Review of 2010 and a Look Forward to 2011

It is that time of year when the TV is full of review shows and I thought that I would jump on the bandwagon and give a review of 2010 and a look forward to 2011.

2010

For us 2010 will be thought of as the year that we moved to the USA. We sold our business, gave away our cat Willow, rented out our apartment and started a new business in California. Corina and I have lived in Edinburgh since we left school 17 years ago, we were married in Edinburgh and our business was in Edinburgh but it was time to leave.

Getting to the USA was a monumental task, if we knew quite how hard it was going to be I don’t think either of us would have started. The stress involved in emigrating to the USA was far higher than the stress we had to endure during Corina’s cancer treatment. To get our USA visa we had to invest all of our money and sign a 5 year lease before we could even submit the paperwork. We had to apply for our visa in Germany and we had to drive there from Scotland because the volcanic ash cloud stopped air travel.

While we were in Germany, waiting for our passports to be returned to us from the US embassy, we visited the Dachau concentration camp. This visit deeply affected me and the way that I viewed the world. The horror of what occurred in Europe during the Second World War and the pure evil of the Nazi regime chills me to the bone. I am glad that I went, it was one of the most difficult memories of the last year but I hope that I never forget that there are things that are worse than death and the suffering that occurred at the hands of the Nazis should never be forgotten.

We arrived in San Diego in the middle of the year, we had hoped we would be open in Spring but things take so very much longer than you expect. The Wolf Studio was opened in August and we continue to grow and develop our business. Since we have been in the United States we have had the opportunity to meet and work with some fantastic clients, professional triathletes, an NFL head coach and some equally wonderful and no less crazy clients. Marketing our business and adapting to the new market has been a challenge, we are now on Facebook daily, we have a blog on our website and we both attend networking meetings!

Our life in San Diego is so very different from that in Edinburgh. Corina has much more opportunity to train, she can attend regular running groups and swim in the ocean. In Edinburgh we were considered crazy for training so much but here we are decidedly tame. Corina has found her spiritual home in RunningSkirts, an unexpected find, a product that she loves made by people who she loves. In 2010 I went back to martial arts after a brief hiatus. I have begun a study of Iaido, the art of drawing the Japanese sword. My dojo is a little outside of San Diego and the traditional nature of the training in exactly what I have been looking for. America is the most amazing place.

Corina and I have immersed ourselves in American culture. We have watched lots of American sports, football is now soccer, I watch UFC regularly, I check on the status of Bret Farve’s injuries daily and I drive an SUV!

Always a shutterbug I have fallen in love with photography in 2010. My first DSLR (real camera) has changed an occasional interest into a full blown hobby, (read: obsession). I read about photography, listen to podcasts, take loads of pictures and I love it! My Amazon wish-list is now full of photo-gear and accessories. Who would have thought that I would have an artistic outlet?

We are thankful to our friends and families for supporting us throughout this year. Corina’s parents have been particularly generous. Both of our families have been in good health, we have family in the UK, in Thailand and in Germany and we would loved to have seen more of them.

2011

For us 2011 is the year that we will make The Wolf Studio successful. We need to travel back to Germany to renew our visa and it is essential that our business is working well. This is our #1 priority, and we know that we have colleagues, clients, friends and family that will help us achieve this.

Our personal goals for 2011 are quite varied…

I will, at the behest or my Sensei, travel to Japan to take a formal grading in Iaido. Testing for Iai only takes place twice a year so I aim to test at the beginning of December 2011. Random goals: I intend to learn how to shoot a gun and I would like to take a few golf lessons to see what all the fuss is about.

In 2011 I am going to get into photography more seriously. For years I have been told that I take a good photograph, now I have the equipment, I am learning out how to handle a real camera and achieving the results I would like. I would not rule out the possibility of a wee sideline developing in 2011.

Corina has her sights set on exploring this beautiful country, as a tourist and as an athlete. She wants to visit some of the spectacular national parks, participate in a memorable swim (maybe Alcatraz) and continue enjoying her running and cycling.

Corina would also like to meet her niece who was born just as we were getting our visa.

Although not technically next year (more next week) we are both looking forward to meeting some real wolves at the California Wolf Center.

We know that 2011 will be full of learning experiences for us, we are still adapting to a new country and way of life. Embracing these challenges, we know that moving forward, our lives can only be enhanced by staying the course and taking strength from our clients, students, friends and family.

Summary

2010 was a momentous year for us, the hardest year that we have ever had, both personally and professionally. In 2011 we will make sure that all of our hard work is translated into personal and business success.

Alan

A Good Diet is for Life Not Just for Christmas

At The Wolf Studio we often notice that our clients have two phases of training and diet. Clients will train and diet in order to get fit for their summer holiday, and at this time of year clients are often trying to loose weight to look good for the office party season.

While it is a great idea to get into the gym and start looking at your diet to get fit and healthy, whether it is to look good on the beach or to look good in that little black party dress, it is important to remember not to throw away all of your hard earned gains. Particularly at this time of year our clients are literally working their butts off to look good, it seems a shame for them to binge during the holiday period and get unfit and overweight.

A much better and more healthy approach is to look after your diet throughout the year and to exercise regularly. By doing this then you can maintain a higher level of fitness and the need for high intensity training and more severe dietary change is lessened. At times of the year when you want to add more training into your schedule, to look good on the beach or at the Christmas party, then these changes can be added much more easily as you will be working from a higher base of fitness and vitality.

What we often see is that clients will achieve their goals of looking and feeling better for their holiday or party season and then will stop training. They will go on holiday or overindulge at Christmas and will feel guilty about not training and will feel bad about getting back to training. Guilt is a major factor in many peoples training, it is a motivational factor but it is also a major obstacle. Just imagine that you have spent a couple of months working hard to achieve that weight loss or get those bulging muscles, you overindulge over the holiday period and the thought of getting back in the gym come January is just too much. A much more sensible approach is to accept that you are going to have a good time on your holiday or at Christmas, life is for living after all, but once the Christmas period is over then you are going to go back to eating sensibly and exercising regularly.

Exercise and diet are habitual, both good and bad diet and exercise. The problem at this time of year is that once you start indulging at Christmas parties, a few extra drinks or whatever then this becomes the norm. We have clients for whom Christmas parties start in mid November and end at the end of January. Obviously it is not possible to over indulge for this period of time and maintain health without some discipline.

Here are some tips to help you through this time of year;

• Keep exercising. Too many people just stop training over the Christmas period. Even if it is just one training session per week it will make a difference and will make going back in January easier.
• Prioritize your parties! Don’t over indulge at every party or Christmas lunch that you attend. Pick which parties are important for you and let yourself have a good time. At other events limit your alcohol intake, or don’t have a desert. Don’t blow all of your training at events or with people whom you don’t really like!
• Watch the alcohol. There are loads of hidden calories in alcohol and alcohol is really easily broken down to fat. Limit the amount that you are going to drink. Even better to take the car and stay tee total, especially at events that you are not too bothered about.
• Quality not quantity. If you are going to indulge, which you should at this time of year, treat yourself with high quality food and drink rather than masses of cheap crap. You will find that good quality food will taste better and will last longer, especially if you have been denying yourself over the build up to Christmas.
• When it’s over it’s over. Set a date when you are going to start exercising again and when the partying ends. If you know that you are going to be good from a specific date then you will be more disciplined.
• Tell everyone about your New Years resolutions. It you shout your intentions from the mountains so that everyone knows what you are going to give up or even better achieve in the New Year then you are much more likely to actually do it. Write your New Years resolutions down and stick it where you can see it, it really does work

Enjoy this Christmas and New Year and we hope to see you all in 2011.

Alan

Dare to Bare

How many people will wake up on Christmas morning to open their presents only to find an empty shoe box with a note saying “here are your new running shoes”?

Barefoot running is in it’s ascendancy there are lots of barefoot runners and barefoot running advocates. There are tons of new running shoes with minimal support and cushioning, conversely, there are also a preponderance of big clog like instability shoes! In this instance I think that less is more.

There are a lot of good reasons to do at least some of your run training barefoot. Running barefoot on a suitable surface like semi-hard sand or grass makes the body develop a more natural stride and gait pattern. Barefoot running can help with correct foot-strike, it makes the body stabilise itself and can help biomechanics. But like all types of training it should only be part of your training program. Running barefoot for all of your training and doing your long runs barefoot without years of practice is not advisable. This is because it strongly taxes your stability mechanisms which can become fatigued easily and this can lead to overuse injuries.

The same holds true in the gym where I think that a client who is barefoot often develops stability faster than someone in a very stable shoe. Most gyms won’t allow members to exercise barefoot, sandals are great for lifting weights and yoga classes are great for developing this type of intrinsic strength.

As a martial artist I do most of my training barefoot, both in the dojo and out of the dojo. When I train with my sword I will be barefoot so this is how I train in the gym. I do this is in order to get the biggest functional carry-over into the work I do on the mat. If I was to wear shoes in the gym my body would get used to lunging or squatting in shoes, so when I go into the dojo and perform similar moves barefoot my body would use different muscles and those muscles would fire differently. I want the training I do in the gym to help me become more efficient in the dojo, so that I can concentrate on my technique rather than the pain in my quads! As with all types of training the closer you can mimic the action that you perform in your activity to that which you do in the gym the bigger the carryover.

I have tried to wear tabi, (traditional Japanese indoor booties) when I lift weights to see how this effects things. Tabi have only a single layer of material on their sole, a bit like a sturdy sock. Traditional martial artists often wear tabi. It is amazing to see the difference, muscles fire differently and you lose so much sensation and information from your feet. Wearing these tabi with just this single layer of fabric on the sole of my foot was like wearing a glove to massage with, ok but not the same. Given the choice I would much prefer to be barefoot.

Too much of anything is a bad thing but in the right amount, barefoot training is an excellent addition to most athletes training repertoire. Training barefoot stimulates the nervous system, taxes stability mechanisms, strengthens the muscles of the foot and ankle and overall provides an excellent training stimulus.

Alan