WulinNZ Let Motion Create Emotion

Taking this week off work didn't really mean taking a week off my 100 day challenge - but it seems to have ended up that way.

I turn up at my wife's cafe, eat and drink coffee, go home, drink wine and play with my dog. This has been my routine every day since Saturday last week. What a life.

Now my muscles don't ache, and I'm very content at watching kung-fu movies all day while drinking wine. I do the odd house-husband thing, but hey, it's no big deal.

It's so easy being a slob. Almost too easy.

I'm totally thrown off by the 1 hour less sleep over the weekend. I had to do my workout after work and before class because I slept in past my 6:00am wake-up time. I'm going to be wasted after training tonight.

I took a rest day yesterday. Did nothing. No stretching or 100 kicks. I feel guilty now.

Anyways, I did today's routine after mowing the lawns and I was a bit buggered.

I think the pullups killed my arms yesterday - pushups seemed a lot harder today.

I upped my v-sits reps a little today and it was noticeably harder - reaching that psychological 20 rep barrier - and noticed a considerable decline in form. Maybe because I'm already tired from this week's activity. I'm not sure.

I think I really need to clamp down on how much rest I have between each set - at the moment, I think I'm spending almost 2 minutes between each one when I probably should only be spending 90 seconds or so. Reducing the rest-period between sets will also be a good progression later on.

Looking forward to a rest-day tomorrow.

I tried supersetting some exercises today and that made me go through the routine a lot faster.

The pullups are still a real killer for me - again it's more psychological and a little physical. Things might be a bit easier if I lost a bit of weight

I might have to up the Eagle Jumps reps next week as it seemed a little too easy; and this goes for the Plank and Burpees too.

My programme kicked off today. I'm doing the simple route - just doing reps close to my maximum and ramping it up every week. Nothing fancy. I have 5 sets, with 4 sets decreasing in repetition and the 5th is a "max" set where I go to the point of exhaustion (this is usually the point when my head tells me that I can't do anymore).

The reason I decrease my reps is because I find that it's a real psychological barrier for me when I hit high reps; I'm hoping having a decreasing progression builds my confidence up to the 5th set where I can max out.

My programme is pretty basic too: it's a 6-day routine, each day starts off with 100 kicks, followed by 4 exercises.

Monday, Wednesdays, Fridays: Pushups, V-sits, handstands, and horse stance
Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays: Plank, burpees, pullups, and eagle jumps
Saturdays: Rest

At the moment, I rest between each exercise, but I'm considering supersetting them once I get into my routine.

The brighter and warmer mornings make it much easier to get up but it'll hit me again next week when Daylight Savings kicks in.

Anyways, I was up at 6:30am to start off my 100 day challenge. I'm using this day to determine what my limits are - and I can only say that I'm truly humbled.

I found out about the movie Iron and Silk from my former wushu coach Mr. George Guo; his shifu is the legendary Pan Qingfu.

The movie is based on the true story and book by Mark Salzman, a white american who travels to China to teach english and to learn wushu - from Pan Qingfu.

He steps off the train in Hangzhou and thinks: here I was in a country of a billion people, and I didn't know a single one.

I'm going through my entire catalogue of kung-fu/wushu videos, starting with what inspires me most about wushu.

Armour of God

Classic Jackie Chan action released in 1987 - this is the stuff that got me hooked onto martial arts as a boy.

This is the movie where he severely injured himself performing a stunt - actually, he probably does that in most of his older movies anyways.

3 sets of 20 kicks per leg
Static stretching between sets.

Legs are really achy today due to jump training on Monday. I'm thinking of adding 3 sets of 10 half-V sits into the mix; just something really easy to get me started. These are the ones where you lie on your back and reach up to touch your toes.