fitness training in Whangarei, New Zealand

http://www.flickr.com/photos/naturalistathlete/

these were taken at the beginning of the year. Again, I apoligise that I havent been posting on my blog, my training has taken on a more serious approach, in which is taking up most of my spare time. time is exercise. :)

A change.

Thanks to those who have read my blog, a appreciate the feedback from all of you.
I would like to apoligize for not being active on my blog for some time, Its just my training has developed into a full time job almost, with day and night training, long distance running and winter swimming, also I have decided to further my parkour skills and train 3 nights a week again.
I have made considerable progress in my long distance trail running, Last week I ran up one of my local trails out on the coast which rises from sea level up to around 450m mark. a 20km track winding up and down steep hills and huge drop offs through old native forest with a mud/shingle single track, I completed in 1hr 3 mins......alot of room for improvement, I want this down to 40 mins.

Also I have been reading as many books and articles on human development from ramapithecus right through to modern man, homo sapien sapien trying to find out how we became the human animals we are today. "The Human Zoo" is a fantastic book written by Desmond Morris in 1969, is a great theory as to how we came to be who we are and how we survive in the "concrete jungle. A must read for people who feel trapped by the Zoo effect.

I am currently working on a new blog, which will have a more in depth look at social and cultural anthropology, but as soon as I answer one of my many questions, another 100 come to the surface of my mind, so its going to be a long but interesting journey.

My aim is to put together all of the info I find into a easy to understand blog regarding who we are as animals, how we got to where we are today, what influences the human animal had that affected the course of evolution and how we can maintain a fit, healthy and free lifestyle.

any questions or suggestions are more than welcome.

Train hard, train playfully, train free, train daily.

Dave.

The Generalist and the Specialist.

The maori of New Zealand are Generalist Athletes as they had a wide range of skills from hunting and diving to long distance running of sometimes up to 1000kms and also they were fierce warriors during the iwi wars and arrival of the early european settlers.

The Generalist Athlete.


The term "Generalist Athlete" refers to to a person who has a wide range of developed personal skills, mentally and most importantly physically.
A Generalist athlete is someone who can call upon the range of practical skills to deal with real world situations in an efficient and effective manner using many of the fundamental natural movements such as running, jumping, climbing, throwing, swimming, crawling, defending, lifting or a combination of skills may be required like climbing whilst carrying, or swimming while throwing for example. Natural adaptive ability is needed to vary techniques in the most practical manner possible.

A Generalist will have not quite the endurance of a long distance runner, nor the ballistic ability of a 100m sprinter, but finds a medium between the two extremes.
This allow the generalist to call upon either ends of the spectrum without much strain on the body and respiratory system.



The Specialist Athlete.

The Specialist Athlete focuses primarily on training for one action only.
Again for example, the 100m sprinter.
A professional sprinter can peel out 100m in record time, the dynamic tension in the athlete's body is finely tuned for short bursts of high intensity locomotion.
But, Get the same sprinter to run 5kms while carrying another person then swim and defend, no doubt the sprinter will fail or be close to failure.
This is due to training a specific function only for a set amount of time.

Allot of people think that to achieve a high level of generalisation one has to do away with specialisation of techniques.
On the surface this may seem correct as spending time training ALL movements will encourage a wider skill base as opposed to training just one or two movements.
This is correct to an extent. Initial training programmes for beginners should incorporate all types of movement so the brain and and muscles get used to functioning in such a way.
But training this way will only lead to levels of basic ability across the board of natural movement.
Once a person has achieved acceptable levels of personal skills a certain degree of specialisation is needed to be able to "vary" techniques if needed

Take swimming for example.
One may have the physical ability to swim many kms but lack the lung capacity to dive down 10 metres. to free dive down 10 metres will take allot of practice and the technique will vary.
This is where specialisation comes in.
anyone can say they can swim, but to be able to dive or jump into water from heights, or dive down deep or hold their breath for a long period of time or swim while carrying someone, these actions are all classed as swimming, but the technique will vary for each one.

So to become a generalist one must specialize in each action to allow for variation of technique.


Hunter Gatherer's can be considered as and are a good example of "Natural Generalist Athletes".
They have a high level of practical skills that allow them to take full advantage of their environment in order to survive.
Perhaps they could even be called specialists also as they have general physical ability but are also specialists of their given environment ??

Dave.

Hunter/ Gatherers

I am currently researching about daily life of many existing hunter/gatherer tribes around the world, paying particular interest to The Maori of New zealand and Islander life from neighbouring island like rarotonga, vanuatu, samoa, australia and papua new guinea.

here are some videos I found of interest, the hunting methods and games of african hunter/ gatherer tribes still in existence today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pro6X_Kc5wA hunting methods.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9yOS5Xg8jw Tribal games.

I will post my findings once I have gathered all the info.

Leaving the fridge behind.

4pm friday 24th, I stood on the edge of the sand dune and looked out to sea while thinking about how this would go. Those clouds looked menacing. I had a feeling of exictement but also one of reservation as to how the 2am winds would take their toll on me. The 1st thing to do was to find a place to sleep for the night. I felt awfully naked not only due to the fact that I had only had a pair shorts on, but also because i couldnt rely on a warm bed and a roof over my head anymore, or a fridge full of food. Instead, my bed was a hole in the sand dune, covered by a leaning pohutukawa tree, making a kind of cave. I gathered toitoi and put them on the ground for a bed. Now that the bed was ready, the next thing I had to think about was food...

As I use this part of the coast for my training grounds regularly, i knew where to look for food, which stopped me from exerting precious energy looking for food and instead use it to keep warm for the night ahead.

Mussels were on the menu, small but sweet which was good as they were eaten raw, the big ones get a bit rubbery and monotinous.

Then the rain came. along with darkness and winds that whipped sand up and threw it in my face and up my nose.

"im in for a long, cold and sleepless night" I thought to myself. And I was right.

I wont go into detail of how the night went but it was like trying to sleep in a hole of wet compost.

The next morning was no different. I decided that it wouldnt be wise to carry on as the weather was only getting worse and safety comes 1st in my point of view. And also my water supply had been turned from a clear trickle to a muddy torrent which would of no doubt have some sort of negative affect on my zoo human ammune system. see, if I had been brought up in a hunter/gatherer type of setting, i would have a more resilient immune sytem to cope with that water. perhaps I need to "train" and "strengthen" my ammune system?

I guess it just gradual progression. This glimpse was everything I had hoped for even though it was cut short. I will no doubt go out "wild" again and for alot longer next time.

Escape from the zoo

Over the last months, One thought has been plaguing me more and more as each day passes.

That thought is the need to escape. Escape from the "zoo". The human zoo.

I feel stuck in a cycle of domestication, day by day goes by, working the same job, earning paper to live. This drives me mad. The fact we rely on paper to posess "stuff" that we think we ne

Food sits on the shelves all wrapped up and packaged, pumped with preservatives making what was once a natural food source and manipulating it so it resembles nothing but a shadow of what it was originally. preserved to fit in with our zoo lifestyles, when in all reality it is and should be the other way around. we should adjust our lifestyles to fit in with seasonal foods

Anyway, I have been planning this for a while and I will finally put my ideals into practice

I am going to put myself into the wild over short periods of time, and extending these "periods" until i can live for as long as needed, given the need should it arise.

This wild training will take place In Whangarei heads, which has coast, mountains, rivers and most importantly and abunance of wild food.

The 1st of these "experiments" will take place on friday24th to sunday evening 26th of april. This is the initial trial, only over a few days, but these will be extended possibly up to a month in later times.

I will be taking NO zoo equipment with me, only a pair of shorts. no knife, no matches. just me.

If i need a spear to catch fish for example, then i will have to make one by sharpening a stick on a rock.
The idea is to rely on my instincts, my experience in natural movement, my ability to read the land and weather, and survival skills to live in a way our hunter/gatherer ansestors did.

I will keep you posted after each experiment, and let you know what I have found.

The picture above is where my "wild experiments" will take place.

The boy, the coconut and the waves.

I visited Rarotonga a little while back for around a week.

The 1st thing I noticed was the lack of urgency amongst the people there.

Everyone went about their business with a feeling of relaxation in every step.

They call it "island time" and it is a great way to live.

Rarotonga is a small island which takes approx 4 hrs to run the perimeter, and has a great reef surrounding 99% of the island with only one small port, plus many tracks that lead up to the peaks in centre of the island.

The weather there was typically humid, with a daily temperature reaching around 30 degrees celcius.

I met one of the local coconut tree climbers who put on a display of his upperbody strength by climbing a 30 ft coconut tree in a matter of seconds. He then proceeded to cut away the green coconuts and dropped a few to the ground. He was nearly 60 yrs old and yet he had the physique and agility of a man half his age. his feet and hands were like leather, He informed me he had never worn shoes in his life.

Then without warning, he turned his whole body in a horizontal position while holding on with just his hands and held it for about 30 seconds, all while looking at me with a huge wirey grin.

Not a ounce of doubt entered in his mind. It was just like walking on the ground for him. A lifetime of exploring his wild human nature.

After a while in the baking sun, I decied to go down to the beach where I was followed by a small local boy of around 5 years of age. No parents telling him to be careful of the stonefish or not to wander off to far from home or not to touch that poisonous plant, just a boy on his own, totally involved in the world around him.

He waded out into the reef and dived under for a few seconds only to surface with a big grin. thats one thing I noticed here, everyone as smiling all the time, yet most of them lived in poverty. I dont recall I Zoo human ever smiling just for the sake of it, there would have to be some external influence to make one do so, as if we have lost the ability to simply smile for the sake of it.

The boy then climbed out of the water, found a coconut husk and used it as a toy boat in the small waves. This young boy had found total happiness while exploring his playful human nature with just a piece of coconut and some water.

This simple observation had a great impact on me, it gave me a glimpse of how we SHOULD have ALL grown up, surrounded in nature, being entertained by nature and enjoying it as if thats all that mattered.

I was rudely pushed back into "Zoo " life when i entered the airport in NZ. The 1st thing I saw was human traffic, shoulder to shoulder, bells, phones ringing, loud speakers yelling times of flights, ques at the toilets, rubbish all over the floor, and most of all, a small boy the same age as the one in rarotonga, crying his eyes out and throwing a tantrum because his mum didnt buy him a playstation game........only if that boy had a coconut husk and some water.....

"welcome home to the zoo dave" I thought to myself depressingly. I thought of that young boy and the coconut, hoping that some day my life will resemble the simplicity of living in "island time".