’t journaling, go get a spiral note book or something and start writing stuff down so you can do a year-end review next December.
2. Take as much time with your review as you feel is sufficient, necessary and/or available.  Might be fifteen minutes or three hours — whatever is necessary and sufficient to make sensible conclusions and set meaningful goals.
3. What did you well in 2018?  What did you do poorly?
4. What are you going to do better in 2019?  
5. How are you going to do better in 2019? 
6. What are your performance metrics going to be?

If you’re going to make 2019 your best year ever, the future is now.

Cabal Fang Temple here in Richmond VA volunteered to assist Food Not Bombs feed the homeless last Sunday.  Afterwards we washed dishes. We were too INVOLVED to take pictures of ourselves, and besides, we didn’t want to brag. Here’s a shot of the spread.

The other day I posted a video about how restriction breeds creativity while freedom breeds laziness.  Don’t believe me?  Read the post and watch the video because this week’s involution is based on that premise.

Restricted: Training Involution #136

• Warm-up completely for at least 8:00.
• Tuck your dominant arm in your belt and do some martial fitness.  Set timer for 8:00.  Do as many sets of 4 of each exercise as you can before the timer beeps: Jump Squats, Sit-outs, Shrimps, Push-ups (on knees if you can’t do one-arms).
• Liberate your arm to go to the Heavy bag. 3 x 3:00/1:00 max power shots only.  When I say max power, I mean Serena-Williams-from-back-court-for-match-point-with-a-grunt-level power. First round, hands only.  Second round, legs only.  Final round, all in.  Count your strikes in the final round.  Write it in your training journal.  Beat it next time. 
• Do your Constitutional.  Cabal Fang is the only martial art that has a base level fitness requirement.  Twice weekly constitutionals are required.  Details below.  Don’t have a tire?  Get one or sub a #20 sandbag and modify — modify, adapt, overcome!
• What have you done for Spirit Month?  Last week I suggested that you volunteer, help out a sick or elderly neighbor or relative, help a friend, etc. Did you do that?  If so, you’re off this week on the spiritual portion.  If not, restrict yourself somehow until you decide on something and put it on your calendar.  Sleep without a pillow, give up soft drinks, beer, TV, your favorite food, etc.   Out of ideas?  The restriction should help, but ask your deity, higher power  or better self for insight. Be still and ask how you can be of service. Listen carefully — something will pop into your head that’s decent and true.  Do that.

December 2018 Constitutional

Tire Sit-ups (25)
Tire Lunges (25)
Tire Passes (25 full — 50 Tire Slams if you’re going solo)
Tire Squats (50)
Tire Burpees (25)
Tire V-ups (25)
Tire Jackknife Push-ups (25)

Karen and me on vaction a couple of years ago. Ain’t she pretty?

My beautiful wife Karen had ankle surgery yesterday, so today’s involution is a little late, and frankly, I didn’t have time to do something amazing and lay it all out for you.

So I’m doing what I usually do on occasions like this — I’m flashing us back 12 months.

Flashback: Training Involution #128

Open your training journal to exactly one year ago.  If you didn’t train that day, turn back to the next one.  Do that.  Only better.  If you ran 2 miles in 20 minutes, run 2 miles in less than 20 minutes.  If you boxed 3 rounds, box 4.  Find a metric and do better.

If you haven’t been keeping a journal for a year, do my training session for 10/27/17 as follows:

• Warm up for a full 8 minutes.
• Squats, Bench Press, and Weighted Back Bridges.  Complete a 2 x 10 with 50% of your 1 RM, and then 3 x 5 with your working weight.  If you’re not experienced at lifting weights, or if lifting’s not your thing, substitute body-weight Squats, Push-ups, and unweighted Back Bridges.  Do two warm-up sets, each about half as many your single-set max, and a final set to failure.  One minute rest between each set.  Rest a couple of minutes.  Then…
• Run 2 miles as fast as you can.  When you’re done, walk that off for at least three minutes to cool down. Then…
• Complete the Cabal Fang temple rites.  Don’t know what they are?  They’re in the book, so go read up.  No time for that?  Assume your posture of choice, regulate your breathing, and practice contemplation or meditation for at least 10 minutes.