I'll start by posting a letter.
THE BACKGROUND...
In the Richmond area, I have a Uechi karate club which I teach in a swim and tennis club. The room is one where aerobics is taught, and it overlooks the pool and a lake. This room is adjacent to and somewhat open to a workout room with some free weights, a lot of weight machines, and some TVs that are in front of bicycle-like equipment. Within the workout room is a set of dumbbell racks that have weights going up to about 20 pounds. It's just enough to keep the aerobics queens happy.
Being the sort that I am - a scientist/master/athlete trained in several martial arts - I'm an amalgam of a traditional Uechi style and modern RBSD instructor. I keep to the Uechi curriculum core, but I'm now informed by my own education and training, and not subservient to "what the masters say." I am after all now one of them. So a little bit of creativity is both allowed and indeed encouraged at my level.
We have two sets of weights-related exercises that I regularly do when I teach, and I am pretty much the only teacher that does them. One is very much like the traditional Uechi training with jars, but I have found a way to do this with dumbbells. That's important because - as I have discovered - jars break easily, are expensive, are not easily transported on a daily basis, and can be stolen from a room that isn't yours. The other exercise I do a lot is a Bill Glasheen special. It is a combination of a one-armed Olympic Clean-and-Jerk combined with an embellished Turkish Get Up. The purpose of the jar stuff is to help develop Uechi Hands while doing Sanchin mechanics. The purpose of the latter is to develop both the core and whole-body coordination. All these exercises I do during the "Sanchin training" part of our workout.
This is an e-mail I got from the club owner. We have a good relationship with each other. But this one just got sent to me because I think he felt compelled to start a dialogue in writing.
More later.
- Bill
Hi All,
I spoke to Harry about this issue and wanted to pass it on to you Bill and Victoria as well. We had 2 member complaints, one woman was very upset when she saw free weights being used (she said being thrown around) by children without having shoes on. Harry said this was a special exercise you all due however, according to our insurance policy, "anyone under the age of 16 must be supervised by an adult while using the fitness room including all equipment and anyone using the equipment or free weights must be wearing closed toe shoes. No flip flops or open toes shoes allowed". So if you do this exercise, please have the kids take a moment to put on their shoes. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this might cause but we must abide by it.
Stacey & Eddie