Wednesday's Workout - Tougher than Expected

I was still recovering from Monday and Tuesday's workouts. My back, my legs and forearms were killing me.

What's more, Vitaly had a half-day at school. I'd already promised him that I would take him and his new bike to Lowry Park. We pedaled the two mile distance between our house and the park. Under normal circumstances, two miles isn't a long or hard ride.

But I was supervising my son, which takes a surprising lot out of me. I warned him several times that he had to follow all of my instructions, that he was not to cross any street until I got there with him. He did follow my instructions, but I had to keep him on a short (figurative) leash to reign in his daredevil side.

In addition to the mental stress, the fall temperatures we've been having gave way to some 90-something degree weather.

We stopped at two of the park's playgrounds. While he rode around on his bike or climbed on monkey bars, I did about five runs each of the Mung Fu Chuit Lum (Fierce Tiger Crashes from Forest) set. Like most of the other Yau Kung Mun sets, it's short and fast. I've also been placing some emphasis on the fu jow (tiger claw) strikes in that set, visualizing the arm grabs and throat chokes.

I closed with a quick stretching routine which emphasized hips, core and legs. On the plus side, my right knee feels better than it has in weeks. I'm a lot less stiff and sore there today as I have been for much of the summer.

Tonight, I'll probably take some time off of the MFCL set to work exclusively on some Baguazhang with Bret.

On that note, I want to inform my Tampa-area readers that Bret is teaching Gao Family Bagua to the general public. For more information, email me at hand2handckbc@hotmail.com.