Reaction time tests

There is a post on a great blog called falling leaves about “CNS fatigue”. I don’t know about the fatigue, but the links he gives for testing reaction time are just darn fun:

Test 1
Test 2
Test 3
The first one where you have to tranquilize sheep is my favorite. I kept not getting below 250 ms average [...]

Terribly inflexible, part 2 - Hip rotation exercises

Well it’s been a few weeks since I started doing dynamic stretches. I’ve done them most days, usually in the morning. I haven’t tried to precisely measure my progress. I think my main gauge will be how closely I get to completing yoga’s downward dog asana. However, subjectively the routine seems to be helping already. [...]

Tumbling and gymnastics

My kids have been showing an interested in tumbling lately. What kid doesn’t like trying to do rolls and so on? My younger son tries to slide backwards off the couch, put his hands down, and flip over. It’s probably because he does that thing lots of little kids like to do where he grabs [...]

Terribly inflexible

Man my flexibility is lousy. To try to remedy this problem, I’ve started rereading Thomas Kurz’ excellent book, Stretching Scientifically. I can’t understand Chapter 1 which is all theory, but so far I can digest part of Chapter 2. Basically his first instruction is to do dynamic (not ballistic) stretches first thing in the morning, [...]

Wii Fit

Tonight was the first night we tried the Wii Fit. Overall, I really like it! It’s a lot of fun, and it tracks your weight, BMI, and activities. My “Wii Fit” age was 9 years younger than my real age, so I was happy about that.
However, it focuses a lot on the stability and centering [...]

Internal hip rotation

There is usually a lot of blah blah blah on whole body power and spiraling energy on neijia forums, as if most sports don’t make use of this kind of power. I’m not big into golf, but people also make frequent comparisons of taijiquan and golf - the relaxation, whole body rotational power, focus, mind/body [...]

Akban Fitness

This fitness program sounds great. For average people and very gradual. I really like those two ideas. I am not very fit but want to be eventually. I need something that is going to work by very slowly layering on over a long time, much like they say about neijia. Soft turns to hard over [...]

Timing

There are some good threads on various forums about when to do qigong, forms, and so on. I noticed I tend to feel much better at night time, between 11 p.m. and midnight, somewhat consistent with one answer. I’ve also always been a night owl anyway, so I have always had more good energy at [...]

Core or dantian?

Last night I did a few taijiquan movements and I noticed if I concentrated on movements initiating from the dantian, the qigong aspect was much stronger. Which leads to some confusion about whether I’m really doing “core” movement, whether it is “internal” qigong induced movement from the dantian, or both. I think it’s both, but [...]

Blocking instinct?

I’ve learned a few blending tactics from a friend and here and there, but for some reason, I instinctively want to block. Why is that? Is there just some blocking instinct? Intellectually I’d like to override it if so, but it hasn’t worked out kinesthetically. Oh well. More practice should resolve it eventually. I hope [...]