Improve your fitness, how to find the time.

Martial Arts is a great way to get fit and feel healthier so it makes sense that you will improve your fitness when you join a martial arts club. The reality is, that a martial arts class should only be part of your fitness plan. In a class, your instructors will teach you about self-defence, patterns, sparring and so on. This will all improve your fitness but it shouldn’t be the only fitness work you do.

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Improve your fitness, how to find the time.

One day at Korea's Golgulsa Temple as a participant of the templestay program

Five am on a Sunday morning and I am woken with the sound of a dull bell and a monk chanting, coming through some runny speakers outside my room. I put my Templestay uniform on and run my hands through my hair before realizing it doesn’t matter because I am about to put a beanie on to face the minus degree temperature outside. It’s a one kilometer walk up a steep hill to get to morning prayer and meditation where everything is chanted in Korean. 

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A-Day-at-Golgulsa-Templestay-Program

Seven Benefits of Martial Arts for Adults

A previous article I wrote for the Zone Martial Arts blog focused on the benefits of martial arts for kids but you would be surprised at how much benefit an adult can get from martial arts. Maybe you have seen your child training and thought “Maybe I could do that?” or you are looking for a different fitness option than pounding away at a treadmill for hours. If you need some more incentive to try a martial arts class for yourself, I have put together seven benefits that adults can get from martial arts.

Energy

I know it sounds weird to some, but performing a form of exercise can actually increase the energy levels a person has. Martial Arts, not only helps burn fat and calories but it builds strength and gives you an outlet for the stress that you encounter during your day. What’s even better is that it is a much more interesting way to exercise. When you do martial arts training, you need to keep your brain active and thinking about the activity. That means you are training your body and your brain.

An interesting class can not only have you walking away from the class invigorated (yet probably tired), the blood is flowing and you have burned calories in a way that is more interesting than sitting on an exercise bike. Its more practical too from a self defence perspective and is definitely something we encourage at Zone Martial Arts.

Goals

As adults, we tend to forget the need to set goals in our lives. We also tend to forget that achieving a goal is a process in and of itself. When a person comes into Zone Martial Arts, they often have goals of getting fit or learning self defence. Most have a goal of achieving a black belt. When it comes to the last one, the program we offer is broken down into belt levels and a student knows what they need to learn at each belt level to progress to the point of testing for a black belt. The program itself takes the larger goal of wanting a black belt and breaks it down into smaller chunks.

The ability to take a large goal and break it down into smaller chunks is one of the keys to really achieving goals.

We take that a step further and set out goal targets beyond just getting the next belt colour or black belt because we see the benefits of setting goals. You should always make sure they are S.M.A.R.T. goals though (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based). You can read more about goal setting in a previous blog post (Blog Post - Challenges and Goal Setting) but when students start setting goals and achieving them in martial arts, it encourages them to set goals and achieve them in other areas of their life.

Self Confidence

Think this is just for kids? No way. Adults often suffer from self-confidence issues and this could affect them in their personal life and their professional life as well.

Martial Arts helps build confidence as you see the benefits of the goals you set and achieve. As you learn that the kick you thought you could never do becomes your best kick. As you learn to defend yourself and know that you could fight back in a self defence scenario.

Martial arts builds confidence by encouraging you to succeed and showing you the benefits and value when you do. When you have more confidence, you approach things with a can-do attitude and this will mean a happier you.

Focus and Discipline

Martial arts really does help your focus. For starters, you have to put your smartphone down to train in martial arts so there is no distractions from email or messages. To perform a lot of techniques you need to think about multiple things at once. Where are my feet supposed to be, what are my arms doing, where do I need to look? All of these things take focus and the repetitive practice of these techniques sharpens your focus.

Patterns are another great way to develop your focus. You need to not only make sure you are performing the correct techniques but you need to remember them in the correct order, at the right speed and with a focus on your breathing. Then there is board breaking. There is no point even trying to break a board if you haven’t worked on your focus skills.

To work on these things though ultimately requires discipline. You learn as aspect of that through the formality of martial arts training however a lot of the benefits of martial arts come from developing your own skills in self discipline. Pushing yourself that but further or even just making sure you get off the couch and get to training.

At Zone Martial Arts we work hard to make sure our students work at developing their discipline and focus because we see the benefits for students, not only in their martial arts training but in their professional and personal lives as well.

Self Defence

Violence is most definitely on the increase and it is important to make sure that you can defend yourself when you need to. I am not only talking physical skills to defend yourself either. You need to be able to mentally fight back and not just shut down. How do you do this? Martial Arts of course.

Martial Arts training is fun and exciting but it is also building self defence skills and a tougher mind so you can handle and cope with violent situations. It helps help you improve your agility, balance, endurance, flexibility, and even your strength.  It also teaches you how to avoid physical confrontations in the first place

If you are going to exercise, do something fun and martial arts can provide that fun while at the same time providing practical skills to protect yourself. That’s why at Zone Martial Arts we focus heavily on self defence. Its all great being able to kick fast, but if you can’t apply it in a self defence scenario it won’t be much help.

It’s a Great Family Activity

So often, I see parents dropping their kids off to martial arts class, or sitting next to a field while their kids play soccer or netball. Why sit on the sidelines? Martial Arts is for everyone and it’s a great activity to learn with your kids. That’s why we have family classes at Zone Martial Arts, just so parents can learn martial arts with their kids as a family. 

There are more benefits than just a family activity though. The kids see you doing what they are doing. You sweating just as much as them if not more. They become inspired by their parents to do better and work harder. They see that hard work pays off and they relate to their parents better through this. You have common goals and common interests to talk about over dinner. For some kids, they even start to see their parents as people they aspire to be like, not just the people who ground them, send them to bed and tell them to tidy their rooms.

We have so many families training with us at ZMAX and its so great to see them achieving together.

Leadership

There is a phrase I really love. “A boss says go and a leader says let’s go”. It’s easy to be a boss who tells other people what to do but when you lead, when you show others the way to go instead of telling them, that’s when you get real results.

Martial Arts develops leadership skills. When you have to teach someone else a pattern, the best way is usually by showing them. When you team up with someone for the warm up, and you help them by just doing it with them, you are showing leadership skills.  

As you progress through the years in martial arts training, you are called on to share your knowledge with other students. Share your skills and insights. I have seen many examples of junior students approaching senior students and asking them for advise or help because they have seen that senior student working hard and practicing their skills and that lead by example approach is what makes the junior student want to learn from the senior belt. It makes them want to follow the lead of that senior belt.

The focus on being a leader in martial arts will flow on into other areas of your life and I am not just talking professionally either. You would be surprised how often this skill will benefit everyone.

So if you are interested in trying martial arts, find a school local to you and give it a go. If you live in the Sutherland Shire, come and try Zone Martial Arts. We would love to see you benefiting from some or all of the above points.

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Mark Underwood

Mark holds the rank of Master in two martial arts, 5th Dan Black Belt in Taekwondo and 4th Dan Black Belt in Haidong Gumdo (Korean swords). He has also trained in a number of other martial arts styles. He is currently the owner and head instructor for Zone Martial Arts servicing the Sutherland Shire area from the Taren Point location.

Movies fights are nothing like real life

I am like a lot of people and love action movies. As you would expect, some of my favourite action movies have some awesome fight scenes. I love the way Jason Bourne takes out the bad guys. The Matrix

People see these movies and think that if they learn how to do martial arts, they can do moves like that, learn to defend themselves like that and that they can pull off moves just like in the movies. They believe that one day they can do these moves not just in classes but in real life fights as well. I am here to tell you; real life will never look like it does in the movies.had some great fight scenes as do movies like The Raid and that’s before we start to talk about specific stars like Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Bruce Lee. A lot of people start doing martial arts because they have seen some awesome moves in film but that has a negative side as well.

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ZMAX Blog - Movies fights are nothing like real life

Mark Underwood holds the rank of Master in three martial arts, 5th Dan Black Belt in Taekwondo. 4th Dan Black Belt in Haidong Gumdo (Korean swords) and 1st Dan Black Belt in Gongkwon Yusul (Korean MMA). He has also trained in a number of other martial arts styles. He is currently the owner and head instructor for Zone Martial Arts servicing the Sutherland Shire area from the Taren Point location.

Martial arts is not just about learning how to fight

In this day and age, I do think it is important to learn how to defend yourself. There seems to be more and more violence occurring in our suburbs than ever before and knowing how to defend yourself is important, but that doesn’t mean you have to learn how to fight. Martial Arts should not be about learning to fight, but learning to control your body and more importantly, control your mind.

READ MORE AT WWW.ZMAX.COM.AU

ZMAX Blog - Martial Arts is not just about learning how to fight

Mark Underwood holds the rank of Master in three martial arts, 5th Dan Black Belt in Taekwondo. 4th Dan Black Belt in Haidong Gumdo (Korean swords) and 1st Dan Black Belt in Gongkwon Yusul (Korean MMA). He has also trained in a number of other martial arts styles. He is currently the owner and head instructor for Zone Martial Arts servicing the Sutherland Shire area from the Taren Point location.

The importance of passing on knowledge to colour belts.

As a Black belt or as a senior belt there are several reasons why it’s important to pass on the knowledge that you have accumulated over your own years of martial arts training to colour belts. In my opinion these are the main reasons.

• Teaching the next generation
• Different way of training and learning
• Duty to club
• A new path for your martial arts journey

Teaching the next generation
One of the best parts of being a martial artist is being able to share the experience with other people. You can share this knowledge in a few different ways such as teaching, assisting in classes or just partnering with another student to teach them a specific technique or pattern. Passing on your knowledge is a great way to open up other avenues for your own learning as well though.

Different way of training and leaning
Passing on your knowledge actually helps you with your own journey. While teaching techniques to other students is useful for the other student, it is also useful for your own learning. When you are teaching others you are having to focus on, what you are doing, how you are doing it and why you are doing it. It cements it in your own mind at the same time you are teaching someone else.
Lets for example take a look at if you were performing a Dollyo Chagi (turning kick); It’s not just, kicking with the top of your foot on a sidewards angle. We can break down what we are doing into 5 individual moves;

• Lift knee as high as you can, and on a slight angle out.
• Pivot your base foot on your toes and ball of the foot with a hip pivot.
• Extend the kicking leg, and hit your target.
• Retract the kicking leg at the knee first, and pivot hips back original position.
• Place kicking foot one ground.

While you are talking about these components with a student you may also talk about the following;

• Lift your knee high as the higher you lift your knee the higher your kick will be.
• Pivoting your base foot, allows your hips to open, and reduces the risk of knee damage.
• Pivoting your hips when kicking helps with the power of your kick.
• Retracting your foot first allows you to do a second kick if required faster.
• Placing your foot down where you want it, sets you up for the next move or kick.

When we go through the steps and talk about other details with someone else, we actually improve our own techniques and become better martial artists. So with your teaching, its not just about the other person, you are actually still training and learning, just in a different way.

Duty to club
Doing your duty to your club I feel is very important. It’s a way of thanking your club for the time, effort and resources that they have used to help get you to where you are now. Most students will hopefully find that their martial arts training has helped in other areas of their life as well. Dloing your duty is also helping your club become better as while you’re helping one student, it frees up your head instructor time to help other students on a more in depth level or allows them time to run the club better.
Doing your duty to your club also shows that you care about your club and the students in it and this will help you in becoming a better teacher. It will give you a stake in the achievements of the other students so when they achieve, it feels like you achieve as well.

A new path for your martial arts journey
As mentioned above, teaching others allows you to analyse your own techniques and improve them.  It also brings new components to your training, a new angle of focus and patience is needed as different people learn at different speed and in different ways. Being able to change and adapt to this and to different situation helps you with your own martial arts journey. Teaching others also helps with your own self-confidence and abilities. Being able to stand in front of a group of people takes a lot of guts and can be nerve wracking but you need to have faith in what you have learnt and achieved and know that you wouldn’t be asked to do it, if your head instructor didn’t think you were able to do it.

Ben Tuckfield

Ben holds the rank of 3rd Dan in Taekwondo and is part of the leadership and instruction teams at Zone Martial Arts servicing the Sutherland Shire area from the Taren Point

location.

The 3 A's of Effective Self Defence

Those who know me and my approach to martial arts will know that self defence is a huge part of why I practise martial arts and why I teach it. Violence is an ever growing concern in this day and age and no one is immune to it. Not the older person, innocently answering a knock on the door. Not the young woman out for a run in the afternoon. Not the young guy hanging out with his mates at the skate park. Not the young child walking home from school. It’s depressing and scary to think that we will all either be on the receiving end of violence or directly know someone who has been. I truly wish that was an exaggeration but it seems to be more like an alarming fact.

The prevalence of violence in our society is one of the reasons I believe martial arts are for everyone. Attackers prey on people they believe are weak and vulnerable and the simple practise of doing martial arts can mean a difference in how you carry yourself. You may walk a little taller and more confidently and this may subconsciously show a potential attacker that you are not an easy target. This isn’t a guarantee though so the practise of martial arts and self defence is becoming a more critical skill. There are some things you can do though to reduce the chance of being attacked or at least give you a fighting chance if it comes down to you and an attacker.

One of the things my instructors taught me and has stuck with me is the concept of The Three A’s. They taught me that it was the key to effective self defence.

AWARENESS

AVOIDANCE

ACTION

Awareness

At all times be aware of what is going on around you. Look over your shoulder and glance at what is happening behind you and to either side of you regularly. Don’t just spend the time engrossed by your mobile phone or looking only at the ground in front of you. You need to make sure you are aware of what is happening and what may potentially affect you. This goes for listening to music as well. I see a lot of people who walk around with headphones in their ears and not looking around. This means they not only won’t see what is coming towards them but they won’t hear it either. Awareness is the first step.

Avoidance

We all know of some cool shortcuts to get from point A to point B. Maybe it’s an alley that means I don’t have to go the long way around the block. Maybe it’s a park you can cut through to get home quicker. Where I live there are a number of pedestrian paths that wind around behind houses. They are lovely to go for a walk on but are not well lit and not well travelled. No matter which of the above applies, effective self defence means avoiding these sorts of areas. It might take you a bit longer, but use the path which is well lit. Use the footpath that has cars passing who may be able to stop and help you if you need it.

Avoidance is also about avoiding situations that might be dangerous. You may get invited to a party with people you don’t know or go into a room with a known bully. If you can, avoid these situations. It’s doesn’t make you a coward, it makes you smart.

Action

However if all else fails, fall back onto action and the first action if you can, is to run away. Escape whenever possible – don’t try to be a hero. Always try to escape to populated and well-lit areas and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

If you need to defend yourself though it is only self defence if the force you use is reasonable and proportionate to the attack. This means, if someone gives you a small shove and you respond by breaking their arm and punch them unconscious, you have not responded in a reasonable or proportionate way to the attack. If someone comes at you with a knife saying they are going to kill you, then breaking their arm and knocking them out is more reasonable and proportionate to the attack.

There is a lot more involved with self defence and every scenario is different. Martial arts can teach you to not only be physically capable of defending yourself but mentally capable as well. A strong mind can be just as effective in self defence as the most perfectly timed punch.

Mark Underwood

Mark is a 4th Dan Master in both Taekwondo and Haidong Gumdo (Korean swords). He has also trained in other styles of martial arts. He is currently the owner and head instructor for Zone Martial Arts in Sydney, Australia.