If you want to get in better shape, you may be considering going to a gym or taking a martial arts program. No doubt, you want to lose a few pounds, build muscle, and get in better shape so you look and feel better. Wondering which option is going to offer you the most benefits? Here is a look at some of the top reasons that martial arts make the better choice for fitness.

Reason #1 – You Won’t Get Bored

One of the main reasons that martial arts are better than going to a gym is that you won’t get bored when you are learning a new form of martial arts. Many people go to a gym and they end up giving up because they get so bored doing the same old thing all the time. Often it’s more difficult to work out because you’re simply focusing on lifting weights or running on a treadmill instead of focusing on something that is fun and exciting. With martial arts, you’ll be building endurance and increasing muscle but you won’t get bored while you are doing it. Top quality instructors will keep you going and will make every single class exciting for you.

Reason #2 – You’re Less Likely to Overdo It

When people go to the gym and work out without any professional supervision, many end up overdoing it and this can lead to serious injuries. However, when you choose martial arts training, you won’t have to worry about overdoing it. Your classes will be personalized for you, with instructors that will pay close attention to what you are doing. While they will push you during the classes, they will never push you beyond what you should do and they’ll be there to help you avoid overdoing it and injuring yourself.

Reason #3 – Not as Many Fees to Pay

Another big reason to choose martial arts classes instead of going to a gym is that there aren’t as many fees to pay for training in the martial arts. Many gyms charge a variety of different fees. Usually you’ll end up with a gym membership fee, a monthly fee, and a fee for having a locker at the gym. If you want to take special classes or have a trainer work with you, once again you’ll end up having to pay. Some gyms even charge you to park in their parking lot. When you start taking martial arts classes, you won’t have to worry about paying so many fees. While the classes will have a fee, you won’t have a lot of hidden fees to worry about.

Reason #4 – Avoid Down Time While Waiting for Equipment

You won’t have to worry about down time in the middle of your workout while waiting for equipment if you choose martial arts training. At the gym, often many people are in the gym at the same time and you may find yourself wasting time waiting to get on the next machine. This isn’t a problem at a martial arts studio. You’ll be put in classes that are not too big so you get personal instruction and you don’t have to worry about down time waiting on others.

As you can see, while a gym has many benefits, martial arts training definitely has a lot more to offer you. With classes in the martial art of your choice, you won’t get bored and you won’t be allowed to overdo it. You also won’t have to worry about hidden fees or downtime. Instead, you’ll be enjoying and exciting workout that will build confidence and fitness.

Stress seems to be part of everyone’s daily life. However you don’t have to live with stress. There are a variety of things you can do to break away from life’s burdens. One way is through Martial Arts. The skills that are taught in Martial Arts are very similar to the skills that are taught to relieve stress. Martial Arts involves the ability to balance your body and mind and build up the confidence you need to tackle your stressful lifestyle head on.

Breathing and meditation are a big part of Martial Arts. Through breathing and meditation you are able to control and connect your body and mind. There are a variety of meditation positions: standing, sitting, moving and kneeling. It is important that you find the position that works best for you,.

Some of the breathing techniques include inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. It is also important that you take deep breaths. In order to assure your breaths are deep enough, place your hand on your stomach. You should be able to feel your stomach pushing out as you breathe.

Stress is a state of mind that builds up and is displayed as physical symptoms. Such symptoms then tell you that you need to do something about the stress. As you become more aware of the stressful triggers and your body, you will be able to avoid such situations. Instead of letting the stress take over your life and body, you can work through the stress with the breathing techniques you learned in Martial Arts.

Kung Fu is another name often associate with Martial Arts. Kung fu does not only encompass self defense, it also encompasses self respect and discipline as well as patience. Therefore Kung Fu is not only a great work out for your body, it is also a great workout for your mind.

In general, when you are in better shape, you are less stressed. Working out with Kung Fu can help get you in better shape. Working out using Kung Fu also helps to relieve stress. Endorphins are released when working out and are a great source to make someone happy. The release of endorphins also helps to lower your blood pressure.

Although today’s lifestyle is often indicative of stress, you do not have to live with it. Martial Arts is a great way to relieve the stress you face on a day to day basis. Martial Arts works not only with your body, but also your mind. Through breathing and mediation you can easily lower your every day stress. So the next time you are dealing with less than perfect life situations, consider giving Martial Arts a chance. Chances are you will find you are in a much better place and without stress after a workout.

Many people come in contact with martial arts first as children, and it can be hard for them to shake the feeling that martial arts is just for kids. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, and as an adult, there are plenty of benefits that you can gain from stepping on the mat and taking a shot at something like tae kwon do, aikido or jujitsu. Plenty of adults take advantage of martial arts classes in their area and you will find that these classes have plenty to offer you.

First and foremost, martial arts will help you develop physically. Rather than being a workout that only focuses on one aspect of your health and physical well being, martial arts takes a more full body wellness approach. You will receive instruction that helps you gain flexibility as well as muscle tone, something that can be very important if you work at an office or spend most of the day in front of a computer! Martial arts is a great way for you to get in shape and stay there.

Martial arts also has an impressive ability to help you maintain your body. Have you been plagued with a yo-yoing weight your whole life? When you work in martial arts, you will be able to maintain your physique. The constant regular workouts will provide you with a routine that you can use to stabilize your weight, something that is very important in terms of staying healthy as you age.

If you are missing a spiritual element in your life, you can find many schools of martial arts that will help you find it. Martial arts is about a wellness of the mind as well as of the body and you will find that there is a great deal that you can discover by working towards both at once. Many martial arts schools emphasize how equally important the body is to the mind and vice versa.

Finally, keep in mind that martial arts can make you a great more confident in the face of the world around you. A good martial arts class will push your physical limits and more often than not, you will find that you are a capable of a great deal more than you thought you were. With the confidence comes a degree of discipline you may not have had before. Martial arts can be demanding in terms of commitment, and the discipline you learn on the mats is something that will be carried through to the rest of your life.

The key is to finding a school that suits you. Unless you are planning to learn along with your child, skip the schools that have children as students; the atmosphere is totally different and whether you are interested in getting in touch with your spirituality or getting a real workout, having children around can change that. Go to a few studios in the area around you and check them out. The atmosphere you get from a school that focuses primarily on going to competitions is very different from the one that works on balance, centering and looking within.

Whether you’re looking for more self-confidence or more control, more flexibility or more strength, there is a good chance that you can find it in a martial arts school!

Read more on our home page Local Martial Arts here.

White Crane Kung Fu: Delicate Yet Deadly

Kung Fu is a Chinese martial art that mainly focuses on movements and strikes that are inspired by many animals. One of the animals that the Chinese emulated for their beautiful martial art is the White Crane. If you watch a White Crane in nature, you’ll notice that it doesn’t look very formidable at all. In fact, you’re probably thinking that a martial art based on the movements of a bird is quite ineffective. However, the case is quite certainly the opposite. White Crane Kung Fu does emulate the bird it’s named after but it’s anything but ineffective. A true master of White Crane Kung Fu can defeat an opponent emulated after the most ferocious of creatures.

If you watch a White Crane in nature, it is a very delicate looking creature. Its body is perched atop two spindly legs. It sits completely still in the water, waiting for a fish to go by. When it sees a fish, it strikes, almost faster than the eye can see. Before you know it, it has a flopping fish hanging from its beak.

Lightning Fast Speed

A White Crane Kung Fu master will reveal the same delicate movements. He or she stands very still, waiting for an opening. Then, with lightning fast speed, he or she will strike, just like the crane does a fish. This delicate movement and lightning fast speed is the trademark of White Crane Kung Fu. It’s not an easy martial art to master but once it is, the practitioner is a force to be dealt with.

White Crane Kung Fu has been around for centuries and it’s quite possible that many of the ancient movements have been lost or forgotten. However, there are still many schools that offer lessons in Kung Fu. These schools offer many different styles such as Tiger, Monkey and even White Crane Kung Fu. These schools are becoming more popular all the time, especially since the release of certain movies that use these styles, such as the Matrix series.

To find a school that offers White Crane Kung Fu, check the local yellow pages or do an internet search. Even if they don’t advertise certain styles, call local schools to see if they do, in fact, offer different styles such as White Crane. Once mastered, White Crane is a very beautiful, yet deadly, art. It embraces everything Kung Fu represents and the best part is that you’ll have a lot of fun learning it.

Guide to Kung Fu Styles

Kung Fu is a fighting method practiced for centuries and introduced to the world by China. Kung Fu is a discipline in itself where you need to learn precise movements but also adopt as you go in order to improvise and defeat your opponent.
Identifying Kung Fu Styles

There are many Kung Fu styles and they are generally identified by movement, region and environment. There are two main types of Kung Fu styles and they are hard styles, which usually is practiced with hard strikes and soft Kung Fu, which are mostly practiced by the help of movements with which the attention of the opponent is diverted and thus, one can strike.
The way in which the fighter moves can also identify the Kung Fu style they are practicing, for example linear Kung Fu style is known when it is practiced by straight line movements and circular Kung Fu style is known when it is practiced by circular motions.

The Change of Kung Fu

Kung Fu has been changed and adopted as needed by the time and era to suit the fighting needs and thus, hundreds of styles were created in the process depending on the region, environment and era when they were practiced.

Initially, Kung Fu was adopted from animal movements and mixed with the high power of meditation and sometimes the capability to read the opponent’s intention. In Kung Fu precision is the most important factor, as most times you will fight with bare hands.

Learn Kung Fu for Self Defense

Kung Fu can be learned today around the world whenever you want in a traditional class or even online and thus, you can be ready to protect yourself always. However, ensure that you learn with a certified instructor so you will learn the right moves and not waste your money and time in the process.

You will learn with time that Kung Fu styles are also adopted by each person in part as you too with time will develop your own moves and techniques which you may find better for your posture, weight and age at this time. Kung Fu has been changed and to fit the required time and era, improved its techniques as well as it developed movements to combat with the modern factors that we find in our world as well.

Start learning Kung Fu and always have peace of mind because you will know that you are safe and who knows you may be the next who will introduce a new Kung Fu style for the next generation to come.

Kung Fu is far from being a discipline that has been newly developed and utilized. Indeed, this practice is an ancient discipline that was only recently introduced to the Western civilization. This introduction was through martial arts movies and was particularly popularized in the West by a Kung Fu expert by the name of Bruce Lee.

Often, this practice is thought of as a means of self defense and its various moves and procedures that could be used in combat situations. All of this is true; however, Kung Fu is more than a sport or method of fighting as depicted in these films and as portrayed by Hollywood.

History of Kung Fu

The roots of Kung Fu are found in China and date well into the era of pre A.D. The ideology of Kung Fu is grounded in a well-rounded approach to life. This well-rounded approach includes the improvement of all phases of the individual as well as techniques that aid in self-preservation or the use of self-defense in combat. Therefore, Kung Fu blends the mental, emotional, spiritual and physical natures of an individual and understands that there are combatant forces within the person as well as those exerted on a person from outward forces.
The term Kung Fu literally means “time” and “effort”. Therefore one of the basic tenets of this practice refers to any action which is met with a perception that maturity, in all aspects of the human being, is attained through the gift of time. It is important to remember that although this is martial arts and involves self-defense and combat, it is just as much about the building of character and following the right path.

Benefits of Kung Fu

There are many benefits that can be attained by the individual who practices the discipline of Kung Fu. In addition to learning how to defend one’s self from possible aggressors, there are some health benefits that can be realize. These health benefits directly affect the mind and spirit of the individual.

To properly practice the discipline of Kung Fu it is important to know that the outward actions are an extension of what is occurring on the inside of the disciple. These inward qualities blend together self-control, focus the mind and energy, increase confidence in one’s ability, the use of the power of imagery and provide the enlightenment that all aspects of humanity are interconnected.

In addition, as one continues on their journey of deepening their experience, the individual realizes that their actions and thinking must be expressions of goodness. This course of action is demonstrated because the advanced disciple of Kung Fu realizes that creation is all interconnected. Ultimately, as one grows in their Kung Fu experience, the reality of singleness and oneness becomes the dominating theme.

Learning how to meditate is one of the most difficult, yet ultimately one of the most rewarding practices you can undertake. Although many people initially learn to meditate as a simple way to relax and decrease stress, meditation often becomes a lifelong practice. Take it from me, there is nothing that will enrich you more than learning to meditate.

The most important factor in learning how to meditate is setting up a regular practice. Good breathing is important. Sitting in the right posture is important. But neither of these factors are nearly as important to how to meditate as having a good space and time that is your own. If you want to learn meditation, it is better to practice in the same quiet, solitary location at the same time for 10 minutes each and every day than to practice meditation for three hours once a week. Meditation, after all, is all about regulating and relaxing your thoughts. Before you can learn how to meditate, you need a place where you feel safe, a place that is set aside every day for the sole purpose of meditating.

From there, there are many approaches to how to meditate. For me, I prefer the simple techniques for learning meditation. The very first thing that you must do is learn to focus on your own breath. This may sound simple, but it is not easy. You cannot learn how to meditate until you can learn how to direct your focus inward, and this part alone can take years. Nonetheless, you do not need to master meditation before you start to feel the benefits. They will start almost immediately. Although the rewards of knowing how to meditate are inexpressible, just studying meditation itself will greatly increase the quality of your life.
If you want to know how to meditate, it is crucial that you find a teacher.

Meditation books, meditation CDs, and meditation videos can all help you get started, but a teacher is indispensable if you want to make any progress in learning how to meditate. Fortunately, almost every major city has several schools of meditation operating within it. You can learn how to meditate from a student of Buddhist meditation, transcendental meditation, or one of many other schools. Although there is a lot of disagreement about what school is the best, any of them will give you great benefits. From there, it is simply a matter of learning what works for you.

Cyber-bullying even goes beyond the limits of traditional victim/bully relationship. Some cyber-bullies are ex-boyfriends or girlfriends who want to get revenge on their ex. They use technology to stalk, harass and spread rumors about the other person.

When the victim is someone from school, he or she often gets bullied in “real life” in school and then the bully continues it when they get home so the victim rarely gets a break from the torment.

When the bully doesn’t even know who the target is, bullying can be especially dangerous when they don’t know the background of the person they are harassing.

Why do some people view cyber-bullying as “just a game”? Many children and teens play role-playing games online which involve making up personas and avatars. They easily transfer this concept to instant messaging, chat rooms, and email when they make up names and avatars even though they are talking to real people. To add to this concept, they often feel invisible because it’s just a computer and a keyboard and no “real people” to evoke empathy as a result of their actions.

How do cyber-bullies justify their actions? Cyber-bullies use the concept of free speech to justify their actions – they know by law they can say what they want on-line and in text messaging. They simply fail to understand that even though it’s legal, it may not be right. They also often feel like they won’t get caught so it’s okay or that everyone is doing it, so it’s okay.

How do you know if your child is cyber-bullying? If your child spend unusually long hours on the computer, is secretive about his or her internet activity, often closes windows when you approach the computer and begins falling behind on school work.

What can happen to cyber-bullies? Victims of cyber-bullying can find out who is harassing them even when the bullies think they are being anonymous. Most of the time, people leave what is called “cyber footprints” when they surf the internet and that goes for cyber-bullies as well. Even when they make anonymous accounts, experts can trace where they’ve been and see what they”ve done. Families of victims of cyber-bullying can take legal action against the parents of the cyber-bully.

Read Part 3 here.

When we do classes and seminars on bullying, we feel that it’s important to let people know who bullies really are and what makes them tick. There is so much more to being a bully than simply being mean to someone else.

Who is a bully? First of all, people who bully are often people who have (often secretly) low self-esteem and they turn to bullying to hide their perceived inadequacies. They do this by pointing out inadequacies in other people and trying to get people to fear them.

Bullies often also look for ways to avoid responsibility for their actions or have simply never been taught that there are consequences to certain actions. Often times they are clever enough to avoid being caught by anyone who might force them to face the consequences.

They also lack empathy which means they are unable to see the true effects of their behavior on other people, such as so-called “mean girls” who use their relationship powers to control, exclude and otherwise torment others in terms of relational issues. In addition, they are good at creating conflict between other people and like to know that they have the “power” to force others into a conflict and then they like to sit back and watch it play out.

Some bullies also often have aggression issues and often don’t have the skills to handle conflict without resorting to this aggression. This often what you see when you think of the typical male bully who “roughs up” those who are physically smaller and weaker than himself.

Other common characteristics of bullies is that they have often been bullied themselves either by a peer or parent (as in different forms of child abuse), they often have poor relationships with their parents or guardians and they are not well supervised by their caregivers. Bullies are often people who have suffered rejection at some point in their lives. They are also more likely to be involved in substance abuse and smoking and are more likely to suffer from depression than their peers who do not bully others.

How are cyber-bullies different than traditional bullies? While traditional bullies are more often males, cyber-bullies are equally male and female. They are often from affluent communities that often have high speed internet access. They can be “real-life” bullies as well, but people who would not bully someone in real life often finds it easy to bully someone in cyberspace, so you find people cyber-bullying that you wouldn’t expect to bully another person.

What role does anonymity play in cyber-bullying? Many children and teens feel that the anonymity of the internet is a protective barrier to keep them from being caught. This anonymity gives many children and teens the confidence they need to say and do things they wouldn’t dream of doing in real life – and certainly things they’d be embarrassed about if the adults in their life knew they were saying and doing. The issue with the internet is they don’t feel like anyone will ever find out so they think it’s okay to do.

Along the same lines of anonymity is the concept of “You can’t see me, I can’t see you.” The fact that they cannot see the emotions and reactions of the person they are bullying so they often get out of control or cross lines they wouldn’t cross if they could see how their actions actually affect the other person.

What kinds of relationships to cyber-bullies have with their victims? This is a vast and varied characteristic of cyber-bullying. For example, the victim can be a friend or former friend, a school mate, someone they’ve met on one or a few occasions or a complete stranger that they’ve met in chat rooms.

Cyber Bullies Part 2

What is bullying? Simply said, bullying is abuse. It is often persistent and can include such things as threatening, fault finding, insulting or frightening. anything that abuses power thrives on an imbalance of power. The bully likes to use his or her power to make the victim react.

What are the types of bullying? There are many different types of bulling. The more traditional forms of bullying include physical bullying such as hitting and shoving and threats of physical harm, verbal bullying such as mocking, teasing and name calling and emotional bullying such as exclusion from social groups or events and rumor spreading. The newest form of bullying is cyber-bullying which uses email, instant messages, websites and text messaging, for example, to harass someone in the form of threatening, mocking, teasing, name calling, excluding and rumor spreading.

How is cyber-bullying different than traditional bullying? The biggest different between cyber-bullying and traditional bullying is that the time and place of the bullying changes. In traditional bullying, the victim can usually retreat to his or her house for a reprieve from the harassment. Home is usually a safe-haven. With cyber-bullying, victims often cannot escape the abuse because the technology of email, text messages, instant messages, the Internet and cell phones give bullies constant access to their victims. Oftentimes, bullies cannot wait to get home from school so that they can continue to terrorize their victims. Additionally, cyber-bullying is different from traditional bullying because rumors and other information can spread so much more quickly with technology than it can spread traditionally. Someone can spread a rumor about another person to everyone on their buddy list with the click of a button – almost instantly, ten, twenty or even a hundred people can read a rumor and begin spreading to people they know.

Why is cyber-bullying so much worse than traditional bullying? The biggest reason why cyber-bullying is so much worse than traditional bullying is that there is no defined time or location for the bullying. The victim is almost always reachable through the advances in technology. This makes cyber-bullying so much more invasive than traditional bullying because the victim literally has an extremely difficult time escaping from the harassment. Additionally, cyber-bullying can occur around the clock. Even if the victim isn’t using the Internet twenty-four hours a day, he or she might get home from school or wake up in the morning to an inbox full of threatening messages. Traditional bullying has a relatively small audience. Only the people in the direct vicinity of the bullying are there to see the victim’s humiliation, but with cyber-bullying there can be literally hundreds or thousands (or more) of people watching the conversation or visiting an embarrassing website.

A final reason why cyber-bullying is so terrible is the idea that when people have the “protection” of not seeing their victim face-to-face they are often more cruel and do and say things they would never do in person.

What are some examples of cyber-bullying?

Cyber-bullying can take many different forms. It can be direct bullying where people send vicious and/or threatening messages to their victim’s cell phone or email or they write the messages to the victim in a chat room or via instant messaging. This is also called cyber stalking.
There is also indirect cyber-bullying, also called denigration, where a person or group of people creates websites that have cartoons, photographs or videos that can potential humiliate another person. These websites can also have “incriminating” stories (true or not) and jokes that ridicule others. Another tactic common to cyber-bullying is when people post surveys on the web asking people to vote for “the most (offensive comment)” in the class.

Instant messaging can be confusing for victims of cyber-bullying because sometimes, often girls, will decide to victimize another girl. This happens when a group of girls are together and they go online and seek out someone to victimize. The group poses as just one person and starts a conversation. Then, they eventually get the victim to say something mean or insulting about one of the other girls in the group and use that information to harass the victim. This is also called trickery.

Another type is impersonation. This is when cyber bullies break into someone else’s email account. They pose as this other person and send insulting or rude messages to another person. The bully then sits back and watching the fight with the satisfaction that he or she started the conflict.

Camera phones can also be quite useful for bullies. There have been reported incidents of people taking photos of school mates in the locker while changing. These pictures can be circulated to large numbers of students in a very short period of time to private or online groups. Sending these pictures or other hateful or otherwise harmful messages is known as flaming.

Read Part One of Cyber Bullying here.