Everyone has choices to make. And we make them everyday whether you are aware of them or not. How much you train is a choice. How hard you work when you train is a choice.

What you eat is a choice. How many helpings is a choice.
And, as you can see I have been making choices. Far too many of them!

Sometimes it takes a shock to the system to catalyze change. In this case that shock to my system was this photo and it’s remarkable similarities to this photo of a Mongolian wrestler taken from a very unflattering angle.

It is official: I now have Mongolian Jelly Belly.

Yes, it’s amazing how we can delude ourselves.
Well, I need to delude my mind again in a positive way. Perhaps I can figure out a way to delude my mind into enjoying spinach or thinking it’s not hungry when it’s screaming for a pizza.

But jokes aside: Weight control is important for people who wrestle, for people who compete, and for people who want to live a long and healthy life. I want all of those things.
Well, Im wrestling with people 128kgs and lighter, and my favorite benchmark and Beijing Champion - Da Guang - is 115kgs. But my ideal weight is 98kgs, not my current 107kgs!

So, by February 1st, I hope to lose 9kgs of fat. Pretty ambitious ey!

My philosophy on losing fat is simple: move more, eat less.
I’m going to compliment that with:

BSN NO Explode & Nitrix - Creatine to supercharge muscles and workouts. I find this to be an excellent supplement stack well worth the investment.

BSN Atrophex - high powered fat cutter to speed my metabolism and burn fat

Flaxseed Oil - the healthy fat

Spirulina - natures richest food and richest source of amino acids

Vitamin B - essential for optimal health
No Pizza - cheese, doagh, fat, oil, and more fat…not good!
No Chocolate - fat
No Sodas - sugar sugar sugar
Running with my Nike Plus iPod setup - great motivator. Good music, online tracking and community, posts to facebook!

Wresting 2 times a week at Double Hero - basics, handwork and sparring
Weight training 3 times a week - strength-building and fat burning

But I need to track all this. I need to hold myself accountable. I need to stay motivated and I need to discover others trying to achieve what I am trying to achieve. All ideas are welcome!

If you are interested in making new choices, and getting rid of your Mongolian Jelly Belly…then join me and let me know. I’ll hold you accountable, and you have my permission to give me shit if I don’t hit my goal.
Keep Smilin’
Michael

Mongolian Wrestling was the art practiced by the barbarians that the Chinese built The Great Wall to prtect themselves from.

Wrestling in Mongolia is one of the “3 Manly Skills” along with horsemanship and archery and as such skilled wrestlers are revered in Mongolia and champions treated as near gods.

The rules according to Wikipaedia:

The object of a match is to get your opponent to touch his upper body, knee or elbow to the ground. In the Inner Mongolian version, any body part other than the feet touching the ground signals defeat. There are no weight classes or time limits in a match. Each wrestler must wrestle once per round, the winners moving on to the next round.

The technical rules between the Mongolian version and what is found in Inner Mongolia have some divergence. In both versions a variety of throws, trips and lifts are employed to topple the opponent. The Inner Mongolians may not touch their opponent’s legs with their hands, whereas, in Mongolia, grabbing your opponent’s legs is legal. In addition, striking, strangling or locking is illegal in both varieties.

In the case of a sacrifice throw, the first wrestler to touch the ground, regardless of who threw whom, is the loser.

Here are some cool images that i found on an image search. Hope you find some inspiration in here!

Keep Smilin’

Michael

Damdin Danigai – 1921 Mongolian National Naadam Champion.
Number 1 out of 96 contenders.

Came across an interesting blog today: The Mongolia Culture Blog .

I’m curious where their collection of photos came from. Take a look. This is a post about Mongolian Wrestling. Interestingly, it includes a series of photos of Nadaam Champions from the 1920 and 30s!

Take this guy for example: His name is Lhagva. He was the 1931 Champion in an event with 1000 contenders! If you know about Mongolian Wrestling then you know that there are no weight classes! What an achievement.

Are you training hard enough to compete in a class that big?

Keep Smilin’

Michael

Li Ge worksout at Coach Li Deshun’s Double Hero Wrestling Club. He is in his 60’s now but still loves to wrestle with though guys a third his age. Another of his loves is photography. Last week we turned up to train and found 15 or so photographers waiting eagerly for us. They were members of Li Ge’s Photography Club and had come to practice shooting action shots. They were in the right place as Shuaijiao is all about action.

I will drip feed some of the better photos over the next few days here on Shuaijiao.tv, but if you cant wait then i suggest you explore this Chinese site devoted to Beijing’s Fans of Chinese Wrestling. You can find some cool photos and videos there, but dont worry, I will post them here over the next few days.

That’s me doing Jia Liang Jiao

These photos are from a photographer who goes by the name of “Zilong”. You can see his post here. Some great action shots.

Enjoy!

Michael

My Gemer (”mate” in Beijing dialect) Bill from Brave Fighting Championships sent me a link today to this photo.

It is a photographic catalog of China’s 56 different ethnic groups and you can see it here at China Hush (which is also an interesting site worth watching)

Yes, being Chinese is not so simple. And creating ethnic harmony is just as complicated. Many years ago I learned that China’s population is 91.5% Han Chinese, with the other 55 ethnic groups making up the other 8.5%.  But the kicker for the Han Chinese is that that ethnic 8.5% control slash occupy over 60% of China’s landmass. So, it’s a senstive political situation as you can imagine. The Wall Street Journal describe the situation here

Many of China’s ethnic groups have their own forms of wrestling. Foremost in most people’s minds is the wrestling tradition of the Mongols. you might remember seeing some posts on Mongolian Wrestling here before. In fact, most Chinese people here in Beijing ask me: “Is that like Mongolian Wrestling?”  after I tell them I practice Chinese Wrestling. Sad but true. However, I do admit that the influence of  Mongol and Manchu wrestling traditions on modern day Shuaijiao is undeniable.

Interestingly, the photograph of the Mongolian Family includes 2 Mongolian wrestlers  - on the far right - wearing the traditional wrestling attire found in Inner Mongolia. Big boys! And these boys can make money too. It is not uncommon to hear about Mongol wrestlers who wrestle professionally in Inner Mongolia and make 300,000 Yuan per year in prize money.

I’ll explore that more in a future post.

Keep Smilin’

Michael

Sun Dengke is a name I haven’t heard before. I stumbled upon this documentary about him and thought I would share it with you all. Tianjin is famous for it’s Shuaijiao. It has been for a long time. Even today, Tianjin Sports Insitute has an outstanding Shuaijiao program and team with athletes who frequently place in the top three in Chinese national events

Mr. Sun mentions that in Shuaijiao “Strength is basic, Technique is core, and handwork is the essence”. I thought that was an interesting way of putting it. He goes on to add that: “to use that strength, technique and handwork on your opponent is one of the most difficult things to do and requires 5 or 6 years of hard training before you can achieve it”. The video does show several shots of people training with Shuaijiao training equipment like the Zhizi, Tuizi, Dabangzi, Pitiao, and lots of others. He mentions that the Dabangzi was a training tool used by the Qing Dynasty’s elite Shanpuying forces and that many of these training methods are rarely seen today, which is so true. It’s also another reason why Master Li and Mr. Sun really are living treasures of Chinese heritage.

On the whole, this little video is well worth watching if you are interested in seeing Shuaijiao as practiced among the people of Tianjin and the rest of China.

Go for gold!
Michael

[note: Master Li told me that Mr. Sun Dengke has already passed away]

I posted about Coach Li yesterday.

Today, my friend Karl Wang in Hong Kong posted me some links to Coach Li’s Double Hero Wrestling Club Chinese website.

It is a very good site with video, photos, and articles in Chinese. If you are keen to read them in English, perhaps Google Translate could help you get the jist. Google Translate can translate an entire webpage if you paste the url in the translate box.

You can see Double Hero Wrestling’s new gym in this video. It is 20-minutes long is pretty much what Coach Li’s classes for “normal” people - as opposed to professional athletes - are like. Well worth a watch guys, even if you dont understand.

Anyone interested in training with Coach Li and the guys at Double Hero - and that should be ALL of you - is welcome to contact me via email.

Go for gold!

Michael

Li Deshun is a name that you might not have heard before. But it is a name that people should know.

His photo has appeared on Shuaijiao TV before. I posted this photo taken at the Dongxu Cup Beijing Champs in…wow…2007! He is pictured with his student Li Junlei who had just won silver (after giving way to his team mate for the gold), and has just won his second MMA fight in Art of War on November 28th. Check this photo out!

But who is Li Deshun?

I didn’t know too the first time I met him.

I was late that Saturday morning to the old gym in Xuanwu. I quickly blended into practice after apologizing for my slight lateness and trying to hide my hangover.

The guy beside me practicing the Dabangzi (The Big Stick) was going hardcore but looked awkward to me, so I asked him: “Is this your first day?” in my best Chinese.

He laughed and laughed and told Master Li and Coach Ma what I had said which caused them to laugh too. Then I found out who he was.

Li Deshun is from a family of wrestlers, was one of Beijing’s best competitors at national level competition for many years, and was the head coach of Beijing’s National professional team – Huochetou – or “The Engine” as I like to translate it.

Later, when Olympic constuction took over Beijing, we moved to this other small gym in central Beijing. That is the gym you can see in the documentary about me learning Shuaijiao in Beijing. Coach Li Deshun was kind enough to lend us his gym while ours was being rebuilt. Cool thing about that for me was that he came to our workouts too.

I soon realized that Coach Li had great handwork, awesome technique, and was still in shape to throw the tough guys with ease. That combined with his great sense of humor made him my favorite partner for grip fighting. Of course i started not being able to get a grip despite having arms half a foot longer than his. But soon i was making fast progress as he taught me all his tricks openly, in good humor, in a hands-on style i respond well to.

Nowadays, the Huochetou Team has been disband, but that didn’t stop Li Deshun from living his passion. He teaches Shuaijiao professionally here in Beijing, and is also a National-level referee.

His school - Shuangxiong Shuaijiao (Double Hero Chinese Wrestling) - is located in the northern part of the city – see here – and I would have to say – is one of the best-equipped marital arts venue I have seen anywhere.

Classes are in the evenings on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, which makes them easier for me to attend as sometimes Saturday mornings are a stretch after returning late and exhausted on Friday night, and Sundays are a stretch after returning late and inebriated on Saturday night.

Shuaijiao under Coach Li seems more disciplined than I’m used to. But that is a good thing. The quality of the techniques taught is outstanding as well. My evenings spent in Coach Li’s gym are always well invested as I come back buzzing with all sorts of new tips, tricks, and realizations.

I will try to share some of them with you here over the next few months!

Keep Smilin’

&

Go for Gold!

Michael