The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Monday, June 06, 2005

Sample Golden Hour workout

A good one this morning.  I listened to a Teaching Company CD on "Intelligence and the Bell Curve" (good stuff, which actually bolstered Tananarive's position in a recent argument.  I like to play fair, so I pointed this out to her)
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I started with Warrior Wellness joint rotations (thanks, Scott!), followed by Djuru Sepok practise, not going too deep into silos (a twisting motion) because my knee tendons still weren't warmed up enough.  Then I did 15 sets of two double C&J with the 1.5 pood (54 pound) kettlebells, starting the sets 2 minutes apart.  In between, I walked on the treadmill at a speed of 2 MPH and a slight inclination.  Afterward, I did one rep of Scott's dynamite new Prasara Yoga/body flow (it will be on the market in a few weeks--look for it!) specifically, the "Flock of Pigeons" technique.  I'm telling you, this is brilliant, and an extraordinarily complex, challenging, and kinesthetically satisfying series of motions, a kind of "Yoga Tai Chi" that creates a link between health, performance, and combative motion.  Combative?  Well, let me tell you something.  Two weeks ago I was in Portland for the yearly Silat family gathering.  Stevan Plinck (a true master of combat motion if I've ever met one) had us performing various silat preparatory calesthenics, extracted from Serak and Chimande. And I'll be damned if they didn't remind me of what Scott is creating, intuitively, in Prasara.  This man is, in my opinion, a genuine creative genius in the field of the ecstatic athlete.
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Anyway, the total workout was about 50 minutes.  Worked everything top to bottom, including health, fitness, and skill, plus a 30 minute Psychology lecture.  Damned good morning!

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