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Episode #2108
Cutting Edge Fitness
Holt: Satoru karate, fencing and the art of boxing: three very different disciplines, three cutting edge strategies for getting into shape no matter your size of age. Find out how they could work for you next on Black Issues Forum.
Voiceover: Funding for this program is made possible in part by UNC-TV members.
Holt: Hello everyone and welcome to Black Issues Forum. I am Deborah Holt. It's been well documented that North Carolina's African-American population suffers at a higher rate when it comes to obesity and overall general health. And now a 2003 report on the physical activity of Americans from the Centers for Disease Control found that African-Americans are getting slightly less physical activity both in exercise and leisure time activity. The reasons why are varied but fitness experts say one of the keys to developing an exercise program and sticking to it is finding something that you enjoy doing. Over the next half-hour we'll meet some individuals who discovered their favorite sports and are using their love of the game not only to compete and to stay in shape, but to teach others how to do the same. Please note information in this program is for informational purposes and is not intended for use as diagnosis or treatment of a health problem or as a substitute for consulting a licensed healthcare professional for medical advice, instruction, diagnosis or treatment. If you have specific questions or concerns please consult your physician or appropriate licensed healthcare professional. In a moment we'll meet our guests but first, a gentleman who's helping young and old in a variety of ways through the practice of martial arts.
[FILM CLIP]
Dillingham: My name is Larry Dillingham. I'm a Fourth Degree Blackbelt in Satoru, which is one of the four major Japanese styles initiated by Gesan Funikoshi. Forms, Akata, self-defense, which is one of our specialties and, of course, sparring. We love to fight. We enter tournament competition all over the southeastern coast. And we have a lot of fun with it. Most of the time whenever you hear someone or someone says, "I'm in martial arts" or "I want to take martial arts," it's the thing that you see physically that they do, the technique, the stances and the different things that they do that seem so difficult. Those things take continuous training. But again, when you're in competition like we are, it does take some conditioning as far as exercising, your endurance. So we do a lot of cardio things, running in place, push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks. And a lot of it is mental concentration as well.
Bey: I started when I was 44, about 44 years old. And I am 66 years old now. And I have a class of my own for women and it keeps the body in shape. And it's good for the mind as well.
Dillingham: Martial arts is for anyone, I mean from the age of three on up to 103, you know? As long as you have the mental capacity to be able to understand hello, good bye, come in, go out, you can learn martial arts.
Whenever I started, I told my brother, "I don't want to make those noises, you know?" But what I came to realize is those noises that you make is what we call kiai. You're breathing. When you exhale, it adds the power to your technique. Your kiai also allows us to be able to take on kicks and punches or karate techniques from other trained fighters without getting the breath knocked out of us because there's not any air in our body to be knocked out. We learn to exhale with the breathing.
Holt: There are various forms of martial arts. Larry and his brothers teach one style. Another style which is equally effective in body conditioning, is Tiger Shark hapkido.
Little: My name is Tommy Little. I'm a second dan martial artist in hapkido. It is a street combat martial art. I had two heart attacks. I had one on a Tuesday and one on a Thursday. And I had two stint implants. And the doctors told me that if I wanted to live I had to get into a workout at least four nights a week and at least 30 minutes a day. So I thought, "Well, if I'm going to go through all that pain, I'm going to do something constructive. I'm going to learn self defense." And then I really took the first step into martial arts.
Martial arts is very good in physical exercise. Two nights of my classes a week is designed to get into physical shape. To obtain a black belt, you have to reach a physical and mental level to be a black belt.
Holt: I'd like to introduce Wes Caudill, an instructor in both fencing and the martial art of Muay Thai boxing at NBS gym in Raleigh. And he's also a certified coach with USA Boxing. Also, I'd like to introduce Glen Spencer, the US Muay Thai Association US Cruiser weight amateur champion. Welcome, both of you, to the program. Thanks for coming. Let me start off with you Wes. Why do you think that martial arts is such a popular form for getting into shape and getting into good condition?
Caudill: Well, it helps people have a reason for going out there and getting in shape. If you're going into the gym, lifting weights and things can be fun. For some people they have a group that goes in and lifts. But for a lot of people they want to do something constructive with their time. Being able to perform a task at the end of the day, as opposed to saying, "Well I can lift more plates than you." It's like, "Well no, I can throw you, or I can kick you, or I could punch you, or stab you," depending on what you're teaching.
Holt: And actually, martial arts, we're going to be talking about several different forms during this program. But exactly what does that mean?
Caudill: A martial art is basically anything you can use to defend yourself. So a lot of things that people don't consider a martial art really are. Like high school wrestling is actually a martial skill. If you can throw somebody, if you can take them down, if you can subdue them, then you are doing a martial activity. Fencing is another thing. The sport is somewhat removed from actual martial because it's an Olympic sport. But the basic application of it, if you put a real weapon in some of those people's hands, you're in trouble.
Holt: Um-hmm. And now Glen, how did you even get interested in Muay Thai boxing?
Spencer: Well actually, I was with some of my friends. We were watching TV one night and we was watching kick boxers on K-1. And they said, "You think you can fight? You think you know all this? You're Mr. Karate guy." And I said, "Yeah, I do that. I can do it. I've just got to find the right training." So it's sparked by, I used to always dibble and dabble in martial arts but had to find the right style that, you know, accommodated me. So when I seen kick boxing, Muay Thai, I just fell in love with it.
Holt: And how is it for actually getting you into condition? You said you've done some other sports. But what's been sort of the difference for you?
Spencer: Yeah, well, since I'm a competitor and I'm a fighter, a champion fighter, I do have to keep my condition at its highest peak because I've got to be ready to call for fighting. So also it's a lot of running, cardio, polymetric stuff we do. My trainer here, Wes, we do a whole lot of pounding, you know, stuff that conditions a body to take the compact impact.
Holt: And you mentioned the word polymetric?
Caudill: Polymetrics.
Holt: What is that?
Caudill: That's a lot of - what polymetrics are is basically using your body as a weight. So basic push-ups and crunches are an example of that. But you can take it to a further extreme. One of the things we do is we have like gymnastic rings. And we have people do pull-ups and dips and crunches off the rings, lots of short sprints and we're talking about hanging back crunches, which we talked about a minute earlier. We have one of our long kick bags. You jump up, you lock your legs around the bag and then you arch back, touch the back of your head to the bottom of the bag and then bring your forehead up to the top of the bag. That's a type of polymetric training because you're using your body and your own weight to condition yourself.
Holt: Sounds like a really serious exercise. We're going to talk about some more. But first, it seems that Americans have been fascinated with the sport of boxing since boxing began. And movies like "Rocky", "Ali", and the recent box office hit like "Million Dollar Baby" have propelled boxing further into the mainstream, opening it up to practically everyone, including myself. I recently took a trip back to George's Boxing Gym in Asheville to find out just what has men, women and children so fascinated with boxing.
[FILM CLIP]
McDowell: I'm George McDowell at George's Boxing Arena. And I am coach and owner of the gym. It's all about people getting in shape. A lot of the kids that comes in here, they want to compete for competition and we get them in shape to compete in boxing.
Maynor: Like I noticed a lot of people think that boxing, you know, you've got to be real strong and have gigantic arms and all this stuff, but it's not true. You know, you don't even - you list some weights but not a whole lot. It's mostly, you know, how bad you want it and how much you like it. I know it's not as easy as what people think now. It's a whole lot harder than that. And I do a whole lot better in school now too just because I know that if I don't do good I ain't coming to the gym.
McDowell: Whether it's female or male, they want to learn the art of boxing. We hit bags, they have to learn drills. We have four drills. If you're going to compete for competition you have to master four drills. They have to master all of the boxing drills and they have to do the calisthenics perfect. They have to go out there and show us that they're ready for competition. He's ready for the ring, he's ready.
Holt: Just a few months of training at George's Boxing Arena and a gut load of determination and 13-year-old Dakota is ready for competition. But what kind of workout could boxing have in store for the average adult woman? All I can say is, set your eyes on the prize because only the strong survive!
McDowell: We don't do no contacts for the first three months. I've got to get you in shape before you even start punching.
Holt: After some instruction on jabs and one-two punches he sent me to the ring for some shadow boxing. The rest of the boxers workout consists of drills and calisthenics.
McDowell: We do a lot of ab work, abdominal work, because that's where a lot of boxers get hurt when they got a weak ab. So we do a lot of ab work, a lot of jump rope for stamina. We jump rope constantly.
Holt: And there are drills for stamina and endurance.
McDowell: Yeah, it breaks a lot of sweat.
Holt: This plank exercise is popular in Pilates too. Just holding this position for one to three minutes is an exercise for toning just about every muscle in the body.
McDowell: You have to have confidence in yourself. And you have to work out. We work out doing all types of calisthenics. And you have to be in shape for boxing.
[END OF FILM CLIP]
Holt: You definitely do. I must say, that was quite a workout, even just one day, getting in there and trying some of the drills. Now Glen, did you do any training for boxing when you prepared for Muay Thai?
Spencer: Yeah, there's a cross between - you do boxing also. I started to box in - Wes offers training in boxing. And it's a cross between - Muay Thai is almost like it's, you stand like boxers but we just use leg kicks and knees and elbows.
Holt: We actually have some footage of you sparring with someone. Do you help train others? Or what happens in the sparring?
Spencer: Yes, sometimes during the course of training, I teach everybody technique and they also go with it. So I'm like the hands-on guy. Wes is better just breaking it down. I can just show you but I can just show you.
Caudill: I'm good at hands-on too.
Spencer: He's very good.
Holt: It looks like it's really - you're using a lot of arm muscles and also your leg muscles. But then - is this, I would imagine, a really good cardio workout as well.
Caudill: Yes, it is. When you're moving like that, since in Thai boxing you can punch, kick, knee and elbow. And there are some throws that at legal. So through the course of moving you're actually keeping away from an opponent as well as trying to press an advantage on an opponent. Then at any range they can attack you and you potentially are going to attack them. So you have to be prepared to deal with whatever happens if you're the aggressor or if you're the defender.
Holt: And you must have gotten pretty good to have won the title - a U.S. title. You even brought your belt here, as you're a U.S. champion, amateur champion. What did you have to do to earn that belt and how much conditioning and training did it take?
Spencer: Number one, I was very lucky to have good trainers. That made me survive in the ring, between people that know what they're doing. Because anybody can just send you out there to be a punching bag. But I had good trainers. Even when I'd get tired they'd just work me, keep hollering at me. So all that plays a good important part and then I keep a training log when I run and everything. I've got to turn it in. It was more like discipline. It's a team thing; without them I probably couldn't have got it so fast. But I had good trainers and good technique and good endurance and stuff. That's how we succeeded.
Holt: And you raise a really good point about getting a good trainer. How do you, if someone is interested in boxing or some other form of martial arts, what would you advise them to do in terms of finding a reputable school and trainer?
Caudill: Actually that's a really tough thing to do. If it's a national sport, say like fencing or boxing, you can always go to the national amateur organization like USA Boxing or USFA Fencing. And they will have a list of gyms that are recognized by them. You can also go to check the lists and the point standings of the local competitions or national competitions are see where the key fencers are from or the boxers are from so you have a good idea of who is at least training them appropriately for competition if that's what you're looking for. Or it can at least be nearby and you can train close to what you want. But the big thing is to go in and try to get a feel for the gym for as long as possible, get to know the instructor and the other people who are training there. Because they're going to tell you that it's a great place to train because that's where they train. So you might want to ask around at some other places. And granted there will be rivalries among some gyms. But if you just talk to enough people and watch what they do, try to get information from third or fourth sources and research it. There's a lot of footage on the Internet now, a lot of discussion groups and things like that, that you can get really good information on the people that you want to train with.
Holt: So you do your coaching not only in boxing and Muay Thai boxing, some martial arts at the NBS Gym but also fencing. Now we have a little bit of footage with some fencing. Tell us a little bit about what it is about this activity that helps you get into shape. What's it working out?
Caudill: Fencing is a very balanced and smooth sport. You have to keep your body perfectly balanced because to score a point on an opponent all you have to do is press a tip about a millimeter. So I have to keep an exact distance from you. And if I want to close on you I have to close on you very, very quickly to keep you from doing that to me. Since the actions aren't really designed to injure your opponent but just to injure your opponent but just to touch, it's really, really a very fast game of tag. And you have a 14-meter length of strip, fencing area, that's two meters wide at its widest, a meter-and-a-half, depending on the event. And you run the whole length of it.
Holt: I was going to ask the question, how interested or how much interest do you see on the part of African-Americans in martial arts, in the karate, the boxing and then the fencing. We certainly have q couple of African-Americans who have become Olympic national champions, Keith and Aaron Smart, a brother and sister team, so that might be a good example. But how much interest are you seeing among African-Americans in these areas?
Caudill: Well, the boxing and the kick boxing, there's a lot of interest in that. But with the fencing it's different enough for a lot of people. Fencing has this sort of aura that is just an alien thing, that no one understands it and is nervous about it.
Holt: Is it expensive?
Caudill: No, not when you first start. If you start buying gear it is a little bit of an outset to begin with. But depending on where you train, another one of those things about finding a gym, is to how much equipment you have to provide up front and how much equipment they're going to provide for you. But once you get into competing, then like any gear head, you can spend as much money as you want. But a minimal cost can get you into it. And a lot of gyms will provide gear or at least will loan it or let you rent it from them for the competitions. Because most fencers really want more fencers and they're willing to do what they can to get more fencers because it's so much fun and they like to get more people involved. I had two fencers go to an international tournament two weeks ago, the North American Cup out in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And in one event the cadet foil, there were 220-something fencers. Christian is going to be mad. I can't remember how he placed but it was in the top 60, I think, or better. Sorry, Christian!
Holt: That's okay. Well, Christian, forgive us! But Glen, tell me a little bit about how long you've been doing the Muay Thai and how it's really built your body up condition-wise.
Spencer: Well, I've been training for almost five years now. The first time I started training was about like six or seven months. Then I had a knack for fighting so Wes and them was comfortable with me fighting. And I could tell my body started changing. I started getting stronger, like certain exercises, my legs would start getting stronger and my body was tolerating more pain.
Holt: Tolerating pain.
Spencer: Yeah, tolerating pain.
Holt: So after awhile it's not hurting so bad?
Spencer: Yeah, it's not hurting so bad. Now I can walk after a fight.
Holt: That's a good thing.
Spencer: Actually somebody carries me, even after I win, you know? But that's what has done for me.
Holt: Now there's certainly the physical body health benefits, but what other benefits would you say? You're really got to shape up your agility, balance and maybe a mental thing as well.
Caudill: Yes, mentally one of the things is being able to force yourself to do what you have to do. If you're looking to compete or even just looking to participate actively you have to focus and commit to a task. So if you want to be able to finish that first round of boxing or you have to make yourself get in shape, to go through that first round, to put that energy into it. Anybody can cover up and just sort of get beat up for a minute and say, "Well, I survived a round." But do you want to survive a round or do you want to compete for a round? And that's a whole different level of mental focus as far as seeing your opponent, finding the right points to attack and how to defend against whatever they're throwing against you.
Holt: Now somebody who doesn't necessarily want to compete, they can still come to your gym, right?
Caudill: Oh yes!
Holt: Now if you're not in competition mode, are you still able to get a good workout? What's recommended is, I guess, three, no four days a week, 30 minutes a pop. How long is a typical training session? And can you get in shape just with fencing or just with Muay Thai boxing?
Caudill: Yes, you can. The way we run the classes there's always a segment of conditioning, just outright conditioning as well as the training. But if you're doing the training and doing the drill work and you're doing it properly, you relax, you work the technique. And if you're working specifically to that need, say you're throwing an uppercut, then you use your legs, twist your body to bring your hand up under the jaw; it's a short pop with the hand. Well, we'll work on that for 10-15 minutes. Well, if you throw uppercuts with you and your partner then you're going to work those muscles over and over again, relax, switching and popping. It will get your heart rate up, sweat well. And just through the course of training the techniques you build up a lot of cardio. And then the conditioning segment that we do at the end is just overall strength conditioning, joint strength conditioning. Because a lot of the things that we, the martial art stuff and the fencing, the joints take a lot of abuse and you have to strengthen them whereas a lot of plate lifting doesn't really strengthen the actual tendons and ligaments in the joints, mostly just the muscles.
Holt: So you're not having to, for fencing for example, you don't have to lift weights and so forth. But even just the little bit that you and I did - I went to see your gym - and just the stance that you have to maintain and for a long time, it really builds up your legs.
Caudill: Yes. And like the stance in fencing, a lot of stances in the karates and in Thai boxing, fencing in particular, you're isolating certain muscles to hold yourself in that stance to free up other muscles to do other things or to just stay out of the way. So you start working muscles that are deep in your legs and your back and your abs, especially in the upright stance in the fencing. So you start to isolate a lot of things and they're the support muscles and the core muscles that need to be worked.
Holt: Let's talk a little bit about the danger component of this. What is the potential for getting injured, with boxing, with any of the martial arts. And how do you as instructors protect the people who are students?
Caudill: We make sure that before anyone does any contact work in any sport that we teach, that they know that it's a sport. There's a difference between sparring and fighting and there's a difference between fencing and sword fighting. If you're not out to fence - some people come in and say, "I have a sword in my hand. I'm just going to hit you a lot and hit you really hard!" If you're going to do that I'm not going to put a blade in your hand. Because the fencing blades are made of steel. It's like a metal whip. If you use it wrong it can really hurt somebody. Same thing with the Muay Thai. I mean we're teaching how to punch a knee to the head and eventually you learn elbows. Well, we don't just, "Well, I'm working elbow right now" and bang and hit somebody in the face. So we do maintain a lot of control over what we do. And when they do start taking contact for the sparring it's all really, really friendly. And if anybody gets too worked up or too nervous we always stop it and calm them down and say, "Look, you're just working, you're just practicing.
Spencer: And also for those who like to try to go hacking other people, we put people in who can substitute for them, you know. We got something for all of that. You really want to beat on somebody, we something for it. But like you said, the whole thing is just working out and being safe. And that's our whole thing our training, being trained right and having people that's going to be relaxing, going to help you try to learn. When we teach you we don't just throw you in there to get beat up. I let a whole lot of people punch on me so they can get used to hitting people.
Holt: Yes, I saw some of that.
Spencer: They will hit on me, even the females, we'll get them in the ring and I'll say, "Go ahead, hit hard so you can get used to how it's supposed to feel." So like we say, good training and good trainers.
Holt: Wow! Well, some really good information about all three forms of martial arts and so I hope this has been informative. We appreciate you both coming out to share with us. If you would like to get in touch with any of our guests today or obtain a copy or a transcript of tonight's show please visit us online at www.unctv.org/bif. You can also call us on the Black IssuesForumat 919-549-7167. Please join us each and every Sunday afternoon at 4:30 pm for more stimulating discussion. For Black Issues Forum, I'm Deborah Holt. Have a good evening.
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