March 8, 2007

BBM Challenge is BACK!

I started the BBM Challenge and then didn’t post about it often enough at all. It seems to have been dying a slow death. Well, the BBM Challenge was never gone; but now it’s back in full force. My family and I have been sparring over the past few months when we get the chance to do so (I know, so lame, because we need to make it a priority). When I say "family," I mean FAMILY, as in all of us.

Lil C’s favorite thing these days is to demand that things be put "ON" and she demanded the same of my sparring gear. I’ve been trying to teach her how to punch and do knife hands. The knife hands are coming along nicely, and she can even throw a decent little snap kick (mostly when getting her diaper changed). By far though, her best karate skill is the kiai, which is awesome! She also does a fairly nice growl, which will come in handy as well.

And when she’s not growling, kicking, or kiaiing. . . sparring gear helps to create a fabulous game of Peek-a-Boo.

Here she is asking where her next opponent is, as she had already taken Dada down to the ground. And speaking of taking Dada down, the last time that Mr. BBM and I sparred, I felt like I made some real improvement.

If you’re a martial artist and you want to improve your sparring skills, you need to read Living the Martial Way. There are some excellent tips in that book for how to improve your sparring skills. I also think that karate camp was a huge help to me. Despite the agony of the kicking drills session, I was able to take a lot of good information away from that session. Without going into too much detail, the most important thing I learned in that session is to get out of the way. It sounds simple but when you’re sparring in a controlled environment, it’s easy to be concentrating on your next move so much that you let your body get in the way of a kick or two.

The last time I sparred, I felt like I had improved greatly as far as quickness and retaliating against a kick goes. I think Mr. BBM would probably agree with that assessment because it wasn’t long into our session before he was telling me that his head hurt and he didn’t feel good (i.e. excuses for why my wife is kicking my butt).

Instead of just making improvements in sparring my goal, I have added abdominal exercises to the routine daily (and have stuck with it for the past 2-3 weeks now), an exercise that Mr. BBM tells me will improve total body toning (sort of like a squat that explodes up into raising the weights over your head and back down again), push-ups (which truthfully aren’t happening as often as they should because I hate, hate, hate them), and other light weight-lifting.

So, with about three months to go until the BBM family hits the beach, we are in full BBM Challenge mode here and I invite you to do the same. Pick up your challenge where you left off, or feel free to join for the first time. If you’d like to create a fitness or other type of goal and be added to the Challenge blogroll, just shoot me an email or leave a comment and I’ll send you the button and code. . . the more the merrier.