Lessons from Makko-Ho

Call it what you will, but Makko-Ho, or what some refer to as "meridian yoga," has a lot to teach us.  The movements themselves?  Sure.  Here is a simple graphic of the positions, and a jumping-off point for some videos online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEJMua-bmc0

More important than the movements themselves, however, is the 'system' one uses to progress.  Unlike Western programs that focus on how to get the most calorie burn with the very least amount of effort, or training with  ridiculous circuits and intervals that actually call for tracking your movements in 15-second increments, or powerlifter v. bodybuilder arguments that get athletes totally bogged down in 'sets and reps' as the be-all and end-all of training, the Makko-Ho system worries about the none of the above and has only six fundamental 'facets' that must be used to guide your training, in order for one to reap the benefits of the system:


Determination; Withstand Minor Pain; Overcome Laziness; Patience; Spirit of Independence; Refusal to Give Up


'Nuff said.

HomeBrew Functional Movement Bar

This is a tool that is not 'necesssary' for your boxing gym or its conditioning corner, per se, but is so cheap to make that you might as well.

We use this item to do 'chops' and 'lifts' per the likes of Gray Cook and Mike Boyle.  If you are not well-versed in the movement(s), see here:
http://www.functionalmovement.com/SITE/publications/downloads/cschoplift.pdf
or here:
http://www.performbetter.com/catalog/matriarch/MultiPiecePage.asp_Q_PageID_E_186_A_PageName_E_Cookchoplift

Anyway, the functional cable bar runs around $100. [  http://www.performbetter.com/detail.aspx_Q_ID_E_4710_A_CategoryID_E_239  ]    The ones we use run around $5.  Granted, the product from Perform Better and Gray Cook is a good one, but seems to be a little more than our junior boxers need.

So what do we do?   Depending upon the size of youngsters/boxers we are going to have using this, we take a 2' or 3' long piece of 1.5" diameter PVC pipe, buy a couple of caps therefore, and then a couple of eye bolts with nuts.  Again, this raw material total is somewhere between three and five dollars.

Now, drill a hole in each one of the caps and put an eye bolt through there.  If you want it to be extra sturdy, put some Gorilla Glue or epoxy on the nut/bolt combo threads.  Then glue the caps on with epoxy or PVC glue, and voila.  You now have a 'functional movement bar' for about 1/20th the price.

What Are You In It For?

Here at GMAAC we are, first and foremost, sport-specific amateur coaches.  A lot of posts are information we pass along targeted at amateur athletes like the young men and women we coach, but the truth is that while the compliance levels of young athletes do seem to be getting worse by the year, being an athlete is one of the easier pieces of the equation.

All you have to do is make sure to have the will to work, and then place yourself in the hands of an outstanding, experienced, coach.  The problem is, those *coaches* are getting harder and harder to find as well, so this New Year's Message goes out to all the new, and even future, coaches out there.

Think hard about what it is you are doing, and why you are doing it.

There are a lot of 'coaches' out there who are actually just shepherding his or her son or daughter through the system in order to live vicariously through him or her; this is often either to somehow compensate for the coach's failed sporting career, or simply to make the child "a star" and/or earn him or her a scholarship. 

Bad reasons to be a coach.  Period. 

Coaching, in this era, is often unrewarding.  There are many parents who *would* fit into the demographic in the above paragraph, only they are too lazy.  These are the first people to willfully embarrass their children and berate them at a wrestling meet, and then yell at you for not coaching their otherworldly-gifted child with the necessary high-level tactics.  By the way, this parent never wrestled. 

So, what to focus on?  That kid who was berated by his or her misguided parent.  In today's society, amateur sports is still the best way to teach a child, adolescent or even adult discipline in a rewarding fashion, to educate them on the cycle of hard work/reward, and maybe most important instill a lifelong 'plan' for fitness.  So keep your eye on the ball, so to speak.  Winning bouts, matches, races and meets is fun, but be sure to teach your athletes the fundamentals, encourage them when things go poorly but provide honest feedback, point out what they have done right when things are going well, reward hard work, and most importantly help them to build healthy habits and turn themselves into fit, bulletproof adults.