Category Archives: Sports
Real Health vs Western Medicine
In response to the article “The Healthiest Old Person on the Planet.”
Real health lies in optimising the vastly under-utilized, yet essential and natural areas of diet and fitness, not western medicine, which should ideally be reserved primarily for dealing with circumstances of last resort, and less as a system of sustaining chronic illness. There is a significant lack of interest in implementing preventive lifestyle measures in public health and correcting the overall physical robustness of the population.
I’ve worked on my diet, worked on getting as functionally fit as possible, worked on correcting my posture, worked on correcting psychological issues, and worked on improving the quality of my social circle and environment over the last few years, among other things. I recently had an eye test, my eyesight has improved slightly. I look as young or younger than I did ten years ago. I am a superior being to what I was before.
In our most basic state, we are merely animals with opposable thumbs and slightly thicker cerebral cortexes; we must respect our primitive nature, and connection to nature, in order to maximise our potential. The key factors essential to our health, at the centre of our primitive nature, is how we connect to our sources of food, and the mobility of our physical bodies.
#Health #diet #fitness #ageing #westernmedicine #preventivehealth#personaldevelopment #selfimprovement
SOME THOUGHTS ON MARTIAL ARTS/COMBAT SPORTS
Just heard on a tv promo “Will learning violent contact sports make life safer on the streets?” while showing a clip of some thugs fighting on the street and then a BJJ gym. #stupidquestions
Obviously #combatsports and #martialarts are healthy way to discipline and control #naturalaggression and learn #respect but these days everyone wants a scientific study before they believe anything.
Of course there are always the few bad eggs who will not benefit as much, and this is probably because other aspects of their persona have not been dealt with adequately, but that is not to say that martial arts training has not helped them from being worse than they would have been.
For the majority the benefits of martial arts in strengthening and controlling mind/body/soul are immense. It’s time the public became more educated and aware about what #martialarts and combat sports are really about, instead of marginalising it as simple “violence”… #violence is for untrained neanderthals.
In the end we are all just a few millimetres of cerebral cortex away from being a hairless monkey, and without harnessing our human capacity for imagination and self awareness, that additional cortical matter isn’t worth a whole lot.
Martial arts are just that… “arts”… they connect your human imagination to your animal soul, control it, and channel that natural animal aggression into it something beautiful, flowing and precise. It can crash into destructive force, it can bend the opponent to submit to your will, but the skilled practitioner knows and learns how and when and to what degree it is required.
That is the difference between the depth of an “art”, and the indiscriminate, mindless chaos of “violence”.
It does not promise mastery or victory, but it does demand the discipline, respect, skill, determination and pure hard work required to achieve it. These are the attributes and habits that one will be driven to cultivate, if they are not already possessed to some degree.
It may be true that there are some who will never be able to fully embody these characteristics, no matter how much they train, but this is nonetheless this is the potential for empowerment and greatness that martial arts will offer you.
(From Adrien Grenier’s Facebook)
NBA and the Business of Basketball: Flopping Penalties are Pointless, Bad Calls will change the outcome of games.
D-Wade or should I say D-Flop has a long history of unsportsmanlike flopping, and getting away with it, just like most of his team. He’s finally been penalised with a fine for a rather egregious demonstration of this shamelessness in game 2 of the NBA Finals. This gave Manu his 3rd foul and sent him to the bench. A key play and refereeing error, potentially altering the balance of power at that time of the game. And yet the penalty is only $5000, spare change for a professional basketball player.
Essentially, he paid $5000 to change the balance of power at a key point in the game, in a game of basketball, where each call can affect the final outcome, because games can be decided by a single play or basket. This play resulted in a) Manu being removed from the game because of foul trouble (which affects team defense/offense and points scored indirectly in a multitude of ways), and b) Wade gets free throws (+2 free points).
This game was decided by 2 points. You could argue that the game’s outcome was directly affected. However we would also need to consider all questionable calls in the game for both teams to establish if there was an overall pattern or bias as well. Unfortunately I did not watch this game so cannot comment on that, but I can say that in games in previous years I have observed patterns of officiating bias in particular games after taking note of all questionable calls throughout a game.
Nonetheless, this was a good value $5000 investment for D-Wade.
What a pointless slap on the wrist. LeFlop and D-Flop would still each owe at least a billion dollars at $5k per flop, but they almost never get penalised. Players should get tougher penalties like techs or suspensions, and penalties should apply to everyone. If the penalties don’t act as deterrents, then what’s the point? I see this minor penalty as merely a political move to take some heat off the league which takes a lot of blame for giving the Miami Heat special treatment and not penalising their extravagant flopping antics (which from what I and others have observed is much obviously far more prevalent from their players than any other team’s).
What a joke the league is today… there appears to be no integrity left in the game. And really this is more the league’s fault for not regulating or penalising such behaviour, not so much the fault of the shameless players that get away with it. It puts into question the legitimacy of the results of many games, because it only takes a one or two bad calls to change the result.
This is a game where the subjectiveness and inconsistency of officiating can very easily be the deciding factor in close games. And it seems very likely, from past history, that this has indeed happened, and possibly intentionally, for what would appear to be business and marketing reasons. The Heat are not the only team that have benefited, I should add, but are currently of interest as they are the flavour of the moment. I might go into that in more detail in a future article.
My Experience with SMR: Self Myofascial Release
Proper use of SMR has beneficial effects on mobility through two theoretical modes of action:
1) Mechanically allowing lengthening of fascial sheaths and muscle fibres through breaking down localised adhesions and contractures
2) Neurologically resetting the length-tension relationships of muscles and reducing the activation of the muscle stretch reflex.
SMR is not well understood by most gym goers but is beneficial if used regularly before and after workouts, or at any time of the day. It can be very useful specifically for postural correction, a common issue with modern office workers and students who spend their days hunched over a desk for hours.
There are a number of different foam rollers and trigger point balls available on the market at present. I would recommend starting with a less dense/firm roller and progressing to something more firm as your body adapts.
The roller pictured below appears intimidating but it is the highest density roller I have found, and I have worked up from softer ones to using this effectively!
SMR has been an instrumental tool in my scoliosis rehab and sporting endeavours, and helped me immensely in correction of muscular imbalances through regular daily use.
DJFlexure Music 