2019 All-City Champs This Month!

Everyone mark your calendars for April 26th & 27th, as the Colorado Taekwondo Institute will be hosting the 2019 All-City Championships tournament at Alameda International High School. This tournament is open to all AMASEA students.

Events include:

• Poomse (all ages and belts)
• Free-Sparring (ages 5 & up, all belts)
• First Point Wins! Sparring (ages 5 & up, all belts)
• Breaking (age 9 & up, orange belts and above)
• Staff Poomse (all black belts)

You can pre-register for the tournament online and you can learn more about the tournament on the All-City Champs page.

Fitness

By Tom Hurst, yellow belt

Benefits of five different aerobic exercises:

1. Endurance.  Developed by long interval exercise, such as running, involving the use of major muscle groups and requiring copious amounts of oxygen.
2. Efficient gas exchange.  Expanding the lungs and developing the alveoli to pass oxygen into the blood stream and pulling CO2 from the blood stream during long interval exercise such as running.
3. Muscle strength and flexibility.  Developed by strenuous exercise at a medium level holding the heart rate at a medium level for an extended time period.  An example is primary techniques such as punches and blocks but not at the same level of activity as Jumping jacks or running.
4. Muscle efficiency. Developing the ability to clear waste products from the muscle such as lactic acid, both to the long muscle and to the cardiac muscle as well as building red blood cells. Poomse is an example of both types of exercise and utilizes both aspects of aerobic and anaerobic exercise depending on the length of the poomse.
5. Reduce body fat.  Aerobic activity burns fuel, first glycogen then when the ready stores are depleted the body converts fat to glycogen and ketones.  The ketones are excreted, hydration, hydration, hydration, and the glycogen is burned for energy.  Long periods of extended effort well below maximum effort, such as marathon running.
   

Benefits of five different anaerobic exercises:

1. Muscle recovery.  Interval training is most commonly associated with this exercise.
2. Muscle bulk.  Weight lifting is generally associated with anaerobic exercise.  Some bulk is desired for strength but excessive bulk decreases mobility and flexibility.
3. Muscle strength can be increased when aerobic exercise is interspersed with anaerobic exercises.  Quickly moving from jumping jacks to push-ups or basic moves to sit-ups are a couple of examples.
4. Flexibility. Stretches are a form of anaerobic exercises, remember to burn off the lactic acid by moving the lactic acid laden blood up to the lungs and blow it off as CO2.
5. Develops more efficient transfer of blood products and oxygen by the growth of more red blood cells. Interval training and short period, high intensity exercise.

A benefit of both types of exercise is the increased blood flow through the brain carrying more oxygen and more nutrients to the brain leading to enhance concentration and focus. This can lead to an overall feeling of wellness, self-esteem and self-image.  This is a huge benefit for the developing child and cannot be underestimated in its value to the older adult.

Team

By Brain O'Reilly, purple belt, CTI BBC Member

On any given team, is any one person more important? Why?
This is a question of team roles not people. Teams consist of individuals with unique skill sets, strengths and weaknesses.  The role that an individual plays can vary based on the mission and long-term goal(s) of the team or the short-term task at hand. Often the roles are predetermined; based on job description, hierarchy, experience, specialty, etc.  Often those predetermined roles fit well with an individual’s current level of expertise, seniority and skill-set.  Yet roles within a team are rarely static. As people gain more experience and responsibility they move up in the team and as others fail to maintain their current role they move down or out of the organization.  Teams need leaders, and leaders need followers; it is symbiotic.  A lone leader is not a team and a team without a leader is lost and often disbands.  One can argue that an effective team leader is the most important role on a team.  Leadership team roles are replicated in nature because they effectively ensure the survival of the team.  For example; wolf packs have an alpha male and as he loses the ability to protect, provide and lead, a new leader rises from the pack to replace him.  The wolf pack also has an Alpha Female, protecting and nurturing the upcoming Alpha’s and the rest of the pack. Individuals/people are replaceable, but roles are rarely replaceable.  It’s easier for a good leader to find a team and take it to the next level than it is for a mediocre team to find a good leader.  All members are important, but the immediate strength of the team is built around its leadership and then the quality and growth of upcoming members. The X-Factor that complements strong leadership and strong membership is the empowerment of members with unique skills sets to experiment and expand opportunities to the pack which then takes the team to a new and higher level of productivity and competition.


How can people achieve more whey they work together?
There is a compounding effect to team work. A team’s resources and portfolio of wealth are built around its active participants. The rich get richer because they have more resources to work with and they invest those resources with greater effectiveness.  Productive members learn from the success and diversity of others, tapping into those resources and expanding their own skill sets and contributions to the team.Each positive individual contribution is multiplied by other members and then reinvested as the team attracts more investors and new opportunities.Like any wise investment, the greater the resources the greater the return and the greater the ability to reinvest.  High productivity and success offers the luxury of experimentation and investment in new disciplines which then leads to a new and higher level of growth.  The active individual shareholder of a team who adds to the value of the team also adds to the health of his/her own individual portfolio of resources.  A healthy individual and team can perform at a higher level of output and then continue to grow beyond its “less-healthy” competitors.The healthy ideal for growth and productivity relies on each contributing share or each contributing team member; expanding individually and for the benefit of the team.  “...A team of the people, for the people, by the people.” –Abe Lincoln