Judo Grand Slam Highlights - Baku, Azerbaijan - 2014
Internal Kung Fu training in Boulder, Colorado, USA. Gao Bagua Zhang, Chen Pan Ling Tai Chi Chuan or Hebei Xingyi Quan; a method for building mindfulness, lasting health and personal transformation using unique movement and martial contact in a safe setting with an established long term group.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Bagua Dao - Bagua Broadsword - Master Li Zi Ming
Bagua Broadsword (Bagua Dao) Demonstration by famed Master Li Zi Ming.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
From athletes to couch potatoes: humans through 6,000 years of farming
Research into lower limb bones shows that our early farming ancestors in Central Europe became less active as their tasks diversified and technology improved. At a conference today, Cambridge University anthropologist Alison Macintosh will show that this drop in mobility was particularly marked in men.
Research into lower limb bones shows that our early farming ancestors in Central Europe became less active as their tasks diversified and technology improved. At a conference today, Cambridge University anthropologist Alison Macintosh will show that this drop in mobility was particularly marked in men.
Human bones are remarkably plastic and respond surprisingly quickly to change. Put under stress through physical exertion – such as long-distance walking or running – bones gain in strength as the fibres are added or redistributed according to where strains are highest. The ability of bone to adapt to loading is shown by analysis of the skeletons of modern athletes, whose bones show remarkably rapid adaptation to both the intensity and direction of strains.
Because the structure of human bones can inform us about the lifestyles of the individuals they belong to, they can provide valuable clues for biological anthropologists looking at past cultures. Research by Alison Macintosh, a PhD candidate in Cambridge University’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, shows that after the emergence of agriculture in Central Europe from around 5300 BC, the bones of those living in the fertile soils of the Danube river valley became progressively less strong, pointing to a decline in mobility and loading.
Macintosh will present some of her results at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Calgary, Alberta on 8-12 April, 2014. She will show that mobility and lower limb loading in male agriculturalists declined progressively and consistently through time and were more significantly affected by culture change in Central Europe than they were in females.
Work published by biological anthropologist Dr Colin Shaw (also Cambridge University) has enabled Macintosh to interpret this male decline in relation to Cambridge University students. Using Shaw’s study of bone rigidity among modern Cambridge University undergraduates, Macintosh suggests that male mobility among earliest farmers (around 7,300 years ago) was, on average, at a level near that of today’s student cross-country runners. Within just over 3,000 years, average mobility had dropped to the level of those students rated as sedentary, after which the decline slowed.
“Long-term biomechanical analyses of bones following the transition to farming in Central Europe haven’t been carried out. But elsewhere in the world they show regional variability in trends. Sometimes mobility increases, sometimes it declines, depending on culture and environmental context. After the transition to farming, cultural change was prolonged and its pace was rapid. My research in Central Europe explores whether – and how – this long term pressure continued to drive adaptation in bones,” said Macintosh.
Archaeological evidence has shown that the gradual intensification of agriculture was accompanied by rising production and complexity of metal goods, technological innovation and the extension of trade and exchange networks. “These developments are likely to have brought about changes in divisions of labour by sex and socioeconomic organisation as men and women began to specialise in certain tasks and activities – such as metalworking, pottery, crop production, tending and rearing livestock,” said Macintosh.
“I’m interested in how the skeleton adapted to people's specific behaviours during life, and how this adaptation can be used to reconstruct long-term changes in behaviour and mobility patterns with cultural diversification, technological innovation, and increasingly more complex and stratified societies since the advent of farming.”
As a means of tracking changes in the structure of bones over time, Macintosh laser-scanned skeletons found in cemeteries across Central Europe, concentrating in particular on an analysis of engineering-based cross-sectional geometric properties as measures of the loading imposed on the lower limb bones during life. Her research took her to Germany, Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic and Serbia. The earliest skeletons she examined date from around 5300 BC and the most recent from around 850 AD – a time span of 6,150 years.
Using a portable desktop 3D laser surface scanner to scan femora and tibiae, she found that male tibiae became less rigid and that bones in both males and females became less strengthened to loads in one direction more than another, such as front-to-back in walking. These findings all indicate a drop in mobility. In other words, it is likely that the people to whom the skeletons belonged became, over generations, less intensely active and probably covered less distance, or carried out less physically demanding tasks, than those who had lived before them.
“Both sexes exhibited a decline in anteroposterior, or front-to-back, strengthening of the femur and tibia through time, while the ability of male tibiae to resist bending, twisting, and compression declined as well,” said Macintosh.
“My results suggest that, following the transition to agriculture in Central Europe, males were more affected than females by cultural and technological changes that reduced the need for long-distance travel or heavy physical work. This also means that, as people began to specialise in tasks other than just farming and food production, such as metalworking, fewer people were regularly doing tasks that were very strenuous on their legs."
Although there was some evidence for declining mobility in females as well, trends were inconsistent through time in most properties. Macintosh believes that this variation may indicate that women in these early farming cultures were performing a great variety of tasks – multi-tasking, in fact – or at least undertaking fewer tasks necessitating significant lower limb loading. There is evidence from two of the earliest cemeteries studied that females were using their teeth in processing activities to carry out tasks unlikely to have loaded their lower limbs much.
Interesting comparisons can be made between the archaeological evidence from Central European skeletons dating from around 7,300-1,150 years ago and data from modern farming populations elsewhere in the world.
A study by Panter-Brick in 1996 found that relative workload (as exhibited by time allocation and energy expenditure) between males and females in modern farming populations is much more variable than in foraging groups. As in early Central European farming communities, higher physical activity is recorded among males than females in Indian and Nepalese farming communities, but females have a higher relative workload than males in farming communities in the Upper Volta and the Gambia.
“This variability in the sexual division of labour in living agro-pastoralist groups shows the importance of context, ecology, and various cultural factors on sex differences in physical activity. So it is important when studying long-term trends in behavioural change between the sexes that the geographic region is kept small, to help control for some of this variability,” said Macintosh.
Female skeletons showed a major change in femoral bending and torsional rigidity from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age – between about 1450 BC and 850 BC in the samples studied – when women had the strongest femora of all the females examined in the study. This could be because the Iron Age sample included skeletons of Hungarian Scythians, a group for whom large animal husbandry, horsemanship and archery were particularly important. Scythian females are thought to have performed heavy physical work and were known to participate in at combat.
“However, if this high Iron Age female bone strength in the femur was due to high mobility, it would also probably be visible in the tibia as well, which it was not. In that case, it could be something other than mobility that is driving this Iron Age female bone strength, possibly a difference in body size or genetics,” said Macintosh.
Because the skeleton holds a record of the loading it experiences during life, it can provide important clues as to the
behaviour of past people through prolonged cultural change. Overall, in the first 6,150 years of farming in Central Europe, the prosperity generated by intensive agriculture drove socioeconomic change and allowed for people to specialise in tasks other than food production.
Macintosh said: "In Central Europe, adaptations in human leg bones spanning this time frame show that it was initially men who were performing the majority of high-mobility tasks, probably associated with tending crops and livestock. But with task specialisation, as more and more people began doing a wider variety of crafts and behaviours, fewer people needed to be highly mobile, and with technological innovation, physically strenuous tasks were likely made easier. The overall result is a reduction in mobility of the population as a whole, accompanied by a reduction in the strength of the lower limb bones."
Inset images: Cambridge University cross-country runners (Cambridge University Hare & Hounds); 3D model of an Early Neolithic femur; Bronze Age infant urn burial from Ostojićevo, National Museum of Kikinda in Serbia; wheatfield in modern day Kikinda, northern Serbia (all Alison Macintosh)
Because the structure of human bones can inform us about the lifestyles of the individuals they belong to, they can provide valuable clues for biological anthropologists looking at past cultures. Research by Alison Macintosh, a PhD candidate in Cambridge University’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, shows that after the emergence of agriculture in Central Europe from around 5300 BC, the bones of those living in the fertile soils of the Danube river valley became progressively less strong, pointing to a decline in mobility and loading.
Macintosh will present some of her results at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Calgary, Alberta on 8-12 April, 2014. She will show that mobility and lower limb loading in male agriculturalists declined progressively and consistently through time and were more significantly affected by culture change in Central Europe than they were in females.
Work published by biological anthropologist Dr Colin Shaw (also Cambridge University) has enabled Macintosh to interpret this male decline in relation to Cambridge University students. Using Shaw’s study of bone rigidity among modern Cambridge University undergraduates, Macintosh suggests that male mobility among earliest farmers (around 7,300 years ago) was, on average, at a level near that of today’s student cross-country runners. Within just over 3,000 years, average mobility had dropped to the level of those students rated as sedentary, after which the decline slowed.
“Long-term biomechanical analyses of bones following the transition to farming in Central Europe haven’t been carried out. But elsewhere in the world they show regional variability in trends. Sometimes mobility increases, sometimes it declines, depending on culture and environmental context. After the transition to farming, cultural change was prolonged and its pace was rapid. My research in Central Europe explores whether – and how – this long term pressure continued to drive adaptation in bones,” said Macintosh.
Archaeological evidence has shown that the gradual intensification of agriculture was accompanied by rising production and complexity of metal goods, technological innovation and the extension of trade and exchange networks. “These developments are likely to have brought about changes in divisions of labour by sex and socioeconomic organisation as men and women began to specialise in certain tasks and activities – such as metalworking, pottery, crop production, tending and rearing livestock,” said Macintosh.
“I’m interested in how the skeleton adapted to people's specific behaviours during life, and how this adaptation can be used to reconstruct long-term changes in behaviour and mobility patterns with cultural diversification, technological innovation, and increasingly more complex and stratified societies since the advent of farming.”
As a means of tracking changes in the structure of bones over time, Macintosh laser-scanned skeletons found in cemeteries across Central Europe, concentrating in particular on an analysis of engineering-based cross-sectional geometric properties as measures of the loading imposed on the lower limb bones during life. Her research took her to Germany, Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic and Serbia. The earliest skeletons she examined date from around 5300 BC and the most recent from around 850 AD – a time span of 6,150 years.
Using a portable desktop 3D laser surface scanner to scan femora and tibiae, she found that male tibiae became less rigid and that bones in both males and females became less strengthened to loads in one direction more than another, such as front-to-back in walking. These findings all indicate a drop in mobility. In other words, it is likely that the people to whom the skeletons belonged became, over generations, less intensely active and probably covered less distance, or carried out less physically demanding tasks, than those who had lived before them.
“Both sexes exhibited a decline in anteroposterior, or front-to-back, strengthening of the femur and tibia through time, while the ability of male tibiae to resist bending, twisting, and compression declined as well,” said Macintosh.
“My results suggest that, following the transition to agriculture in Central Europe, males were more affected than females by cultural and technological changes that reduced the need for long-distance travel or heavy physical work. This also means that, as people began to specialise in tasks other than just farming and food production, such as metalworking, fewer people were regularly doing tasks that were very strenuous on their legs."
Although there was some evidence for declining mobility in females as well, trends were inconsistent through time in most properties. Macintosh believes that this variation may indicate that women in these early farming cultures were performing a great variety of tasks – multi-tasking, in fact – or at least undertaking fewer tasks necessitating significant lower limb loading. There is evidence from two of the earliest cemeteries studied that females were using their teeth in processing activities to carry out tasks unlikely to have loaded their lower limbs much.
Interesting comparisons can be made between the archaeological evidence from Central European skeletons dating from around 7,300-1,150 years ago and data from modern farming populations elsewhere in the world.
A study by Panter-Brick in 1996 found that relative workload (as exhibited by time allocation and energy expenditure) between males and females in modern farming populations is much more variable than in foraging groups. As in early Central European farming communities, higher physical activity is recorded among males than females in Indian and Nepalese farming communities, but females have a higher relative workload than males in farming communities in the Upper Volta and the Gambia.
“This variability in the sexual division of labour in living agro-pastoralist groups shows the importance of context, ecology, and various cultural factors on sex differences in physical activity. So it is important when studying long-term trends in behavioural change between the sexes that the geographic region is kept small, to help control for some of this variability,” said Macintosh.
Female skeletons showed a major change in femoral bending and torsional rigidity from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age – between about 1450 BC and 850 BC in the samples studied – when women had the strongest femora of all the females examined in the study. This could be because the Iron Age sample included skeletons of Hungarian Scythians, a group for whom large animal husbandry, horsemanship and archery were particularly important. Scythian females are thought to have performed heavy physical work and were known to participate in at combat.
“However, if this high Iron Age female bone strength in the femur was due to high mobility, it would also probably be visible in the tibia as well, which it was not. In that case, it could be something other than mobility that is driving this Iron Age female bone strength, possibly a difference in body size or genetics,” said Macintosh.
Because the skeleton holds a record of the loading it experiences during life, it can provide important clues as to the
behaviour of past people through prolonged cultural change. Overall, in the first 6,150 years of farming in Central Europe, the prosperity generated by intensive agriculture drove socioeconomic change and allowed for people to specialise in tasks other than food production.Macintosh said: "In Central Europe, adaptations in human leg bones spanning this time frame show that it was initially men who were performing the majority of high-mobility tasks, probably associated with tending crops and livestock. But with task specialisation, as more and more people began doing a wider variety of crafts and behaviours, fewer people needed to be highly mobile, and with technological innovation, physically strenuous tasks were likely made easier. The overall result is a reduction in mobility of the population as a whole, accompanied by a reduction in the strength of the lower limb bones."
Inset images: Cambridge University cross-country runners (Cambridge University Hare & Hounds); 3D model of an Early Neolithic femur; Bronze Age infant urn burial from Ostojićevo, National Museum of Kikinda in Serbia; wheatfield in modern day Kikinda, northern Serbia (all Alison Macintosh)
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Ronda Rousey Takedown Study - Judo in MMA
An excellent Ronda Rousey Takedown Study of Judo in MMA by BJJ Scout.
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Xingyi Quan Colorado - Hsing I Chuan in Boulder - Classes
Boulder Internal Arts offers a complete system of traditional Chinese Internal Kung Fu training. Xingyi Quan (Hsing I Chuan) classes give you a method for building self awareness, lasting health, and personal transformation through movement and martial contact in Boulder, Colorado
First Class Free
Learn Self Defense
Improve Flexibility
Regain Stability & Balance
Reclaim Aerobic Conditioning
Reasonably priced - Excellent Instruction - Fun/ Dedicated Training Group
WEBSITE FACEBOOK
Reasonably priced - Excellent Instruction - Fun/ Dedicated Training Group
WEBSITE FACEBOOK
Friday, June 20, 2014
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
How Far Fitness Has Fallen - An Article About Human Fitness
An article
by Devon Jackson from the Outside website.
If you
were to cross paths with one of your farming ancestors (circa 7,500 to 2,000
B.C.), he'd shove you to the ground, kick sand in your face, and jog off into
the sunset with your mate slung over his shoulder. And even with somebody
else’s partner slung over his other shoulder, you’d probably never catch
up to him. Such has been our musculoskeletal decline in only a handful of
millennia.
“Even
our most highly trained athletes pale in comparison to these ancestors of
ours,” says Dr. Colin Shaw of Cambridge University’s Phenotypic Adaptability,
Variation and Evolution Research Group. “We’re certainly weaker than we used to
be.”
Alison Macintosh, one of Shaw’s PAVE colleagues, thinks so, too. She’s the one whose recent paper, “From athletes to couch potatoes: Humans through 6,000 years of farming,” claims that, when Central Europeans made the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural ones, men’s lower limb strength and overall mobility decreased (even more so than among women).
Alison Macintosh, one of Shaw’s PAVE colleagues, thinks so, too. She’s the one whose recent paper, “From athletes to couch potatoes: Humans through 6,000 years of farming,” claims that, when Central Europeans made the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural ones, men’s lower limb strength and overall mobility decreased (even more so than among women).
Macintosh,
a Cambridge Ph.D. candidate, compared laser-scanned femurs and tibia of
skeletons from around 5300 B.C. to A.D. 850 She then cross-checked her
findings with Shaw’s study of bone rigidity among modern Cambridge
undergraduates, and found that the ability among male farmers to move about
their environment 7,300 years ago was, on average, at a level near that of
today’s student cross-country runners.
Our overall
strength declined because, as technologies improved and men’s and women’s tasks
diversified, people became less active. The result: today’s man is not only
more sedentary than ever before, but compared to men of yon, we’re practically
enfeebled. “We do much, much less than our ancestors,” says Robb Wolf, author
of The Paleo Solution,
“and our skeletons reflect this decrease in activity.”
This decline in physical activity and bone strength has led to osteoporosis, decrease in fitness, obesity, and myriad other problems and diseases. Ironically, “We have an overabundance of nutrition and we train better,” says Shaw, “but we’re overweight and we’re not challenging our bodies like we used to.”
“The average U.S. citizen is considerably less fit than the average hunter-gatherer or forager,” says Dr. Loren Cordain, professor emeritus of health and exercise science at Colorado State University and author of The Paleo Diet. “The lesson to be learned is not from early farmers and their dietary and exercise patterns, but rather from our hunter-gatherer ancestors and their dietary and exercise patterns. These examples represent the norms for our species and the environmental experiences which conditioned our genome.”
Indeed the hunter-gatherers of 30,000 to 150,00 years ago traveled extremely long distances while hauling all kinds of weight. “They were much stronger than the long-distance runners of today,” says Shaw. In a study he published earlier this year, he concluded that “the people back then were monsters by comparison. What you see today is quite pathetic.”
Cordain, for one, thinks we should eat and live like our hunter-gatherer ancestors, whose meat-heavy diets gave them more muscle mass and enhanced their athletic abilities and performance. Wolf would add in weight training, stretching, and, in particular, cross-country running, because it challenges our bodies in the same ways hunter-gatherers had to navigate uneven terrain and the up-and-down of hills—all of which increased their physical robustness.
Do all that and you can reclaim your ancient potential, advises Wolff. “If folks train hard they can achieve remarkable levels of physical development.”
This decline in physical activity and bone strength has led to osteoporosis, decrease in fitness, obesity, and myriad other problems and diseases. Ironically, “We have an overabundance of nutrition and we train better,” says Shaw, “but we’re overweight and we’re not challenging our bodies like we used to.”
“The average U.S. citizen is considerably less fit than the average hunter-gatherer or forager,” says Dr. Loren Cordain, professor emeritus of health and exercise science at Colorado State University and author of The Paleo Diet. “The lesson to be learned is not from early farmers and their dietary and exercise patterns, but rather from our hunter-gatherer ancestors and their dietary and exercise patterns. These examples represent the norms for our species and the environmental experiences which conditioned our genome.”
Indeed the hunter-gatherers of 30,000 to 150,00 years ago traveled extremely long distances while hauling all kinds of weight. “They were much stronger than the long-distance runners of today,” says Shaw. In a study he published earlier this year, he concluded that “the people back then were monsters by comparison. What you see today is quite pathetic.”
Cordain, for one, thinks we should eat and live like our hunter-gatherer ancestors, whose meat-heavy diets gave them more muscle mass and enhanced their athletic abilities and performance. Wolf would add in weight training, stretching, and, in particular, cross-country running, because it challenges our bodies in the same ways hunter-gatherers had to navigate uneven terrain and the up-and-down of hills—all of which increased their physical robustness.
Do all that and you can reclaim your ancient potential, advises Wolff. “If folks train hard they can achieve remarkable levels of physical development.”
How Far Fitness Has Fallen - An Article About Human Fitness - Found HERE
Monday, June 16, 2014
Internal Martial Arts - How to Do: Internal Strength ~ Mike Sigman - Full Video
Internal Martial Arts - How to Do: Internal Strength ~ Mike Sigman - Full Video
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Bagua Zhang - in Colorado - Boulder Internal Arts
Beginning and Ongoing classes in Gao Style Bagua here in Boulder, Colorado. Focusing on teaching a method for self cultivation, lasting health and personal transformation.
· First Class Free
· Increase Muscle Strength
· Improve Flexibility
· Regain Stability & Balance
· Reclaim Aerobic Conditioning
Reasonably priced - Excellent Instruction - Fun/ Dedicated Training Group
*Tuesdays 6pm to 7:30pm*
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Gracie Family - BJJ History - HIGHLIGHTS - 2014 [Hélio Gracie]
Gracie Family - BJJ History - HIGHLIGHTS - 2014 [Hélio Gracie]
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Bagua Zhang - Marcus Brinkman - Boulder Internal Arts - Yi Zong Bagua - Boulder, Colorado
My teacher Marcus Brinkman demonstrating some of his amazing skills. Learn the Xingyi and Bagua of Marcus Brinkman at Boulder Internal Arts an Yi Zong School
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Tai Chi - Chen Style Tai Ji Quan - Push Hands - Tui Shou - Instructional
Tai Chi Push-hands (Tui Shou) Tutorial by 11th generation Chen Tai Chi Master Ma Hong (1927-2013). He was a disciple of 10th generation of Chen's martial artist Chen Zhaokui (1928--1981, 陈照奎 陈氏18世、陈式太极拳第10代传人). Chen Zhaokui was the youngest son of famed Chen Tai Chi master Chen Fa Ke.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Tai Chi - Yang Style - Fu Zhong Wen - Push Hands
Yang Style Tai Chi Push Hands practice with Fu Zongwen top student of Yang style Grandmaster Yang Cheng Fu.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Kung Fu - Drunken Boxing - Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan's epic Drunken Kung Fu fight scene from Drunken Master 2 (one of my all time favorites!)
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Monday, June 2, 2014
Bagua Zhang - Marcus Brinkman - Boulder Internal Arts - Yi Zong Bagua
My teacher Marcus Brinkman demonstrating some of his amazing skills. Learn the Xingyi and Bagua of Marcus Brinkman at Boulder Internal Arts an Yi Zong School.