Kung Fu Blood Sugar Highs

So another week started and finished. The long range punches aggrivated my right shoulders hooked acromium. It impedes on the shoulder tendons and when you are practicing 1,800 punches you can easily reactivate an old injury. So when I use my right shoulder for full swings I need to do fewer reps for a longer timeframe to build up the muscle memory that we are trying to develop. Wish I was doing this in my 20's but this 50 year old body is making this process interesting, in the bad, not fun, kind of way. I had to do the same thing training for my marathons. It seems the process of everything that I want to do is to overcome all the obstacles that keep me from doing them. Marathons and Kung Fu have fallen in the same pattern of developing a problem, finding a solution or work around, then do it again. Sifu and Simu have been demonstrating alternative positions and more variety to help. They have been doing this on the fly, so to speak, and I've been very impressed with them, their patience and their experienced knowledge. There are 12 different punches and there are 9 different kicks in Choy Lai Fut Kung Fu. I've learned four of the kicks over the last two days. My hip flexors are now broken and I've discovered little, teeny, tiny muscles in my legs that I never knew existed. I've done Boot Camp, I've done soccer, cross country and marathon drills to find and strengthen "the tiny muscles in the leg that always lead to injury so we will beat them up and make them strong so you don't get injured." Well, I've never used these muscles in any of the above workouts so I don't think anyone out side of Kung Fu knows about these muscles. At all. Like they have never been used by me before. Like ever! I've found stretching and walking are really the best way to get these muscles back to normal. I takes awhile but it does work. I've noticed my blood sugars go UP during Kung Fu. Not down. It does drop hours afterwards but this spike was completely unexpected. I tried more basal but I am on multiple daily injections so this is troublesome to figure out. I've been pretty good overnight but on most Kung Fu nights I go high for a long time. Last night (after class) I took a little too much Fiasp so at midnight I was at 45. Not fun. It has been a really long time since that happened. The non training night before I was around 100 to 130 all night. I'm MDI and finger sticking this because I cannot afford a consistent CGM system. The Libre is horrible. I don't know about the Libre 2 but the 10 day and 14 day versions of the Libre 1 are crap. Besides, if and when we get to sparring again, the sensors will get in the way. Just another day in a COVID paradise. Be safe out there! Stay healthy and be healthy!

The Cure for Horse Stance

I was complaining about horse stance on January 4th. The first Kung Fu day of the new year. My Sifu said, "I hear you complaining about horse stance, but all that tells me is that you need to do more horse stance." How much of that is true in my life? I complain about what I'm going through. I'm never focused outside of me and where I am and what I'm doing (or NOT doing). I never am looking at the future. The future benefits or goals of where I am today and where I want to be going. This is true in my life. Both physically and spiritually. Yes. We must focus on what we are doing now. But if what I am doing now has no eternal benefit, why am I doing it? In sanskrit there is a word, Anarthas. It is from two words, "Artha" meaning "of value" and "An" meaning "not". So in my christian background "besetting sins" are a problem but in the Vedic tradition, "besetting sins" are of "no value". This sift in understanding makes leaving "besetting sins" behind easier because I am spending more time doing things of eternal value and future benefit and, gradually, less time and "taste" for those things, habits, etc, that are of no value to my lasting nature and future. Is "horse stance" of value? I guess it depends on the situation. To Sifu it is of value. If I'm in a physical fight it is of value. If I'm in a spiritual fight, the tenseness of the holding of a stance or a position. The pause. The breath before the next action when tempted. This "stance" can be just the thing to let the temptation pass and lead to that one small block, stop or hit or punch that can lead to one small step forward to the victory of leaving my old self and the old me behind and moving into my new future. Or not. This could all be crap that I'm dreaming up. But I like how this horse stance works. More Horse Stance. Less Complaining. Have a Happy New Year Everyone!

My third day but, in Kung Fu time, it was only day 2.

16 December 2020 I finally met Sifu today. He is very open and engaging. He was working 3 groups. 1 large intermediate to advanced group (about 8), 1 lady learning Qi-Gon and the newbie group of One! So we redid the stances. He checked my positions, my hips get in my way and my feet needed to be repositioned a little but the stances were much easier today and holding them was easier as well! Then I did 8 "up and back" with the stances. I watched him work with the intermediate students. Then I remembered the 1000 staff hits that I only did 100 of on my Day Zero back on the 9th. So I grabbed the heavily padded staff and threaded it through the angled hole behind your back that you get when your fists are at your waist and did the hip rotation, hit the punching bag with the ends of the staff 600 times. Sifu came and started me on two of the close punches. In Kung Fu you have many strike options, close punching is for 2 to 2 1/2 feet away. There are 6 different close punches. We worked on straight and vertical punches which refer to your hand position at the striking point. The really hard thing for me to learn is the whirling motion. At the time that one hand is striking, your non striking hand is in a blocking position by your chest. When someone who is trained is doing this, they move, water-like, the striking hand forward and the non striking hand blocking then both hands change position, like a waltz and the blocking hand now strikes and the striking hand now blocks. He made it look so simple and easy. I'm like rubbing my belly and patting my head at the same time trying to get the rhythm for 250 straight punches and 250 vertical punches in before the end of class. To Sifu and Simu's credit they are available until closing but I'm the one with the time constraint. I really am glad I went tonight. Christmas is coming so my dojo work is finished until January 2021 so I will practice, practice, practice and hope to become more fluid like and less three stooges like in the next few weeks. Everyone Have a Happy Holiday. May your Zoom gatherings be glitch free. May your food be real. May your family and friends continue to be so! See you on the other side!!