A while back I decided that I was over-thinking everything and made a modified, simple to-do list into my desktop background. Recently, it’s come to my intention that I’ve really been slacking off on my workouts.

I know this, because YTV told me.

My kids love the show iCarly. Alright, I like it too. If you don’t watch it, it’s a show about teens that have a comedy webshow, and the main character lives with her older brother, Spencer.

An episode last week really hit home when Spencer decided it was a time to get in shape.

After claiming that he was fit, he was asked if he’d be comfortable taking off his shirt and jumping up and down. He says no. Carly asks why. He loses his smile and kind of looks down before answering: “Because I’ll jiggle.”

Long story short, stress and a Canadian winter have left me a little ‘jiggly’ as well.

It’s easy to forget about the ol’ tummy when it’s hidden under sweaters and jackets. When I caught myself self-consciously not undoing my coat yesterday, and I realized that the real reason I haven’t been going to acrobatics, regardless of all the crappy excuses I don’t believe, is because I know I wouldn’t keep up in the workout, I knew it was time for a change.

I’m becoming the fat critic.

The Fat Critic?

You know the fat critic. He’s the guy who hangs out on Youtube, has an opinion about everything, but can’t do jack.

Noooooooooooooooooooooo!

Time for a change, kids.

I cranked open Mac’s Numbers program and made this little baby:

My fitness log before had specific exercises, planned out days, yadda yadda yadda.

You know what happens? You think instead of training. You miss a day, screw your schedule and don’t workout the next day. Whatever, brain.

Did push-ups? Check Endurance. Walked to the library? Check Cardio for Tuesday.

I don’t have to do everything every day, but at the end of the week it’ll be there for me to see if I slacked off in any one area.

Complicated isn’t good, but accountability is. I’m not going to start flooding the blog with every push-up I do (you don’t care), but having this where I can see it gives me something to work for.

How do you keep yourself accountable?

You can’t spend all of your time in Zombieland running. When you’re getting hunted down by the undead, you’ll want somewhere safe to lay low. For some of us, maybe that’s a strip club.Cheap food, booze and the women are paid to be nice to you. What’s not to like?

You know, besides the venereal disease and shame.

But you know what’s not hot? Half naked zombies. Unless you’re into that, creepy guy in the back. You can leave.

Zombieland Rule #21: Avoid Strip Clubs

Alright Dan, just how in the hell are you going to tie strip clubs to self-defense?

I’m glad you asked, voice-in-my-head!

You see, every once in a while you might get the bright idea to date someone in your martial arts class. You’re working out together, joking around, and you think it’s going to be awesome. (Apologies to any guys/gals that I’m comparing to zombie peelers)

In a word: don’t.

If you really must date that dude/chick in the dojo

If you do meet someone at dojo, agree to leave the relationship off the mat.

This is the kind of crap that will make other students hate you:

• Baby talk
• Whispering during class
• Giggles of any kind

You won’t get anything out of your lessons if you always partner up with each other and hold back.

If you just can’t keep away from her, Romeo, keep the cutesy stuff to a minimum, and don’t annoy the other students.

What if I’m the teacher?

Well then you’re not very professional, are you?

Very few people are able to handle a relationship with a student maturely (I’m talking about two consenting adults in this case). I would say no one, except Bruce Lee met his wife when she became his student.

If you’re the teacher (and this does happen), no matter how well you hide it, people will find out what’s going on. This will lead to accusations of favouritsm, or the object of your affection expecting special treatment.

Try telling the girl you’re seeing that she has to do push-ups and you’ll notice the loss of authority.

Bottom line: Don’t let a relationship be your flesh-eating zombie stripper.

photo credit: Canon in 2D

What’s worse than running from a horde of zombies? Running away from a horde of zombies with a cramp in your leg.

When not fighting the undead, martial artists put their bodies through all sorts of things that it doesn’t naturally do, all in the name of toughening up.

Striking hard surfaces, kicking well above their head, dropping into exaggerated stances and popping right back up again.

All of these things make martial artists agile and strong, but if done wrong, they can do more harm than good. Today’s Zombieland rule is something most ‘tough guys’ take for granted.

Zombieland Rule #18: Limber Up

Blood needs to circulate. Muscles need to stretch. Before going nuts in a workout or if you know you’re going to be working your ass off, do 10 minutes of light activity first, such as:

• Jumping rope (boxers do it. ‘Nuff said.)
• Light jogging, or at least brisk walking
• Shadow-boxing

Pro-tip: The best warm-up resembles what you’re going to be doing. If you’re about to do a heavy squat, do a few sets with a lighter weight to prepare.

What Limber Up doesn’t mean

Warming up doesn’t mean doing hundreds of push ups or running 10 miles. If punching feels like you’re swinging tree trunks, you’re not going to get much out of practice.

But Lions Don’t Warm-up

I love hearing this. Who are you? Jack Lalanne?

You’re not a lion.

In fact, if a lion knew you were saying crap like that, he’d eat you out of spite. Imagine being king of the jungle and suddenly being compared to the lazier version of a chimp.

You’re human, and humans eat crap we don’t need, spend a lot of our time being lazy and don’t rest anywhere near enough. So until your spend your entire day being active, stretch, ya slacker.

What are you not doing that you should?

A few of my friends have made “You know you’ve been practicing martial arts too long when…” posts at Innervision Kung Fu and Richard Northwood’s Tai Chi blog (check them out), and I thought I’d throw in my own version for Canadians. Canucks represent!

photo credit: Steve Keys

You know you’re a Canadian martial artist when:

• You judge your run by how many Tim Hortons you pass by. Bonus points if you get a double-double at drive-through
• Snowball fights are for accuracy and agility training
• You know how to defend yourself with a hockey stick
• You’ve daydreamed of doing a spinning hook kick in skates
• Ice is for balance training
• Snowbanks make pretty sweet crash-mats
• Jerseying is a legitimate grappling technique
• Shovelling your driveway is your workout for the day
• You use horse-stances and bo-staff techniques to do it
• You’ve trained in full winter gear so you’d know what it was like
• Your friends think you’re a freak for never putting your hands in your pockets
• You hate that zip-zop sound snow-pants make when you kick
• You know that we were the real inventors of martial arts. Hello, Karat-eh? (Sorry, I had to.)

I present to you, the first ever guest post on Martial Media, submitted by Spark from Spark’s Budo World. If you would like to guest post on Martial Media, send me a message on the contact page or on Twitter: @DanCosgrove. I’ll reciprocate by writing up an article for your website as well.

After a while, I finally started a project, I always wanted to do, but never got to: Reading all the Sherlock Holmes stories. I bought the book “The complete Sherlock Holmes” and started it.

It really took me in, and so I read the “A scandal in Bohemia” story, in which one part really struck me. Because it really said something, which also applies for the martial arts.

It is the part in the story, where Dr. Watson asks Holmes, how he is able to tell so many things about a person, just by looking at them.

For a better reference, here is that passage:

I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. “When I hear you give reasons,” I remarked, “the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.”

“Quite so,” he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an armchair. “You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.”

“Frequently.”

“How often?”

“Well, some hundreds of times.”

“Then how many are there?”

“How many? I don’t know.”

“Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. [...]“

This concept of ’seeing’ and ‘observing’ is pretty much, what makes, beside a good detective, also a good martial artist. I, for myself, am practicing Aikido and also some MMA right now. Most of my martial arts experience is from Aikido, because I do this the longest period of time. My sensei in Aikido also tries to teach us this concept of ‘observing’. In his view, it is most important to observe your opponent and your surroundings, because it is only then, that we can act accordingly.

As an example, he will often announce a certain technique, which we do all the time, but then to add a little twist to it, he will show it in a slightly different way, just to see, how many of us are doing it like we always do, and how many had observed the difference in his performance. If you are a teacher, why don’t you try this once in a while with your students and see how observing they are?

Sometimes explanations can be misinterpreted or, on an international seminar, just plain not understood, that’s what happened to me in France. So if you are observing, you might not need much explanation, if any at all. Keep in mind, that observing can be more important than listening.

Let us come once more back to Sherlock Holmes. There is the movie out, which by the way, I love. It’s a good movie, with some nice martial arts scenes in it. Just this one scene I wanna take as an example for the conceopt of observing and martial arts.

Here, Holmes is using his observing to his advantage in a fight. Not only, did he observed Irene Adler, who he wants to follow, he also can build up a strategy, due to observations he made about his opponent.

And that is something you have to do also. Be it in combat sports as judo, taekwondo, mma, muay thai, a.s.o. or in self-defense situations. What use do you have of all the fancy techniques you learned in training, if you will be suprised by an attack?

Imagine walking home at night from a club or a party, you could take the shorter way home, through some backalleys, but with some observation you might notice, that there might some untrustworthy folks there and no one who could help or witness anything. Therefore it might be better to take a slightly longer way, but which is better lit and also has some people who also walk there.

If you are observing your surroundings, you might identify a possible threat way ahead and therefore avoid it, like for example a group of aggressive looking guys at the next street corner. An avoided fight is a fight won.

In competition you might observe habits of your opponent, you can use for your advantage, like he’s dropping his guard, while performing a hook?

If you want to be a good martial artist, keep in mind, that you need more than flashy moves and muscles. A good eye and the skill of observation are also needed.

In this spirit: stop just seeing and start observing!

Spark

from Spark’s Budo World

Life isn’t a movie. It’s also not a video game.

Life is messy, and sometimes the nice guys get hurt and the jerks of the world get to soak up the rewards of our hard work.

As much as we’d like karma to be a concrete rule, letting well-meaning citizens some kind of tangible benefit, it doesn’t always work that way.

Our hero Columbus knows this well. Being a hero in Zombieland can get you killed. That being said, here’s today’s Zombieland rule of Survival:

Zombieland Rule #17: Don’t be a Hero

There are situations that martial artists play out in their head all the time, such as:

• Stopping a mugger
• Saving the girl
• Winning the tournament and stomping the evil dojo

But sometimes trying to be a hero means getting hurt. Is your $20 and Blockbuster coupons really worth getting shot over? No.

If some crackhead wants your wallet, give it to him. Pro-tip: Carry a dummy wallet with used gift cards and twenty bucks in small bills.

Zombieland Rule # 17 1/2: Don’t Be a Hero

This is the one rule that Columbus decides to makes a change to.

Sometimes the bad guy wants more than money. Your life, your kid, there are things you just can’t replace at Wal-Mart.

That’s when ‘don’t’ gets crossed out. That’s when ‘don’t’ gets knocked the hell out of your vocabulary. Everything else gets put aside and you do what needs to be done.

Be a hero, but not everything’s worth being heroic about.

Sometimes when touring around Zombieland, it can be fun and beneficial to get creative. If you happen to need something for non-undead fighting purposes, you can make a weapon by combining two seemingly poor choices together.

Here’s how to combine a couple of everyday objects to make one ass-kicking device.

Zombieland Rule #15: Bowling Ball

What are you going to do with a bowling ball on its own? Roll it? That might work once, but having a weapon isn’t as important as being able to keep your weapon.

This just shows how easy it can be to use every day objects to defend yourself. Hell, in Above the Law, Steven Seagal used a cue ball and a sock.

What objects could you use for self-defense that you wouldn’t normally think of?

Also, how much do you wanna bet Woody Harrelson pulled at least three muscles flinging that bowling ball around in the vid? He never learns. Limber up!

Every lifestyle has its messes to clean up, martial arts included. We prepare and sweat and break ourselves training for an attack that may never happen.

But what about the little hazards that aren’t only common, but expected? Shouldn’t you be prepared?

Take a note from our little hero Columbus in today’s Zombieland rule:

Zombieland Rule #12: Bounty Paper Towels

You might not be fending off brain-eaters, but when you’re a martial artist, you do have your own safety issues, such as:

• Keeping mats, uniforms and sparring gear clean
• Keeping proper hygiene
• Dealing with minor injuries like scrapes and cuts

You’re going to sweat. You’re going to bleed at some point, whether from a bloody nose or a grappling burns. Prepare, dammit!

Carrying largish paper towels around won’t work, but there are plenty of ways to prepare for the eventual.. moistness.

• Sweatbands might get you made fun of, but it’ll keep the sweat out of your eyes
• Bring a towel to the gym to wipe down equipment
• Band-aids. Do I even have to say that?

The key here is to use your inner boyscout and be prepared. Keep supplies around for eventualities.

Life is a contact sport. Would you take on a hockey team by yourself? How about a horde of zombies? How about bench-pressing a new record without a spotter?

There aren’t many times in life when you actually need to do something completely by yourself. Know when having a friend nearby can be keep you safe.

We’re about half-way through Zombieland, kids. Keep your arms and legs inside the car and check out today’s rule of survival:

Zombieland Rule #8: Get a Kickass Partner

Someone to watch your back. Someone to talk to when times are tough. Someone to kick your ass when they know you’re slacking off.

Having a kickass partner can be your best bet for surviving almost anything.

There’s safety in numbers. If you’re walking alone at night, you’re much more likely to run into problems than if you have friends along. This doesn’t just apply to self-defense. Your car can break down. A friend can at least hold a flashlight or make sure passing cars don’t hit you.

Having a partner means being accountable. When I work out at home, I’ll stop whenever I get bored, but in class, I’ll kill myself because people can see me. Whether it’s business, working out or saving the world, you should be accountable to somebody.

A quick note before you go

Don’t go looking for someone to babysit you. People hate that. Be your own person. Accept help, but make sure you’re ready to give it, too.

Zombieland Rule #8 1/2: Be a kickass partner.

Dozens of them, armed to the teeth. I’m outnumbered, outgunned… but the alley is crooked, dark, and very narrow. They can’t surround me.
Sometimes you can beat the odds by a careful choice of where to fight.
Where to fight counts for a lot, but there’s nothing like having your friends show up with lots of guns.

-Dwight, Sin City

Ah, baggage. We’ve all got it. Your boss is riding you, maybe you’re fighting with your boyfriend. Daddy issues?

It’s common to hear “leave it at home” or “leave if off the mat” when you’re in a dojo. The thought being that your training’s going to suck if you’re only thinking about the crap going on at home. Class should be a place where you can forget it all, and belt out your stress on the punching bag or grappling the class meathead.

Hell, maybe you’re one of these people that carries around a load of literal baggage. Have you seen these people with no cash but 5 pound wallets? Ridiculous.

And with that, drumroll please, today’s Zombieland rule:

Zombieland Rule #7: Travel Light

We all have problems. It’s life. But if you’re training to learn self-defense, or anything really, you should focus on the task at hand. Mulling over the past will slow your learning, as well as your reaction time (which can lead to a knock on the head).

On an even more practical note, actually travel light.

• Don’t carry $200 in fives in your wallet
• Don’t show off your jewelry
• Don’t hang out with people who like to stir up problems

I can just see some thug following you around. Bliiiiiiiiiing….

Would you walk around in Zombieland with a target painted onto your shaved head? No? Then why make it so easy in this world?

Travel light, so you can travel fast. And if you do happen to lose something, it won’t be a big deal.

Image C/O Noel Zia Lee