Manhattan Style Seafood Chowder.

Working at Ivar's made me pretty crazy about chowder, especially Manhattan style, which is tomato based as opposed to New England style, which is flour based. I had some clams and oysters and decided to make a seafood chowder to toss up on the good ol' weblog. 

I've got:
5 carrot sticks
5 celery sticks
some leftover bacon
1 onion
3 cans of clams
2 cans of tomato
1 can of vegetable broth
1/2 stick of butter

A bunch of oysters
1/4 lemon
some heavy whipping cream
Salt, Pepper, Thyme, Bay Leaf, Oregano, Basil, Garlic Powder

Chop up the veggies and put them aside.

Empty the clams into a bowl, cut up your oysters into strips and chunks, add them as well. Squeeze your lemon in here with some salt and garlic powder

In a deep pot, melt your butter.

Cook the veggies in melted butter for five minutes, stirring them about. 

Cook your bacon

Add tomatoes, broth, thyme, basil, oregano, (about 1/2 tsp each) and salt/pepper to taste. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Flip the bacon, let it finish cooking.

Transfer to a paper towel to cool.

Add the clams and oysters along with however much whipping cream you want. Simmer another 10 minutes.

Serve it up, eat it up. 

Going Into Detail About Nutrition

People are sometimes confused about what constitutes a good diet as far as numbers are concerned. This is a brief explanation that should hopefully clear the waters around creating the perfect diet to fuel your workouts.

*Note* This nutrition plan is modeled for body re-composition purposes. It is not fat loss specific, nor muscle building specific. It is intended to simultaneously burn fat and build muscle by way of calorie/nutrient cycling

Nutrition:
Now, no amount of working out will help you if you aren’t fueling your body properly. I could go into very deep detail about the ins and outs of a nutrition plan, but simplicity will better serve us here. You will be cycling your calorie consumption and your macronutrients depending on whether it’s a work day or a rest day. But in order to figure out your numbers, you have to first determine your maintenance calorie amount.

On a scale of 8 to 16, rate your daily physical activity, 8 being seated all day with maybe an hour of activity, 16 being strenuously going all day with maybe an hour of rest. Whatever number you come up with you will multiply by your body weight to get your maintenance calories. For example, I weigh around 200lbs, my activity level is probably a solid 12 since I do a lot of writing and driving along with my workouts and general activity. 200 x 12 = 2400 kcal per day, which is a ballpark number that I will be able to play around with after seeing a few weeks worth of results.

On a work day, my calories need to be in surplus so that I don’t draw nutrients from my muscle tissue to rebuild the damage and restore my energy stores created by my lifting, so I would add 200-500 calories on a workout day to cover for that. My macronutrient breakdown will be high protein (1-2g per lb of body weight), high carb (about 150-200g from vegetables, tubers, and fruits) and low to moderate fat.

On a rest day, I will give myself a 200-500 calorie deficit so that my body will not accumulate fat as is so common with strength training programs/nutrition. My macro breakdown will be high protein (same amount as work day) , low carb (50-100g from fruits and veggies), and moderate to high fat.

The way I figure out the exact goal amounts is simple. Each macronutrient has a calorie per gram value. Protein and Carbs are about 4kcal per gram whereas fat is 9kcal per gram.

So if I am looking to get 2500 kcal on a given day, with a body weight of 200lbs, I know I need 1-2g of protein per lb of body weight (200-400g protein = 800-1600kcal protein) I also know I need 150-200g of carbs (150-200g carbs = 600-800kcal carbs = 1400-2400kcal total). I will then determine how many more calories I need to get to 2500 and divide that number by 9 to find out how many grams of fat I should be trying for. (1100-100kcal leftover = 122-11g fat).

Of course, no day will be perfect and you should give yourself some wiggle room. As long as you are coming out about even for the end of the week, you will see results.

Your meal timing will depend on your schedule, but always have a post workout meal with a lot of protein and carbs. You can work out on an empty stomach if you ingest 10g of BCAA’s but other than that, make sure you have a decent pre workout meal as well. 

Reverse Pyramid Training and other links.

Some links on weight training that I would like you all to check out:

Reverse Pyramid Training is by far my favorite program when it comes to lifting weights in the gym. It allows you to lift your heaviest weights when you are at your freshest and most energetic state. Also, it allows for a double progression system that will keep you seeing results week after week. You can find out more about it here.

Another great read from the Leangains archives is the top ten myths about dieting and fasting. In this article, Martin tells you what commonly accepted pieces of dietary advice are bologna and why. It will give you a decent insight as to how food is processed and what the body is capable of doing in a fasted state.

Also, check out Mark Rippetoe. He's got a bunch of videos on training techniques such as dead lift, bench press, and squat. It's great for visual review and study. Deadlift Set-Up


I'll post more stuff later. It's dinner time now :D

Session Review (Sunday, January 29th, 2012)

Well, it was a rainy, cold, and wet day and just getting into the parking lot at game farm was a bit of an adventure in itself. I had forgotten how bad the puddles get in the lot but Bubby made it through okay, and Zach only had to move his air filter to make it across the three ponds that had accumulated.

Once we packed our gear in to the amphitheater we started with some gung fu, mitt drills, closing, double chung choi's while closing, and then we covered each mitt drill strike individually so that everyone could get a better hang of the technique. We did some bob and weave and ended with backfist chung choi's. I realized that I desperately need to get a few more kick shields to avoid lining everyone up and getting only 5 or so strikes per person.

We then took a bit of an intermission to swing the sledge hammer and kettlebell, play around with the rope darts and nunchucks, and I found a log that I got to play around with, trying my best to remember how Erwan does his log drills.

We then decided to pack everything back in the blazer and go for a jog around the park, after a brief primer and explanation we went into it, making it back all in one piece more or less. I'd like to devote a little bit of each class to running, so come prepared to sweat a little bit from now on and wear clothes that are light/easy to move in just for comfort sake.

I can't help but feel limited by the weather and I kept thinking about all the things we could do if only it were sunnier out. This helped me realize, however, that this gives us a perfect opportunity to build our strength and endurance and agility over the next few months so that when the weather breaks and the sun starts to shine, we'll be able to up the intensity a bit.

Next week we are shooting for Alki beach. If the weather is dry enough, we'll be doing a lot of running, crawling, jumping, landing, and balancing. We'll do some gung fu as well and maybe some throwing/catching drills. If the weather is crap, we will be meeting in a nearby garage and most likely we'll be delving deeper into gung fu techniques such as trapping and flow which are, honestly, more important than the strikes. So we'll play it by ear and see what happens.

Thanks to everyone for coming out, I really enjoy getting together with the lot of you. It makes for a great transition into the week.

See you all again soon!

-Rob

Chicken Vegetable Soup

During the cold winter months, a good bowl of soup can be an amazing thing. Sara and I were sick when I decided to throw this together. It's a pretty flexible recipe, so add and subtract where you see fit.

What I used:

2 chicken breasts cut into 1 inch cubes
2 medium zucchini
1 large yellow squash
4-5 celery stalks chopped
1/2 onion diced

1 head broccoli
1/2 stick butter
2 boxes chicken broth (4 cans I think)
6-7 green onions diced
1 can of diced tomatoes
6 cloves garlic
a bunch of spices, all to taste, such as:
salt, pepper, coriander, cumin, basil, oregano, thyme, chili powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, curry powder, and crushed red peppers.

Put the chunks in a heated pot with some extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) and some spices. At this point I put some crushed red pepper, basil, and cayenne pepper to taste. Let it cook until the chicken starts to turn white on the surface.

Take your 6 cloves of garlic and dice them into small bits, you can also crush the garlic using a garlic press. I didn't own one at the time though, so I had no choice but to chop chop.

Add the garlic and two boxes of chicken broth, mix thoroughly and let the contents of the pot come to a simmer/light boil as you chop the rest of your veggies. 

I chopped up my celery, zucchini, squash, and broccoli into chunks. You can chop them up however large or small you want, just be aware that the smaller they are, the faster they cook and vice versa.

Chop your 1/2 onion and the green onions, put them off to the side for now. They will be added nearer to the end because they cook pretty quick. 

Put your veggies (minus the onion) in the pot and add some more spices. Here I put basil, oregano, thyme, coriander, chili powder, paprika, salt, pepper, and some curry powder. 

Cover and let cook for a while to let things soften up. Make sure you keep an eye on it so things don't over cook and get gross. 

Add your chopped onions, a half stick of butter, and your tomatoes. Cover and cook until all is done. Garnish with whatever you want. I used sour cream, sliced avocado, some more cayenne pepper and some hot sauce. Super good food. Try it out and let me know how it goes.

Bacon Wrapped Oysters and Asparagus

Sara and I were at Costco the other day and we spied a jar of oysters that usually I would turn my nose up at. Before I met Sara, if you had asked me what my favorite seafood was, I would have said sweedish fish, with van de kamps fish sticks coming in at second. I just hated the thought of eating fish, mainly because I had never had fish prepared correctly. Some people just don't know how to cook it. 

Between Sara being a huge seafood fan and my getting a job at Ivar's I eventually learned how to not only love seafood, but cook it as well. But oysters are a different animal. I have always had a fearful aversion to them. Even when they're cooked right and taste their best, it's hard for me to get the idea out of my head that I'm eating a snot alien. 

But they do taste great, and I like to think that I'm not a pansy when it comes to food. So this jar of oysters at Costco piqued an interest/curiosity and I was compelled to get them. I didn't even know how I was going to prepare them at the time, but I was going to all the same. Luckily for me, right on the jar they have two kick ass looking recipes and I decided to go for the one with the bacon. 

First, heat up a pan on medium-high heat with a little EVOO in it. Take some oysters and pat them dry. I've got 5 of them here. 

Cut 5 strips of bacon in half, wrap 1 half strip around each oyster.

Place the oysters on the pan laying them on the side where the bacon ends overlap. Cook until the bacon gets browned and crispy on the bottom.

Get a pair of tongs and flip the oysters to the other side, allow them to cook until the bacon is all done. 

Transfer them to a plate to cool off while you cook your asparagus.

Break off the woody ends of some asparagus and throw them on the same pan. Let them cook in the bacon/oyster juice until they reach your preferred done-ness.

Put it all on a plate and garnish with some tartar sauce. 

This entire meal turned out to be:
355 kcal
27.1g fat
9.1g carbs
19.3g protein

Not too bad for 10-12 minutes from start to finish. Plus it was really, really good finger food. The bacon complimented the flavor and the texture of the oyster, so I highly recommend this dish.

Fasting: What, Why, and When?

Several people have asked me to explain the ins and outs of Intermittent Fasting. I understand the interest because the way fasting has been applied goes against most of what everyone has heard about nutrition for fitness, so there's a lot of fear and confusion associated with the subject. I've followed an intermittent fasting program off and on for over a year now and have noticed several great benefits from regulating your feeding phases and controlling your intake. I'll get to all that in a moment though. First of all, I want to address what fasting is exactly.





What?

Fasting is simply not eating for an extended period of time. There are a lot of different programs out there that promote different lengths of fasting but most of them are interested in achieving more or less the same goals. Some people suggest simply skipping meals at random, others say to skip an entire days worth of eating on certain days of the week, some consume only calorie free drinks for 24/36 hours once a week, while many more advocate following a fasting/feeding schedule where a portion of every day is spent not eating, while the other portion allows for the days entire calorie consumption. Time frames are usually written as (fasting hours/eating hours) and, depending on the author of the program, can range from 14/10, 15/9, 16/8, 17/7, etc...

I can't prescribe what would be the best long term regimen for any individual over the internet without meeting and working with them for some time, but I can tell you that I began by first going paleo/primal. When I eat the right types of food I naturally feel full for longer and I found that I could, after some time, go all day on one meal with absolutely no problem. Not even a stomach rumble. My next step was to go a full 24 hours without eating. I  was personally amazed because I had never believed I could go that long without eating, much less end up feeling great throughout the whole duration.

This method was comfortable, but really random. I didn't have a real strong schedule or guideline other than "don't eat sometimes". I didn't manage or control my nutrient intake while I was in my eating phase (other than staying primal) and I didn't bother to think about how my exercise might relate to not eating.

I eventually stumbled upon Martin Berkhans website  LeanGains.com. Here is where I found the holy grail of fasting.

Why?

Let me take a step back and explain why someone would want to subject themselves to varying periods of famine. I mean, conventional wisdom would have us believe that not eating will send us into a starvation mode where our bodies will store fat like a hoarder on TLC and eating 6 small meals a day will not only keep us full but will keep our metabolism burning all day long.

Hogswallop.

All of it.

This isn't just me making bold claims, not one of those notions above is supported by scientific studies. In fact, when you fast for anything over 8 hours, your body is burning mostly stored fat for fuel. Our metabolism is dictated by how many calories we eat, not our meal timing, and in my case, small meals don't do anything but make me want to eat more. Maybe you're different on that point, but chances are you will feel far more full after a massive steak and vegetable dinner than after a light salad and a couple of hard boiled eggs.

So what else does fasting do? Let me take a quote from John Berardi, PhD who has been fasting for 9 months and has dropped his already lean 10% BF to 4% BF:

"Beyond vanity, the reported health effects of an intelligently designed Intermittent Fasting program read like a laundry list of live longer, live better benefits including: reduced blood lipids,blood pressure, markers of inflammation, oxidative stress, and cancer. Increased cell turnover and repair, fat burning, growth hormone release, and metabolic rate. And improved appetite control, blood sugar control, cardiovascular function, and neuronal plasticity."

I left the links intact so you could check them out. It's amazing stuff, and all of it makes sense in the light of evolution. If you are a hunter-gatherer, you may go days without a kill, or maybe a particularly difficult winter makes you unable to find any food to forage. If your body were to shut down and start to die as soon as you went a day without eating then your species would not survive, obviously.

When?

A good IF program can enhance your work out program by leaps and bounds if done right. For a long time I fasted 16-20 hours a day and did heavy strength training 3 times a week, usually on an empty stomach. During this time, I increased my bench press from 175 to 215, my deadlift from 135 to 280, my squat from 135 to 250, and my pull ups from body weight x 5 to BW+40lbs X 8. The whole time I didn't gain any weight which tends to happen in a bulking phase. This was achieved by following the Lean Gains guide of fasting 16 hours a day, working out 3 times a week (M,W,F) and cycling my macronutrients so that on work out days I was eating a 500 calorie surplus, and on rest days I was eating a 500 calorie deficit. High protein every day, low carb, moderate fat on rest days, high carb, low fat on work out days. I would usually go to the gym with only 10g of Branched Chain Amino-Acids (BCAA) which helped preserve muscle mass during my lifts. After my work out I would consume a high calorie, high protein, high carb, moderate fat meal. This would usually be the biggest meal of the day. I would then space out the rest of my meals to fill the following 8 hour period. My final meal would be smaller with either a slower digesting protein, or lots of fiber so that it would process throughout the entire night.

Martin Berkhan outlines a few other possible fasting/workout/meal schedules here for you to take into consideration. The best regimen is the one that you can stick to for the long haul, there's no point in doing something that flat out doesn't work for you, so check that link out if you're interested.

The method I followed above was geared towards building strength and burning fat, I didn't do hardly any cardio besides walking and it worked great until I stopped lifting/dieting/fasting during the holidays. There are different variations that one can follow to focus on burning fat or building muscle. Depending on what you're trying to achieve it can take a lot of number crunching at first but once you get into the grove it's stupidly simple.

Even if you're not looking to workout a whole lot like I do, I still highly recommend playing around with different variations of IF. Try not eating for 24 hours, if that's easy, try it 2 or 3 times a week. Maybe even make it as simple as only eating when you are naturally and honestly hungry. Just make sure that you are eating a decent diet high in protein and low in processed/refined/sugary foods.

I will most likely be revisiting this subject again, so please toss me some questions or comments and I'll do my best to answer them in the next post.

Banana Nut Bites (Son of Grok Recipe-RIP)

Sara is a damn good senior supervisor. When her boss told her to bring snacks for the callers at her job, she didn't take the short and easy way out of it by buying a box of doughnuts or a bag of chips. She goes all out and puts her heart into making something with some substance.

Today it was decided that she would make some Banana Nut Bites that we found a long time ago on this great website called sonofgrok.com. It was ran by a guy who followed the primal blueprint, chronicling his fitness and nutrition adventures and occasionally posting some drop dead amazing recipes that he would create on his own. He had everything from primal barbecue sauce to thai coconut curry, caveman cookies to bacon explosion (a bacon weave wrapped around a log of meat covered in primal bbq sauce, holy shit!).

Today we were extremely saddened to find that his website had been discontinued. All of those resources and awesome articles gone with the wind. So I set out to see if someone... anyone, had posted the recipe on their own website and luckily I found the cupcake architect. This person had the recipe I was searching for much to my pleasure.

Banana Nut Bites with Apple Slices.

This is pre-cooked. We forgot to photograph the finished product..

This is a super easy treat to make. All you need is some bananas, eggs, nuts, and coconut.

For every one banana, you need:
1 1/2 cup of nuts (I used walnuts and pecans)
1/2 cup of shredded unsweetened coconut (I used bobs red mill)
1 egg

You also need a food processor or else this is a lot more difficult.

1: Pre-heat the oven to 350.
2: Combine all ingredients (minus the egg) in a food processor and mix thoroughly.
3: Mix the egg into the stuff.
4: Butter a 9x9 pan or something. Doesn't really matter what you bake it in, you just want to spread the \mixture so it's about 1/2" thick.
5: Thin slice an apple and lay the slices on top (optional)
6: Bake until crisp-ish (20-30 mins)

Variation: You can play around with it by adding different dried fruits, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, or flavor extract like vanilla. Also, I don't know if it was because of the type of apple or what, but the apple slices became rather leathery. It tasted fine, but I don't think I would add it next time. In the photo above we made 3 batches and we still had enough room on our baking sheet to add another batch. Altogether we had about 36 1x2" bars @ 135 kcal, 3g pro, 12g fat, 5g carb per bar. So they're pretty nutrient dense, don't go overboard on them.

Macronutrient Breakdown Per Batch (not including apple):

Calories: 1,620 kcal
Protein: 37.7g
Fat: 149.3g
Carbohydrate: 62.7g

Definition of Self Defense

When most people speak of self defense, they are usually referring to combat situations involving some sort of martial art or weapon used to deter an attacker. This is truly defending oneself, of that there's no question, but to use this as the only definition of "self defense" is to severely limit the true broad scope of what self defense actually is.

Pictured: a mugger... or a ninja chef.

There are plenty of situations in which you can find yourself in danger, yet can not be solved by combative means, no matter how many black belts you've attained, or how big a gun you've got. In fact, I would go so far as to say that, in your daily life, you are more likely to encounter a non combative situation than a combative one. This creates a problem because most folks neglect any sort of training that could help them in, say, a house fire where they might have to carry an unconscious family member to safety. Perhaps you may have to quickly climb a tree to escape an attacking animal or flood waters. Maybe you will have to be able to balance across a slick fallen tree to cross a river when you find yourself lost in the forest, or need the ability to run and negotiate obstacles if you are attacked by a large group of people.

Zombies don't do Parkour. 

It's easy to see that in these situations, you may not be able to utilize martial arts to protect yourself. You can't roundhouse kick a blazing inferno no more than you can grapple with a flood; bullets will not carry your unconscious/injured family members out of danger. In case of an emergency it's up to you to be physically capable of defending yourself or others, and that calls for training in natural movement capacities that we've long been negligent of. 

Training programs that follow this ideal have been around since at least 1902 when French naval officer Georges Hebert created Methode Naturelle in response to his experience in Saint-Pierre, Martinique when he successfully rescued nearly 700 people from the chaos that ensued when Mount Pelee erupted. There he saw citizens in full blown panic, physically incapable of surviving the stampeding mass of people, raining hot ash, molten lava, and hordes of venomous snakes retreating from the forest getting tangled in and biting their legs and feet.

Methode Naturelle became the core of the French navy's physical regimen and those who partook in the training soon became ranked with world-class decathletes. These sailors trained with the motto "Be strong to be useful." Unfortunately, Hebert and his instructors would die before they could pass the training on to other nations.

Today, however, a man named Erwan Le Corre has revived Methode Naturelle, adding and enhancing the program to be fully scalable and applicable in today's modern world. He's deemed the program MovNat and has brought this training to the masses, holding clinics all over the world and annual 5 day summer seminars in West Virginia. He urges people to break free from what he calls the Zoo Human lifestyle, where we drive everywhere, sit all day, and do useless exercises on unnatural machines in the gym, and eat garbage. 

This is what the rest of the world thinks of when they hear the word "America".

This brings me to another extension of the "self defense" definition: Diet and Nutrition. You can't punch diabetes, heart disease, or obesity. You can't even run or climb them away entirely. These illnesses and many others are brought about by eating poorly which is easily changeable when you take the effort to break your addiction to eating crap food. Eating well strengthens the immune system and gives you massive amounts of energy.

So when I say self defense, I mean defending yourself from all forms of peril, be it combative, situational, or nutritional. Not only does practice in these fields increase your chances of living longer, it increases your ability to live happier, healthier lives, free from the constraints of illness and disability. Whether you do it for preparedness, just for the sake of reconnecting to your inner human animal, or just for the fun of it, you'll benefit amazingly from incorporating all these aspects into your training.

Session Review (Sunday, January 22nd, 2010)

     The fields and playground were still covered in ice and slush so we convened under the basketball shed and used the long covered walkways to devote some practice to running technique.The main focus was simply relaxing into the run and maintaining good posture and foot strike. We also talked a little about hip angle, breathing, and stride cadence. If you would like some review or reference for running technique, check out this video here:

http://www.outsideonline.com/featured-videos/fitness-videos/running/Paleo-Fitness--Barefoot-Running-101.html

We then moved on to gung fu training, covering open bi-jong, closed bi-jong, closing, wu-sao, chung choi's, basic mitt drills, and fook sao. We also worked a little bit on sledgehammer drills. I'd like to go more into depth with these next time, so for the sake of becoming familiarized with the movements, you can check out this link, which also offers a little bit of inspirational insight as to the effectiveness of swinging:

http://crewman6.hubpages.com/hub/Fitness-Over-50-My-Sledgehammer-Workout-Routine

Afterwards we made our way to starbucks and got down to the core of what I'd like this group to be, and I think we are all pretty much on the same page. These gatherings aren't solely focused on teaching martial arts, or teaching how to exercise, that's what we're working on at the moment and maybe that will be the foundation, but there's a lot more opportunity here. I want this group to be focused on self improvement in all forms. I don't want anyone to think these are "Robs classes" because we all have insights and knowledge and experience that we can share and I'd like that to be the emphasis of these get togethers. Not only to show up and work out, but also to make time for conversation and connection that leads to personal growth. So if you have something you would like to teach us, be it poi, break dancing, martial arts, guitar.... anything, I'd like our group to be a place where we can spread that knowledge. Not for profit or gain, but for connection and growth. So next weekend we are meeting at Game Farm Park, reviewing what we went over today and covering some new stuff. I hope everyone can make it and maybe go out for lunch or coffee afterward. See you all then!

Martial Arts Technique Review

Here's a list of the exercises we went through Sunday for personal review.

Terminology

"Trapping": 

      Any technique which temporarily immobilizes a person or allows you control of their movements 

"Non-Telegraphic":

      A way to move that is difficult for the opponent to see coming. In contrast, telegraphing a strike is when you do something that tells an opponent you are coming before you strike such as flinching the shoulders, tensing the neck, directing eyes to target, winding up, leaning backwards, chambering a punch or kick, etc...

Stances  

Open Bi-Jong:

     This stance is used to set up for motion. The fight has not yet started and you are still trying to defuse the situation. The stance is narrow, feet together (one in front, one in back), shoulders and hips square to the opponent, and hands to the side, this gives the open bi-jong a non-threatening look. The rear leg is loaded and ready to propel you either in attack or deffense. 

Closed Bi-Jong: 

     This stance is used to give you a stable, yet mobile base for when you are engaged with an opponent. The feet are at least shoulder width apart and deeply set forward and back. Your weight should be positioned 40/60 or 50/50 between your front and back foot respectively, with the point of contact being the ball of the foot. Each foot is pushing down and away with springy energy. Front foot is angled in slightly to allow for rapid front and back closing. Shoulders and hips are square and hands are in...

Wu-Sao (defensive hands):

     Hands are about shoulder width apart and arms are held in bridge position. Hands are open, loose, and relaxed; positioned between attackers corresponding fists and your face. If no opponent is in front of you, hands are about chin height.

Bridge Position: 

     Strongest angle of arm position with least amount of effort. Slight bend at elbow, not extended like frankenstein or far back like T-Rex arms. 

Closing: 

     Using the spring energy of the closed bi jong, lifting one foot forces the body in the opposite direction causing you to move around the floor. The steps are short, even, and fast as to keep your base wide and stable, weight on the balls of the feet to allow for mobility/agility. 

Central Axis Spin:
     When turning 180 degrees, weight shifts to the ball of the front foot while back leg sweeps around, turning the whole body to face the opposite direction, the back foot becomes the front foot, ending in a solid closed bi-jong.

Strikes

Chung Choi:

     Basic gung fu strike. Shoulders stay square and punch follows 5 guideline aspects which go as follows: 

1) Elbow Pockets- Starting position, arms create a 90 degree angle, elbow hang straight down to the sides.

2) Angle of the Arms- The straight path that the arm follows. It doesn't drift into the center, lift up, slide down, or drift out. It's one straight path forward and up to the...

3) Height and Center of the Nose- The ending point of the strike, which is the height and center of your own nose 

4) Recoil- Chung Choi's should not be stiff, kinetic strikes. A proper strike is loose, tensing up only as impact is being made and then immediately springing back with the same fluidity it had pre-strike. This is called recoil

5 )Rhythem-  Chaining punches left and right in a continuous movement. As one goes back, the other goes forward. Shoulders should stay loose and relaxed throughout the entire exercise.

Elbow (1):

     Hand stays loose and relaxed as it draws in towards the shoulder/pectoral. The elbow strike comes in across the center from the side, and makes contact with the side of the opponents head. The upper torso will torque with this strike, and the power comes from turning off the rear toe, much like a cross punch in boxing.   

Hook Kick:

     A power kick that can be done off either leg, the target being the side of the body, usually below the hip. The base foot pivots on the ball 90 degrees as the kicking leg comes up, rotating and opening up at the hip, pointing the knee at the target (much like you would get on a bike) and snapping the foot out to connect with the shin/top of the foot.  

Snapping Toe Kick:

     A Non-Telegraphic speed kick done off the front foot, the target being the groin. With a forward lean, the front leg drives off the toe and travels in a straight line up to the groin, where the toe snaps up to make contact. This is a disruptive entry kick to drop the opponents hands, therefore you should come forward as the food descends to the ground after the kick. 

Knee (1):

     Rest both hands lightly on the back of the pads (or head) and bring the rear knee straight up into the pads (or face) just before contact use hands to jolt the persons head into the strike.

Trapping 

Fook-Sao:

     Opponent's lead arm is up in a fighting stance. We are in closed Bi-Jong and our corresponding hand is in contact with their forearm, we draw our elbow in to the center and down to the ground with a jolt. This causes the opponent to (1) turn slightly, rendering their opposite hand unable to strike you, (2) jolt forward opening up their chin to a strike, and (3) come up on their toes, making them unable to move their base, other than catching their balance.

There you have it, I think that's just about everything we covered, if I forgot anything, let me know.