[00:00:00] It's the final episode of 2023. Let's get started.
[00:00:30] Welcome back to the ATA Nation Podcast, ladies and gentlemen, instructors, students, masters, parents of Song Om Nation. It's so great to be talking with you today. We usually take the month of December off. We've been a little silent over the last month and a half or so just because past fall nationals, things just get crazy. But I want to do one last episode between now and the end of the year. This is going to be a solo show. It's episode 99. We'll start 2024 with episode 100 of the ATA Nation Podcast. I'm so excited. It's awesome. But I want to do a solo episode with you today because we're getting ready to do New Year's. Everybody thinks about fitness and those kind of things in the new year, and I have some thoughts that have been percolating in my mind since about our last regional tournament. And so I want to discuss those with you today. But before that, I want just a couple of announcements that we'll go over.
[00:01:39] Let's hit those first.
[00:01:53] So if you haven't heard, 2024 is the 55 year anniversary of the ATA and says there's some exciting stuff coming with that.
[00:02:05] Definitely want to check that out. ATA Nation, we know that spring Nationals is filling up quick, so make sure you get registered for that.
[00:02:14] Some things going on in ATA Nation podcast news. We want to make sure that we're getting some good feedback from you guys. And so we've also set up a Facebook group. If you just search ATA Nation on Facebook, you can join our Facebook group there. Again, we're always on Instagram. Want to make sure that we are connecting with people on Instagram as well. But sometimes Facebook has some options and we've got younger audiences and older audiences. Sometimes Facebook's a better option for some, and sometimes Instagram is a better option. But we've got two great interviews coming up in that Facebook group. We've been mentioning the interviews coming up so people can have some questions beforehand. So we have some interviews that will be launching next year, one with a doctor from gate. Happens all about your feet, which is going to be really good and I think really useful for martial arts, and one from an instructor at the ATa India school, which is fascinating. So just some things I want you guys to be aware of. Make sure that you're checking out what's going on with podcasts, but also staying tuned with ATA. Lots of new seminars coming up at spring nationals. Introducing the newest version of some of our protech weapons the Gumdo program has been expanded to include some other ranks and ages and stuff, so make sure you check out all that stuff
[email protected]. Might be able to hear my cat in the background. She likes to hang out with me while I'm podcasting. But let's get to our special guest interview, maybe.
[00:04:11] Okay, so it's not a special guest interview because it's just me back again with you guys. But I want to talk today about athletic development. And this is a topic that has definitely been percolating in the ATA. It's been something that the know, kind of the environment in the ATA has been growing on. This big shout out to master candidate Krista Kaminsky, who has been really pushing this a lot on the national, international level.
[00:04:45] Master Isaacs, just with the idea, the concept of athlete. I think he's one of the first ones that I really listened to using that terminology more.
[00:05:01] And then it is just between athlete development camps. Athlete development, just the term athlete development. What you see senior Master Rosa doing at his school, what you see the Pavlix doing with some of their team combat. This idea of athletic development has really been moving forward in the ATA. And I'll say that I have been on some of, I usually what I do is I get hooked on a topic and I dive real deep in it. And it's been many years ago, I took my first course with certified conditioning coach with Joel Jameson, and really worked into understanding some conditioning. After that, I took a little bit of break from kind of understanding athletic development and those kind of things, but then picked up probably two years ago. I don't really know, but I have dived deep into this area and I've been taking a bunch of different courses.
[00:06:09] So I took a great complete coach certification from a guy, Mike Robertson, who is near my area. He's in Indianapolis, but he trains some top athletes in NBA and some soccer and some other things like that. And really well known in the sports athletic development area.
[00:06:40] Been taking some courses with him, taking some courses with a bunch of other people. And my podcast feed is filled with athletic development things and whatnot. And so I wanted to hit this with you guys in AtA nation and just talk about what I see as kind of some of the issues, some of the things that we are not necessarily doing a great job of looking at ourselves when we're training. And this, especially if we're looking at mid to higher ranks, kids have some beginning development things that they have to work through. I'm reading right now a book that's got age specific development things in it. But then, if you're looking at adults especially too, a lot of adults will get into martial arts later on if you didn't start from young. And there's a lot of things that you're just not going to get by going to class two or three times a week and doing your sport. This is why every athletic endeavor in middle school, high school, collegiate pro, has things like strength and conditioning training. An additional thing that you're doing outside of the sport skills acquisition that you're doing, one is generating more power, learning not just how to kick, but how to generate more power in those kicks. And yes, that can be done with just the kicking, but in some ways, you need to build that strength in other ways through lifting, through some other power generation. And that's not just strength. Strength and power are two different things.
[00:08:41] Working outside of just jumping to work on improving your jumping skills. How many of our 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th degree and even higher athletes struggle with the jumps in their form, but have never done anything to train the jumps in their form outside of just doing the jump kick?
[00:09:05] I mean, that's ridiculous. We can do other things to improve a jump kick, to work on just the jump, the rotation and anti rotation skills.
[00:09:19] Your trunk, your torso, there's so much rotation happening in the body with kicking hand techniques, all those kind of things. And working that rotational power and anti rotation so you can rotate and then stop that rotation is super important.
[00:09:36] One that I see. I was noticing this a bunch at a tournament. I was judging a group of 40 to 49 year old fourth and fifth degrees, I think. And just the agility training, the agility movements is a whole different thing. And yes, you're going to get a baseline of that and a decent level of that through just your regular going to class. But if you want to really succeed, whether that be for your testing for a tournament, or even just to feel better about your own skills, you're going to need to do something outside of just your regular class activity.
[00:10:27] That's definitely something that we can work on.
[00:10:35] These different things that are needed in our athletic performance, I think often adults, even kids. Well, let's look at adults first. Adults, when it comes to getting fit, often think about just losing weight, lifting weight, and some kind of cardiovascular thing.
[00:11:02] Cardiovascular is huge. That's important. And getting a great baseline cardiovascular. But then understanding the energy systems involved in martial arts is different than if you're running a marathon or whatever the case might be. But then lifting is going to get you strong, which is good, but you might be doing lifts that are hurting your ability to turn and rotate. Use legs independently just the way that you're lifting. Might be maybe not the absolute best for what you're looking to get out of your martial arts training.
[00:11:49] And then the same with just general weight loss shouldn't really be a goal in itself. Weight loss should be a goal if you're way overweight or whatnot. But there's a lot that goes with that as well. Just because you're thin doesn't mean that you're the athlete you want to be when it comes to your sport.
[00:12:23] For kids, one of the things that I'm seeing a lot is we have a lot more sedentary society, and that reflects itself in not just adults, but our kids, just the general things they used to be able to do.
[00:12:40] There's just not as much playing outside, there's just not as much movement. And so we've got a lack of certain things.
[00:12:48] And we then get students that are starting to specialize in martial arts, which is I don't think is bad. There's a lot of talk about specialization. I think it's not necessarily bad in the martial arts to kind of specialize in because there's so many dynamic aspects to the martial arts you look at.
[00:13:08] Sparring is much different than forms, which is much different than weapons, which is different than combat, which is different than extreme and creative.
[00:13:17] And so there's lots of different aspects. So I don't think specialization is that bad in martial arts because you're not necessarily drilling down on one movement that is going to just tear up your body. But I do think that we are not adequately preparing our youth that are getting a little more serious in this sport to prevent themselves from these injuries. Again, master candidate Kamitsky has talked about this a bunch. Her injury prevention stuff is fantastic. But you've got to do more than just kicking and punching to get better at these things.
[00:13:56] You look at the pro athletes out there, you look at the high school, college athletes and pro athletes. The strength and conditioning is there to improve their performance, but to help them to not ruin their knees, to not ruin other things.
[00:14:14] And we want to make sure that our youth are utilizing these different things. And just in the last year, we've been doing a lot more athlete development, physical prep things at my school with some weights and some bands and boxes and all of these different things. And it's difficult to get youth to understand intention behind things. This is the same with probably 20 year olds as well, who just want the gun show and to have muscles to show off. Muscles to show off doesn't mean that they're muscles that move the way you want them to or to do the thing that you want them to. And so looking at those specifically anyways, I think there's a lot, and one of our great listeners was mentioning extreme and creative, and this is a whole different set of skills in athletic performance, often that are not the same skills that are being used in sparring or combat or even sometimes in forms when we're looking at some of the tricks and things. And so learning more about athletic development, more about the different aspects of athletic development and utilizing these are super important. So one of the things that I've prepared and that I've done is I created a four week training program. This is just mostly things that you can have at home. A dumbbell, jump rope, kettlebell, maybe a resistant band, just some easy things that you might have at home. It's a four week training plan, and it's based on Mike Robertson's r seven, which is looking at these different aspects of athletic development. It's not just one area. We're looking at kind of lots of different things. And this is the start.
[00:16:15] Most of our individuals need a baseline improvement in overall strength before we look at some of these other skills.
[00:16:25] But I'm giving this away for free. I want you guys. It's got videos of every exercise in there. It's got some explanations, sets and reps. It's got a full four week training layout. And you can get that over at Atama Ninja 2024 athlete. Atama Ninja 2024 athlete. Download that free template. It's a four week program or it's the first four weeks. And if you want to continue and utilize some additional equipment, get it personalized a little bit, get the accountability.
[00:17:14] I would really like to see our athletic knowledge and our athletic skills go up in the way we're training ourselves, taking seriously our skills.
[00:17:25] Huge shout out to a couple of martial artists that are leading by example in continuing to train senior master Dewer, senior master coffin, Master Marcus, Master Simon, these guys are. Or senior master Simon, these guys are working hard, posting their stuff on. Oh, chief Master Cister are continuing to post each day, each week the things that they are working on, which is awesome. And I just would love to see all of us high ranks, low ranks, mid ranks, adults, teens, 40 somethings like I am, and most of my rank is 40 somethings or higher.
[00:18:21] But we need to be training like athletes.
[00:18:25] And the way an athlete trains is different than just heading to the gym and lifting some weights or getting on a treadmill. These are components but not the whole thing. So check out the free four week training.
[00:18:42] If you got questions, let us know in the Facebook group. But atama Ninja 2024 athlete check that out. I would love to know what you guys think.
[00:18:58] Well, Ata Nation, I think that is going to wrap it up for us for 2023. It has been an amazing year.
[00:19:07] There's just so much coming for the ATA. We are doing some neat things in 2024.
[00:19:15] I see the 55 year anniversary and all the things that are being introduced with protech weapons and the color belt weapons. Just all the stuff is amazing. We're better than ever. Thank you so much for being a listener of the podcast. It is a pleasure to get to meet you guys. When I come out to tournaments and national events, I greatly appreciate your time. Make sure that you are out there taking hey hey. So make sure you check out that workout. I'd love to get your feedback. Join the Facebook group if you're not on Facebook and we're looking forward to 2024. Like I said, we've got two great interviews already scheduled or already recorded and ready for the new year.
[00:20:21] Our goal is to get back to making sure that we are getting that regular content out to you every single week. Like I said, we like to take a little time off near the end of the year to get recharged and get things ready and just take care of all the stuff going around here. But I appreciate you guys.
[00:20:41] Shoot us a message, say hi and have a merry Christmas. Bye.
