As fighters we get old but fighting never gets old! I participated in a Muay Thai event called King of the Ring and ended up going the distance against an opponent half my age. He was quicker of course and overall stronger but we both gave it our all. I tore my right bicep and you can tell that is when the punishment started (broken nose). in any event I hope this inspires others and at least shows my ids the importance f not quitting and following through on your dreams/goals. Here is some video from the fight (I am the fighter in black).
Archives for October 2015
10 Tips for Safely Teaching Your Kids Jiu Jitsu
There are a host of benefits associated with martial arts training for children, from increased athleticism to self-defense and a heightened sense of discipline. In fact, I have written about that on multiple occasions on this blog and on other martial arts sites. I am a HUGE fan of training our kids. When it comes to jiu jitsu though with submissions specifically you have to be careful about what you teach your kids and when it is taught to them. They need a healthy appreciation for the responsibility that goes along with understanding ways to manipulate the body that are core to jiu jitsu.
- Research Local Gyms – Before you sign your child up for the first gym to advertise youth jiu jitsu instruction, make sure you’re doing your homework. Not all gyms are created equal, and you’ll be able to sort the better quality options from others in your area by asking for referrals, looking at the facility and paying attention to unique ethos of each gym. Basically, how do they approach jiu jitsu for kids if it is no different than what they do for adults I would recommend finding a different gym.
- Choose Instructors Carefully – An instructor who only teaches youth classes because they drew the short straw may not be as well-suited to teaching kids as the instructor across town with a passion for teaching youth combat sports. Make sure you take the time to ask about instructors’ qualifications, as well as their curriculum. Teaching kids takes an incredible amount of patience as their attention span is well… short. Make sure the instructor is equipped to handle that with something other than just yelling or sitting them out.
- Ask About Instructor-to-Child Ratios – High-quality gyms will staff each class appropriately, but it’s always best to do your own research. One instructor heading up a class of thirty kids means not everyone is getting individual attention, and some kids may not be performing maneuvers as safely as they could be. In fact, this is a huge risk because kids may not realize the risks associated with improperly practicing an armbar for instance.
- Invest in Proper Gear – Minimizing the risk of injury means investing the appropriate gear to keep your child safe. You can’t send your youngster to class without head gear, mouth guards or groin protectors and expect them to be fully protected. Ask your child’s instructor about recommended safety gear, and invest appropriately. Realistically other than a gi and mouthguard not too much is normally required for jiu jitsu but knee and elbow pads may also be a good idea.
- Take Time to Learn the Rules – Most parents who enroll their children in martial arts classes have no training themselves. While you don’t have to sign up for adult beginner classes to keep your child safe, it’s always a good idea to learn the mechanics and underlying philosophy of jiu jitsu in order to help your child better understand what they’re doing and how to stay safe. Plus, it gives you something that you can share with your kids which likely will create memories that will last a lifetime.
- Listen to Your Child – No matter how badly you want your child to reap the benefits of instruction in jiu jitsu, you can’t make them feel the same interest. A child who doesn’t want to be in class and has no interest in learning proper technique may be reckless or inattentive, which can lead to injury in some cases. I’m not talking about a child that every once in a while doesn’t want to go to class because EVERY child will feel that way at some point (just take them anyway).
- Reinforce Jiu Jitsu Lessons and Values at Home – Kids who are excited about their new skills are going to want to try them out on everyone they meet, so it’s your job to keep not only your child but others safe from this boundless enthusiasm. Talk about the lessons they’ve learned and how they can practice at home without submitting the untrained kid next door. You may want to get a wrestling dummy or let your children practice on you.
- Understand the Implications of Contact Sports – It’s not abnormal to want your child to reap the benefits of jiu jitsu instruction while still feeling some trepidation about the risk for injury. The truth is, jiu jitsu is a contact sport. Just like football, soccer or baseball, there will be some risk for injury and there will be some bumps, bruises, and mat burns along the way. Keeping your expectations realistic is one of the best ways to mitigate some of the risk, and to understand the difference between a bruise and serious danger which generally should not be the case with jiu jitsu.
- Observe Classes – If you drop your child off at the door and never observe a class, how will you know the instructor is stressing proper safety measures? How will you know if the gym is clean and the facilities in good repair? Make a point of observing classes and remember that your jiu jitsu instructor is NOT a babysitter. Sometimes YOU will need to keep your child in check and focused.
- Keep Lines of Communication Open with Instructors – No parent wants to hear that their child isn’t doing well in an activity they like, but it’s important to listen to your child’s instructors when they’re training in jiu jitsu. Also recognize that the instructor knows best whether your child is ready for a belt promotion, stripe, etc. Especially with jiu jitsu (which takes several years to master and get a black belt) it’s not about how quickly they get their black belt it’s about learning some valuable life lessons.
Jiu jitsu is growing rapidly in popularity and there are many opportunities for competition as well that your kids may love (but be warned that every kid won’t necessarily get a trophy in this sport). Just like any other sport though there are rewards that cannot be overvalued by teaching them jiu jitsu. It’s not about protecting themselves (although that is a definite benefit), it’s about giving them something that if they want they can literally do for the rest of their lives.
21 of the Best Blogs for People with Plantar Fasciitis
Plantar Fasciitis is a common ailment among us runners that causes the sufferer to have a sharp pain in the heel when getting up first thing in the morning. The pain will decrease as you walk around and stretch out your foot and calf muscles. This is caused by the tendons on the bottom of the feet getting too tight, which causes the pain in the heel. In some cases, there may also be a heel spur present, but heel spurs alone should not cause you pain. For more information on preventing plantar fasciitis, what the symptoms of plantar fasciitis are and what treatments you can seek for it, look through these 21 blog entries.
Prevention
Before you get ready to exercise, it’s important to warm up your muscles and stretch them out. If you neglect to do proper stretching, you could be putting yourself at risk for plantar fasciitis. To figure out how to avoid getting plantar fasciitis, take a look at these seven blog posts with some helpful hints on preventing this condition.
- Video: Prevention and Treatment of Plantar Fasciitis This video provides an explanation for what plantar fasciitis is and gives some ideas for treating it.
- How to Prevent Plantar Fasciitis Learn several techniques for preventing plantar fasciitis in this blog article.
- How to STOP Plantar Fasciitis Coming Back or Switching Feet! Smart advice is given for preventing plantar fasciitis from switching to your other foot or coming back.
- Getting a Foot Hold on Plantar Fasciitis Prevention exercises such as walking on your toes or walking on the beach are recommended among others.
- 5 Tips to Prevent Plantar Fasciitis A recommendation to wear good quality shoes instead of old worn out running shoes can help prevent plantar fasciitis.
- What a Pain: Tips to Prevent Plantar Fasciitis Facts are shared about who might be at risk for getting plantar fasciitis so that you can do some of the exercises to prevent it.
- Plantar Fasciitis: Misunderstandings Corrected An informative article about new findings about plantar fasciitis and a new treatment to prevent future flair ups.
Symptoms
One symptom of plantar fasciitis is a pain in the heel that radiates up to the arch of the foot. The pain is worse first thing in the morning or after sitting for more than an hour. The plantar fascia is a membrane that runs from your heel to your toes. The pain will increase as you stand for long periods of time. For more information on the symptoms of plantar fasciitis, check out these seven blog articles.
- The Cause of Plantar Fasciitis and Symptoms The symptoms that are experienced are discussed, as are some causes for getting plantar fasciitis.
- Plantar Fasciitis: Causes, Symptoms, & Treatment You can find an explanation of symptoms in this article that makes it simple to understand.
- House Call: Plantar Fasciitis—Signs, Symptoms & Treatment A video explaining the symptoms of plantar fasciitis, as well as treatment for the ailment are shown.
- Plantar Fasciitis Signs and Symptoms A burning sensation is listed as one of the symptoms among many others, along with a list of people most likely to suffer from plantar fasciitis.
- Is My Heel Pain Caused by Plantar Fasciitis or From a Heel Spur? This article covers the pain that is felt and when you would feel it if you have plantar fasciitis.
- Plantar Fasciitis: Causes, Symptoms & Treatment Various symptoms are listed, as well as who may experience this affliction.
- Plantar Fasciitis and Its Common Symptoms An extensive list of symptoms and why they happen can be found on this post.
Treatment
Once you have been diagnosed with plantar fasciitis you can expect to have several options for treatment, ranging from stretching and icing to surgery. The sooner you seek treatment for this injury, the less invasive the treatment will be and the quicker you will recover. These seven blog posts will explain some common and uncommon treatments.
- How to Manage and Treat Plantar Fasciitis Stretching, icing and various exercises are recommended in this post.
- Botox Injections for Plantar Fasciitis Treatment Normally a corticosteroid is injected into the heel, but this article discusses a new option of using Botox.
- Preferred Plantar Fasciitis Treatment Changes with Duration of Symptoms Various treatments are mentioned on this post depending on how serious the case is.
- Plantar Fasciitis Treatment—an Excerpt from Craig Payne Posted on the Podiatry Arena For immediate treatment, this article recommends taping and orthotics.
- Treating Plantar Fasciitis with Minimalist Shoes An experiment shared and explained by the blogger who suffered from plantar fasciitis.
- Treating Plantar Fasciitis Simple treatments are shared on this blog post.
- Why Opt for Insole Treatment for Plantar Fasciitis? Taking care of the feet and creating support for the arch is explained in this article.
9 Ways to Help Your Child Excel at a Sport at a Young Age
The world of youth sports has become more competitive than ever, with parents looking for every opportunity to give their children an edge over the other players. Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all recipe for success, especially for very young players. There are, however, ways you can help to encourage and support your little athlete’s development. Here are nine ways you can provide your child with the foundation he or she needs to be a youth sports star.
- Keep It Fun – For young children, sports is about having fun while learning fundamentals. When the game stops being fun and starts feeling like a chore, or a source of stress, burnout will soon follow. While you should absolutely work to instill good sportsmanship qualities and skill honing in early childhood, making practice feel like facing down a dragon every day isn’t usually a recipe for success. In your drive to help your child succeed, try not to fall into the trap of exerting so much pressure you take the fun of playing away.
- Be Supportive, Not Smothering – You want to support your child’s interest and natural abilities, not force them into an uncomfortable mold with overbearing attitudes. This can be an especially difficult balance for parents with unrealized dreams of athletic excellence, who often see their child as a vehicle for wish fulfillment through whose success they can live vicariously.
- Think Twice About Early Specialization – At first blush, it would seem that focusing all of your child’s energy in a single direction is the best recipe for success. This especially holds true as youth leagues and traveling teams become more popular, demanding more and more of the year. Realistically, though, a relatively small percentage of athletes even on the professional level were single-sport athletes throughout childhood. Most play at least two separate sports, often specializing at the junior varsity level. Participating in a number of sports hones general athleticism, which lends itself later to excellence in specialization. Early restriction to one sport may actually restrict her growth as an all-around athlete, diminishing her potential.
- Be Realistic About Time Commitments – Burnout doesn’t just happen when parents exert too much pressure. It also happens when a child is unprepared for the time commitment of sports participation, and begins to feel smothered. Making sure your child has a realistic understanding of the time commitments for sports participation before joining a league or making the team can stave off some of this shock.
- Maintain Age-Appropriate Intensity – From traveling teams to summer camps and intensive clinics, it’s easy to elevate your child’s training intensity to professional levels. Unfortunately, this is also a very effective way to increase the chance of sidelining injuries and burnout that ends a career before it begins. Keep training intensity to an age-appropriate level, and let your child have some control over her schedule.
- Address Weaker Areas Constructively – Even a star can feel like a failure if areas of weakness are constantly pointed out and criticized, with no constructive plan for improvement. If your softball player’s pitching needs a bit of work, look into ways of improving this specific skill, rather than just pointing out it’s an area of weakness. Stripping away your athlete’s confidence is not a recipe for success, long-term or otherwise.
- Seek Out High-Quality Programs – While you may want to think twice about signing your child up for highly competitive programs whose demands outstrip those of her education, it’s still a good idea to research all of your program options. Something a bit more accelerated than the neighborhood youth league or a community center training plan may be in order, especially for young prodigies who need more advanced training.
- Make Room for Downtime – Laser focus is the hallmark of athletes beyond the varsity level, but it may be counterproductive for very young children. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends at least two to three months of downtime out of the year for young athletes. Not only does this allow your child time to explore other areas of interest, but can also be integral to their physical health. One serious injury can end a promising career, even at a very young age.
- Keep it All In Perspective – While the desire to see your children excel in any area is a strong one, it’s important for sports parents to keep their expectations in proper perspective. Even among the greatest athletes, only a select few will go on to perform at the collegiate level. Of that small percentage, even fewer will play professionally. Putting all of your child’s future eggs into a professional sports basket may make them great, but will not ensure a career and can leave them ill-prepared for adulthood if they have no other plan. Strive for balance and a well-rounded life, and your child will be more likely to succeed.
Though it may seem counterproductive to take a more relaxed tack to encouraging success, you can do more for your child’s continued success as an athlete by supporting long-term growth. A prodigy at seven may be burned out by thirteen, rendering all of your effort moot.
Why You Should Never Hire a Nanny Without Running a Background Check
If you’re hiring a nanny, you’re probably dealing with a lot of moving parts: multiple applications, callbacks, interviews, follow-up interviews, agency recommendations, and so on. It can take a lot of time, research, and luck to find the right childcare provider for you, so it can be tempting to cut corners. Some parents do this at the background check stage, figuring that a few standard phone calls or emails to the nanny’s references will do the trick. But that’s a mistake. You should never hire a nanny without running a background check. Here’s why:
It’s Dangerous
To be frank, there’s no real way to know what a potential nanny might be bringing into your home. This isn’t just a typical employee, after all. This is someone who’s going to be spending hours on end with your child, and they’ll be there for months or even years. A thorough background check is a crucial part of the decision-making process and a reliable way to know if the nanny you’re thinking of hiring has ever had documented run-ins with the law. Employee background checks, which gather information from consumer reporting agencies and are overseen by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, query a variety of criminal databases to see if your possible hire has any black marks. Those databases include the FBI Identification Record and the Interstate Identification Index System, and they include, sex offender registries, criminal records, and more. Depending on the type of check you run a background check may include checking county court records or other types of records such as a candidate’s motor vehicle driving record.
You shouldn’t hire someone to bring into your home — especially if you’re looking for a live-in nanny — without conducting a background check. It’s just too dangerous to overlook.
On a related note, you open yourself up to potential liability if you don’t get a background check. In addition to sex offender registries, background checks also round up a variety of criminal behavior, usually if the applicant was convicted in the previous seven years. If your nanny has, say, been involved with theft, you could be leaving yourself open to serious risks if you skip the check.
It’s Simple to Request One
A background check can’t just be performed on the sly. You must request the consent of your nanny applicant to investigate their background. But this is such a simple thing, and it can save you so much hassle and worry, that it’s foolish not to request one.
Think of the background check as an important checkpoint in the application process, and as a kind of gatekeeper for your home. You can request one at any point, but to save costs, it might be best to only conduct background checks on applicants that you’re considering at least somewhat seriously. The background checking company you are working with should provide you with a consent form for the candidate to complete as well as a summary of the candidate’s rights for you to provide to her. Once you have the green light from your applicant, you can get the background check rolling. That’s all you have to do. If something that important is also that easy why not do it?
You’re Part of a Childcare Community
Nannies talk to each other, and so do employers. Hiring a childcare professional means being involved in a larger community of parents, families, and nannies who rely on each other for work and references. Performing a background check on your nanny doesn’t just help you; it helps inform the broader members of the community of the importance of them.
When parents in a community commit to properly screening their nannies they set the standards for nannies in the community. When nannies come to expect backgrounds screenings as a pre-employment measure, those with a checkered past may be less likely to apply for nanny positions.
Ultimately, you are responsible for the safety and happiness of your own family. Living up to that responsibility means doing everything you can to bring the right help into your home, and a background check — simple, effective, and fast — is a vital part of the process. While a background check isn’t the only tool you should use to screen your nanny it is a tool that will provide you with information that you may not have otherwise been able to gather.
10 of the Best iPhone Apps to Have if You Get Stuck in an Elevator
Getting stuck in an elevator is certainly not a pleasant experience by any stretch of the imagination. Time begins to pass slowly and minutes seem to stretch on forever, which only adds to the stress of the situation. The best thing you can do is keep yourself and everyone around you calm until you’re all able to exit the elevator. Having some handy tools as well as some forms of entertaining everyone will help in that regard. So get your iPhone kitted out with these 10 excellent apps, because you never know when you are going to need them.
- iHandy Torch Free – Being stuck in a stalled elevator with no power and no lights can truly feel like one of life’s worst case scenarios. The free iHandy Torch app uses your iPhone’s camera flash to produce a powerful flashlight with multiple light effect features. You can also activate the flashlight with a simple shake of your phone.
- Comics – Hopefully your ordeal in the elevator won’t last too long. However, if you are stuck there for a while, reading some great downloadable comics will help keep you calm. This is no second rate app, either. You can access content from such big names as Marvel, DC and Image comics, just to name a few. Best of all, the app and library of over 30,000 titles are completely free.
- Kindle – The Amazon Kindle app is another lifesaver if you ever find yourself stuck in an elevator. With over 900,000 titles available, including both purchasable and free books, the Kindle is a must have app for when you find yourself in a tight spot. The app itself is free from the iPhone store.
- Angry Birds – This is a game that just keeps on giving. Make sure to have Angry Birds Original, Seasons, Rio or Space downloaded to your iPhone when you’re in a pinch. The free versions of each game are packed full of levels and you can also upgrade for $0.99.
- iBook –Apple’s own eBook reader iBook syncs with your Apple ID for ease of access. The app beautifully renders text for easy reading in a number of different fonts and languages. The iBook-shelf is a convenient way to access all of your titles, right from your iPhone home-screen.
- MyMedia – Download Manager – Streaming video and other media is a great way to pass time; however, that won’t help you if your iPhone is unable to go online. That is why an app like MyMedia-Download Manager is invaluable. You can download unlimited media, such as videos, music, images and documents to your handset. MyMedia-Download Manager is free of charge from the iTunes store, which is pretty impressive for an app that handles pretty much any type of media format.
- Imagine Poker – This is a classic game, so you would imagine that there isn’t much more to say. However, the developers, Candymaker, have added a new twist to the game. You can enter tournaments against over 20 historical and fictional characters, including Abraham Lincoln, Genghis Khan and even the Cheshire Cat.
- Police Siren – Getting stuck in an elevator is no fun; especially if you discover that there is no alarm call. You could be there for hours, shouting for help before anyone hears you. This free app will help spare your voice. However, make sure that everyone covers their ears before you set it off.
- Wreck this App – A recurring theme in the reviews for this app is how well it works for stress relief. Being confined to a small space most definitely qualifies as stressful, so Wreck this App may be the best $4.99 you ever spend. The app is basically an interactive activity game that incorporates other areas of your iPhone. You can poke holes in your pictures, scribble out your contacts and much more.
- Animation Desk™ for iPhone – This app brings a very close approximation of a real animator’s workspace to your iPhone home-screen. Create your own simple animations from scratch or trace previously captured videos for use with the app. If you’re really good, you could become the hero of the day by keeping your other elevator detainees entertained until you are rescued. For only $2.99, the hours of potential entertainment this app provides are well worth the money spent.
When you’re stuck in an elevator, it’s best to keep in mind that you will eventually find your way out. Regardless of how hopeless the situation may feel while you’re being held captive, remembering that your sentence isn’t a permanent one can help to stave off panic until you’re able to leave.