Saturday, May 23, 2009

Intense workout cure gastric pain


Recently I realised I have gastric and indigestion, probably due to stress and overworking. Sometimes the pain made it very hard for me to drive to my gym for training. But I persevered and then I made a pleasant, albeit strange discovery - intense workout cure gastric pain.

At first I thought it was a fluke when my gastric pain disappeared after the intense workout in my gym. In fact, it slowly ease off after a warm up session and then almost completely disappeared once I started to spar with my fellow gym mates. I made a mental note to observe if this phenomenon will happen again.

It wasn't too long that I had gastric pain again before training and just like before, the pain disappeared after some intense sparring sessions - 2nd time, 3rd time, on and on... Wow! What an amazing discovery, intense workout actually cure gastric, at least for me it works.

Fortunately, my gastric pain don't come often but I'm glad that my hobby also cure one of most irritating & disabling discomfort. Hope this discovery will help others with similar condition.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

The Crazy Monkey experience

My buddy from the gym, Thong Weng Hong aka Thongo, wrote an excellent testimony of the Crazy Monkey Defense program in KDTA to our new members. Read about it below:





I just want to share here my positive experiences with the CMD Programme.

We all have our different motivations and reasons for starting with the CM Programme. Some want to lose weight, some want to have a fun activity... Mine was to learn a real, functional martial arts which would work for me, if the situation called for it. Learning a functional martial art in today's society is no longer a luxury (IMHO), it is a necessity. After hearing and seeing all the violent crime happening to friends and loved ones (and sometimes, almost happened to me), I decided that I could no longer afford to take not learning martial arts lightly. If pushed to a corner, I needed to know for myself I could do something.

So where do you begin? And how much time would you have to invest and in how long a period would you be able to learn to defend yourself? Fortunately for me, I was already acquainted with Vince and the CM Programme when I was doing the Fizfit Programme. Here was a world class functional (and fun-tional!) programme right at my doorstep (of the gym) and with an excellent and dedicated instructor that I told myself, I would be stupid and doing myself a great disservice for not doing it.

And so I made it my 2009 resolution to do.. and stick with the CM Programme. Time is a big factor and consideration for me because of my work and family commitments. However, here in the CM Programme was something I could commit myself too. Make it at least 2 days a week for it. Very workable for me for reaping tremendous benefits and getting what I wanted (in terms of functional martial arts).

CM is great for me because it works for me, because it works for really talented martial artists like Vince, Mike and Charles (who have all nearly spent a lifetime pursuing and honing their martial arts skills). And now here is a programme which is so well structured and designed for the everyday joe (with little time, busy work, wife and kids) with zero martial arts knowledge like me.

I have been to other traditional boxing gyms with scary sounding names and regretted it. It's hard to learn anything of real, and lasting benefit without getting your head taken off in such gyms. Once was more than enought to convince me I didn't need such kind of alpha-male aggression which was not conducive to learning martial arts. With CM, I could learn at my own (slow) pace without getting my head blown off and going to work the next day without any broken teeth, nose or headache... and still really learn something.

At the same time, it is not watered down with just mere drills with no real application because it has the element of sparring, which is essential to hone your timing, distance, balance and judgement. Sparring here is different from other martial arts centres because it too is structured, balanced and grows progressively with your own growth in the programme. Having the element of sparring is good for me, because it gives me a feel of what might happen in a real life situation. Remember that Rodney King developed this programme with his input as a boxer, bouncer and martial artist.

Having a good lecture/teaching material is only as good as the person presenting it. All I can say here is, there is no one teacher who is more dedicated to our martial arts education and journey than Vince, who has put in more hours, dedication and heart into his craft and passion... and we're all reaping the benefits. I would like to say a big thank you to Vince for all your dedication to your work and to us, week after week, month after month, year after year.

I am more convinced that I am right after reading all the positive emails and seeing the enthusiasm on everyone's faces as the come for the CM classes every week.

Did I also mention the great sparring partners we have? There is no ego or danger of escalating egos in the CM Classes (unless you want to go toe-to-toe with Vince!) and all your sparring partners are intuitive and respond appropriately to your level of boxing. While they may be better than you, they don't need to prove it to you, although they can.. and that's where we all learn to improve, safely. Your Journeymen mentors are all dedicated to the programme and experienced. Learn from them and tap into their knowledge of which they're all to willing to share.

Hence to me, anything you guys want to work on is all fine by me because it is all good.

Congratulations on your choice. Your search stops here. CMDP @ KDTA.

Safe training,
Thong