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The Elements Fitness blog has now been amalgamated into the Elements Fitness mainsite over at http://elementsfitnessact.com.au .

There'll still be regular articles, recipes, rants and workouts posted just from a new and improved location. I've moved all your favourite articles across too so feel free to change your bookmarks.

You can check out the new diggs by clicking the link above.

Rant: The Conundrum of Kata.

Kata has to be one of the most misused training tools in all of martial arts. If kata were a hammer a common sight at timbers yards would be someone attempting to saw through a plank of wood with it or simply attempting to eat it. Kata can be useful but it comes from a specific place and has a specific purpose by for the most part martial arts instructors try to use kata as some kind of all purpose band aid. To paraphrase Marc Denny “they’ve taken drills and tools warriors used to keep their skills sharp and try to use those tools to create warriors.”

Historically Martial Arts kata was a method to help warriors remember various useful combinations and strategies they had discovered and successfully employed. Kata was also used as an aide for teaching these strategies to other warriors. In a largely non literate society this form of ‘physical note taking’ makes a great deal of sense; even if you could write down and describe the techniques and strategies that you found to be useful, odds are these notes would be useless to the majority of other people.

Essentially this style of kata is a mnemonic device and this is where the modern day problem lies. Mnemonics work by first defining and practising whatever it is you want to remember and then assigning that thing a memory aid. This means that the order and quantity of your training matters; if you learn the kata first and the bunkai (the self defence application) second – as is standard in 95% + in traditional martial arts schools – you will mentally rehearse and improve on the kata every time you practice the bunkai and not the other way around.

The quantity, or rather the ratio, of the training is the other major issue. Ask yourself this: If you want to get good at something should you

A) Practise the task itself OR;
B) Practise the device you use to remember the task.

If you answered ‘B’ congratulations – you have what it takes to combine the worst elements of dance instruction, fraud and masturbation and sell it as self defence to people by capitalising on their fear and ignorance. Now go hit yourself in the face with a spatula.

Everybody else go get a blunt kitchen instrument of your choice but just hold it ready as you may decide you need a disciplinary whack just the same. We agree that it is more important to practise the task and not the mnemonic device for that task but if you think back to your own training what do train more often: your kata or the actual application for that kata?

Not all kata was created for the purpose of retaining and passing on useful techniques and strategies for fighting however. Some kata was designed to function as a sort of physical primer – A way of preparing the student to undergo training in the art and of familiarizing them with the basic tenants of the style. Sanchin Kata of the Goju styles of Karate is a prime example of a physical primer kata; Sanchin Kata introduces key concepts of Goju Karate like dynamic tension, grounded striking, fundamental punch block combinations and being able to tell which hand is your left and which hand is your right.

Basically, Kata is like medicine; it was created with a specific purpose and designed to be taken in specific dosages. But, like many medicinal drugs, it has been misused and now more often acts as a placebo which merely simulates the effect of real training and fools the impressionable into thinking they got the real deal.

Suffer on Saturday June 5 2010

Warm Up
Jog 15m
10 Squats, Push ups, Sit ups
Jog 15m Knees to Chest
10 Lunges, Pull ups, Supermans
Jog 15 Heels to Butt

Workout
Thruster 3-2-1-2-3
Whatever you manage for 1 you must attempt for 2.

then

3 Rounds for Time
12 Bridging DB Bench Press
8 L-Hold Pull ups
60m Shuttle Run

OR

Bench Press 5x5
Rack Pull with 10 sec hold x 3
Knees to Elbows x 15

Cool Down
Single DB/KB Farmers Walk 8om x 3 each hand

Notes
Thruster - Ben & Toby 70kg, Jane 32.5kg, Justin Unrecorded
Bench, Pull & Run - Ben 5.10mins @ 40kg, Jane 7.16 @ 15kg, Toby unrecorded @ 40kg.

Suffer on Saturday May 29 2010

Warm Up
10 Squats & Push Ups
15m Bearwalk
10 Sit ups & Pull ups
15m Monkey Jumps
10 Lunges & Supermans

Workout
Overhead Squat 3-2-1-2-3

then

15m Sprint Minute Ladder
1-5, 5-1, 1-5

OR

4 Rounds of

2 Hang Cleans
2 Front Squats
2 Jerks
2 Back Squats
Cycle through complex 3 times then
Rest 2 minutes

Cool Down
Floor Wipers x 25

Notes
OHS - Ben 75kg, Toby 65kg, Jane 22.5kg, Kirstin 22.5kg,
Sprints - Ben, Toby & Jane
Complex - Justin unrecorded, Kirstin 20kg.

Bite Sized Learning: Omelette

Feeds 2 normal adults or 1 mass gain enthusiast.

What You’ll Need
Frying pan
Spatula
A bowl
A sharp knife
Fork

What You’ll Eat
5 or 6 Free Range Eggs
2 Rashers of Free Range Bacon
1 Garlic Clove
2 or 3 Button Mushrooms
1 teaspoon of Capers
2 Shallots
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste.

How you make it
First of all crack all the eggs into the bowl and beat them with a fork while telling them that they’ll never amount to anything until the yolks and whites are thoroughly mixed. Remove the rind from the bacon and then cut the bacon into small strips about one centremetre wide. Finely slice the shallots and dice the garlic and the mushrooms.

Splash a little olive oil into the frying pan and put it on a cook top that’s set with a temperature that’s on the high end of medium and add the sliced bacon. When the bacon is sizzling loudly add the garlic and the mushrooms and mix it all through the pan.

About half a minute after adding the mushrooms and garlic pour in the eggs and give the entire mixture a quick stir to try and distribute the egg, bacon and mushrooms equally across the pan. As the egg cooks you’ll notice the egg on the bottom will firm up faster than the egg on top; as the bottom of your omelette firms use your spatula to peel back the firm egg to allow the uncooked egg to come in contact with the hot frying pan. Repeat this several times on different sides of the omelette.

Sprinkle the capers evenly across the top of the omelette.

At this stage you have two options:

1. Carefully use the spatula to attempt to fold the omelette in half and then flip the now folded omelette back and forth a few times to finish cooking. Screw it up, accidently flick small piece of omelette onto significant other or curious household pet, swear and apologise, swear again and decide to use option two anyway.

2. Shove the whole thing – pan and all – under the grill for 30 seconds to finish cooking.

Once cooked use the spatula to cut the omelette in half and then serve. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Notes

WTF is Free Range Bacon?

Free Range Bacon is simply bacon made from a pig that was well treated when it was alive – good housing, a pasture to move about in and good natural food instead of bin scraps and low quality grains – and had reassuring noises made at it when they took it away to shoot it in the head.

The meat and fat from animals that were happy and healthy is much, much better for us than the meat and fat from animals that were brutally tortured for the majority of their lives. Even if you don’t care about the animals the health benefits still make ethical eating a worthwhile investment.

Suffer on Saturday May 15 2010

Warm Up
Bearcrawl 15m
10 Squats, Push ups, Sit ups
Monkey Jump 15m
10 Lunges, Pull ups, Supermans
Sprint 50m

Workout
Weighted Pull up 3-2-1-2-3

then

AMRAP in 12 minutes of
5 DB Snatches (Left hand)
5 DB Snatches (Right hand)
10 Push Ups

*Complete at least 9 rounds or face Loser's Redemption*

OR

4 rounds of
1 x Hang Snatch
2 x Overhead Squats
3 x Snatches
4 X Kneeling Jumps
Rest

Loser's Redemption
5 Burpees for every round under 9 you score.

Cool Down
Dish Hold - Accumulate 1 minute.

Notes
Weighted Pull up - Jane and Katie Self Assisted, Ben 40kg, Jack 30kg, Andspleen 55kg, Justin 20kg
Snatch & Push Ups - Jane 10 rounds + 1 Snatch @7.5kg, Katie 10 rounds @7.5kg, Ben 12rounds + 8 Snatches @20kg, Andspleen 11 rounds @20kg, Jack 9 rounds + 3 Snatches @20kg.
Snatch progression - Justin 42.5kg, Daniel unrecorded.

News: Events BJJ Competition Report

The Events Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Tournament was held on May 9 at the Five Docks Leisure Centre. It was the largest Events BJJ Tournament held so far with 6 mats running from 9am to 5pm and over 350 competitors.



The Elements Jiu Jitsu team did very well with 4 of our 9 competitors placing at the top of their divisions and everybody performing at a very high level. We did our best to capture as much as we could on film but were simply unable to get everything. Elias's first round win over the previous tournament champion, Adam's spectacular flying armbar attempt (he came so freakin' close to landing it) and Franks beautiful spin under sweep off a single leg takedown all went unrecorded. Despite missing these events - and many others - I've still managed to put together a highlight clip of the tournament. It's my first attempt at making one so please don't expect too much.



Gold Medal
Simon Le

Silver Medal
Darren Letcher
Damien Letcher

Bronze Medal
Ben Langford