Core-e-te or Core-fu?

You may have to say that headline out loud to get it.  Core-e-te is an attempt to combine Karate with core strengthening workouts.  I learned about it from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Now the old me would have said, "That is the $#%^*ist, P#@#$$ng, thing I've ever heard!"

But the new me has reach a higher level, I am now teaching all my students Core-fu!™  Sometime last year a student asked George Xu what he thought of core strength.  His response?  "Great! We have the best core strength, we can gain maximum relaxation power through shrinking, expanding, spiraling and rolling the core!"  Hmmm, I thought, "But George, when they say 'core strength' they are talking about strengthening individual muscle groups, isn't that antithetical to all internal martial arts training?"  George smiled, "Yes, of course....We have the best core training."

My martial arts training up until now could have been called  Submit-Proofing™, that is how I'm trained, one can always keep fighting.  But today, I'm submitting.  If you know someone who wants to do the best core strengthening training this side of the Mississippi River, send them to me!

Super-extreme-ultimate-core-maximum-powerizing = Core-fu.™

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Looking at the Core-e-te article it appears that they are doing an hour twice a week of core strengthening combined with some Karate, some stretching, some meditation and some tea drinking.  I tend to react to these things, but honestly I have no idea what that little of anything does.  It might actually be good for you!  Especially the tea!

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I went to a giant Target last Sunday night.  Wow, that place was packed with people and deals.  If we as a nation can just do with Medical Care and Education what Target has done for consumer goods we will enter an era of prosperity beyond all reckoning!

But I  was at Target to work on my Daoist neidan practice.  As I hinted in an earlier post, my practice has taken a new turn.  I feel the only limitation on my practice at this point is social stress.  Some of you may laugh and say, "Is there any other kind of stress?"  I'm not sure actually but social stress is huge.  Anyway as I wandered the aisles, kitchens, bathrooms, sports, electronics..., I noticed different sorts of social stress, ghosts you could say, rising up in my body as tension.  And as fast as the tension took hold, I released it.  But then I went, with my half-wife, into the women's section and all hell broke loose!  What is that tension?  Some childhood memory of being with my Mom and two sisters bored out of my mind shopping for hours and then getting into trouble and punished for shooting an elastic bra like a slingshot?  I don't know, if there is some recognizable content there I've blocked it out.  Still the tension was extreme, I was only there about three minutes but the tension didn't dissipate until I wandered into the section with compression athletic shirts.  I bought one, by the way.  It doesn't work for cold weather workouts, however, as it flattens down my insulating body hair, but I do like the compression feeling.