Please note that I am still teaching archery in November - partially because it is so warm lately. This year I have also had a bump in the number of people wanting lessons
in November. Basically it is so warm that people are still asking for archery
lessons.
My personal opinion is that Autumn is the perfect time of the year to do archery, especially September and October. But there is nothing wrong with doing archery in November, especially when it is unseasonably warm.
Autumn Leaves Archery Bracer
However this year it has been unseasonably warm. September felt like August. October felt like September, and now November feels like October. (I am fully expecting December to feel like November, complete with a green Christmas.) With it being so warm I thought I should put a note up here letting people know I am still teaching in November.
I do keep teaching during the Winter (for those brave enough to face the cold), but the number of brave people who are not afraid of the cold is short in supply. Thus archery does tend to be a seasonal sport, even though it can be done year round.
I think it is part of the reason why September to December is bowhunting season for whitetail deer. The weather this time of year is perfect for being outside. Not too cold. Not too hot. Also unlike Spring, it is also not too rainy.
In which case they really should be making camouflage clothing available in yellow, orange and red so that it matches the colours of the trees. Green camouflage makes no sense this time of year. It sticks out like a sore thumb.
Lastly this is also the time of year people start prebooking archery lessons for the next year. So if your schedule doesn't work right now, you can always prebook for the next season.
One Final Note
With Halloween now over, that doesn't mean you should rush out and start worrying about Christmas. Remembrance Day is Friday, November 11th and that has clear priority in my mind. Canadian Veterans and members of Canada's Armed Forces get a 10% discount off archery lessons between now and November 25th.
Earlier today I performed a trick shot on behalf of http://takeyourshot.org/, which is raising money for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, located in Toronto.
#TakeYourShot is a social media campaign to raise money/awareness and they are encouraging athletes and sports enthusiasts to use whatever skills they have - football, basketball, darts, archery, bowling, javelin, axe throwing, etc to show off their skills and raise awareness/money for the PMCF.
The trick shot I chose to perform was "Two Arrows at Once", which I recorded at 120 frames per second on my cellphone and then slowed it down to 30 frames per second to show it in slow motion.
The video was made today (July 11th 2016) at the Toronto Archery Range. I
spent half an hour before the filming practicing shooting two arrows at
once, then handed my cellphone to a friend and we recorded the trick
shot in one attempt. That first attempt was so good we didn't bother
doing it over again.
The bow used was a three piece Samick Red
Stag, which I have named "Ulmaster", draw weight 35 lbs. The arrows were
Easton Power Flight 400s. The distance I was shooting at was approx.
20.5 yards (61.5 feet or 18.5 meters).
To donate to the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation you can visit either: http://takeyourshot.org or http://www.thepmcf.ca/Ways-to-Give/Donate-Now.
ArcheryToronto.ca is also looking for people to submit links to YouTube videos of archery trick shots for the campaign so that people can get inspired and take part / donate.
Want to see more archery trick shots? Leave a comment below and a suggestion for another archery trick shot and I will see if it can be done.
I recently received an email from Google notifying me that some photos of mine are extremely popular.
Years ago I submitted 5 photos to Google Maps in an effort to help boost the popularity of the Toronto Archery Range located at E. T. Seton Park.
Those photos have since apparently gone a bit viral, with over 300,000 views. Woot? Sure, what the heck. Woot!
During that time I have also seen attendance at the Toronto Archery Range skyrocket. Much of that is largely due to the Hunger Games and other film / TV franchises.
But the good people of Toronto wouldn't necessarily know we even have a public archery range. That is the real trick. The range is one of Toronto's best kept secrets, as the vast majority of people don't even know that the place exists.
When I first started going to that archery range in 2009 it was usually dead quiet there and you would be the only person there most of the time. On a busy day there would be maybe 3 people there, and they were the "regulars" and you would get to know them all by name.
During the height of the Hunger Games/etc visitors to the archery range exploded, with crowds of 15 to 30 people there regularly, or even 60+ on the really busy Saturday mornings.
So clearly the word that the place existed was getting out. Huzzah!
Last year it was so busy I found myself wistful for the quiet days back in 2011 and prior to that, when archery was comparatively less popular.
Recently visitors to the range has dropped off in 2016. A sign perhaps that the archery fad has slowed down a bit and only the true archery fanatics are sticking around.
However as the archery fad of the 1940s to early 1970s shows, these things come in stages. The 1940s-1970s fad lasted 4 decades, spawned largely due to all the Robin Hood movies in the 1940s. (There was literally dozens of them, beginning with the 1938 film "The Adventures of Robin Hood" starring Errol Flynn and showing the archery skills of Howard Hill.) The fad ended a few years after 1973, the year Disney made their animated version of Robin Hood. Deliverance in 1972 was also part of the same fad.
A brief archery fad in the 1980s sparked up after the making of the 2nd and 3rd Rambo movies. Another one followed with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in 1991. A small one occurred after the first Lord of the Rings film in 2001.
But those fads were all relatively small. Especially compared to the decades long fad of the 1940s-1970s era.
In this era of smartphones, the internet, and cable television it is very difficult for people to get motivated to go outside - thus it is also more difficult for large numbers of people to get involved in an outdoor sport. We will likely never see an archery fad as big as the one which occurred between 1938 and 1975.
#1. When your clients start bringing you "thank you gifts" and drinks for instructing them. Recently when a student gave me a gift of a large bottle of Belgian beer as a thank you gift for archery lessons. I have also received tips, gifts, thank you cards, and drinks (people have apparently discovered my love of chocolate milk).
#2. When your clients give glowing testimonials of your skill as a
trainer. (Admittedly, most of my testimonials are about my skills as an
archery instructor. A few are about personal training, boxing, swimming, ice skating, but the vast majority are archery testimonials.)
#3. When clients keep coming back for more and more sessions. This shows they really like what they are learning / doing and are seeing results. If they were not seeing results, they would not keep coming back for more.
#4. When a client recommends you to their friends. Word of mouth is great advertising and it shows when clients have so much fun that they are posting photos on Facebook and friends ask "Hey, how do I do that?" and they point their friends towards their trainer.
#5. When clients eventually reach the point they no longer need you, but sometimes still come to you anyway for advice. I would argue that this is ideal. Eventually clients should feel so satisfied with their results that they feel they no longer need the trainer, but will sometimes come back once in awhile with questions because they trust the trainer's ability to impart new ideas, knowledge and skills.
If I think of more examples in the future I will post them on here.
Also, more amusingly, if your clients keep quitting because they find your personality annoying, then it is probably a sign that you are not very good at your job.
It has been awhile since I have made a post containing exercise quotes, and seeing as this is also the 700th post I felt it was time to do another Motivational Exercise Quotes post at the same time.
"Think working out is painful? Try liposuction and find out how painful that is." "Anything worth having is worth working hard to get it." "No one ever regrets being healthier." "Every one breaks records when they strive to do their best - and beat their own records." "The only way to have pride in yourself is to do something you didn't think you could do." "Don't wait to make yourself a better person. Start today and become better by tomorrow." "Sweating is easy. If exercising is hard, then it means you are making progress." "Go outside. Do stuff you enjoy doing." "Persistence doesn't come easily. You have to do it again and again and again." "Even a baby can exercise. It is called baby steps." "Facing challenges changes you - one step at a time." "Exercise like you mean it."
A few statistics...
Since its first post CardioTrek.ca has been visited by over 1.6 million visitors, mostly from Canada and the USA.
Most of my clients live in Toronto, but the website gets visitors from around the world. Outside of North America, visitors are most likely to come from: United Kingdom, France, India, Germany, Australia, Russia, Taiwan + Mexico.
Not sure why CardioTrek is so popular in France, but sure. Whatever. I am okay with that. Might have something to do with the words "cardio trek", which means exactly the same thing in French. Apparently I picked a name that was perfectly bilingual. Maybe in the future I should make CardioTrek bilingual so it is also available in French? Hmm. Although truth be told my Korean is better than my French.
Archery Trivia
France has over 72,000 registered archers. More than any other European nation. France even has more archers than the USA.
There is a rumour (unsubstantiated) that French forces sometimes cut off two of the fingers of captured enemy archers so that they wouldn't be able to fight against the French later in the future. This supposedly led to the phrase the "Two Finger Salute", however there are many historians who question the accuracy of this rumour.
The phrase "keep it under your hat" speaks of an ancient tradition of archers keeping a spare bowstring under their hat so it doesn't get wet.
The phrase "playing fast and loose" refers to archery jargon for "fast" which was traditionally used to mean "stop shooting fast" and the word "loose", which means to loose your arrows at the enemy. "Playing fast and loose" thus originally meant a person who would stop and start things quickly.
The phrase "a bolt from the blue" refers to a person struck by a crossbow bolt launched from a long distance, coming out of the proverbial blue sky from an unknown crossbowman.
It could also be used to shoot broken or damaged arrows whenever the archer started running low on arrows.
A few days ago the total number of visits to CardioTrek.ca surpassed 1.5 million. Not bad for a personal training website that gives away free advice / answers fitness questions, in addition to my personal training / sports training practice.
Most of that 1.5 million is from visitors in Canada / USA, and tiny fractions from other English speaking countries, and non-English speaking countries.
It would be interesting to know how many are actually from Toronto, my home turf. Three years ago in January I found stats on Alexa.com stating that CardioTrek was in the top 5000 websites in Toronto - which was when CardioTrek had merely 25,516 visitors. In contrast in January 2016, exactly three years later we recorded 58,495 visitors.
Numbers are nice, but more importantly is the fact that I am often fully booked 8 months of the year (November to February is the slow time of the year). Booked up so much that I have been raising my rates and cutting back a bit so I can have more free time. So I am obviously doing something right.
I am also frequently asked to appear in television shows. In the past year I appeared on:
CBC's "Marketplace", a piece about eggs / nutrition.
CityTV's "Athlete of the Week", a piece about my archery skills.
OLN's "Storage Wars Canada", during which I was asked to identify and estimate the value of a Bear Grizzly recurve bow (modified by the US-CDN exchange rate at the time).
So yeah, good times. Let the good times roll!
Should be interesting to see where my website / business is 4 years from now. Or 14 years from now.
For the past several years I have been trying to find a good sports photographer (in Toronto no less) with experience doing a variety of different photography styles.
For example:
Motion Capture Photography, like this tennis player in motion, by Jean Yves Lemoigne, who unfortunately lives in New York State. Pity. He is really good at what he does.
The one below of a male gymnast in motion isn't by Jean, but it is also really good.
Time Lapse Photography, which looks similar to Motion Capture but ultimately looks more like a blur. Depending on the length of the Time Lapse, it can be extremely blurry. Below is an example of Time Lapse Photography of cyclists.
Time Lapse Video, sounds similar to Time Lapse Photography above, except it is video in which only a few frames are captured so that when viewed it appears to be sped up so that you are seeing a longer period of time flashing before you in mere seconds. A good example of this is the GoPro videos that cyclists like to make showing their rides sped up, like the one below.
Slow Motion Video, like the video below which shows a variety of archers shooting and their arrows hitting targets in slow motion. Oh, and it is in HD. Huzzah!
Other forms of photography are also welcome, especially if it works well with the theme of sports.
Anywho, if you are a photographer in Toronto and are available for a short gig please contact me via cardiotrek@gmail.com. Send me your hourly rate and three examples of your past work (which may include links to YouTube videos in the event you have past experience doing slow motion or time lapse work).
Also note that I am a firm believer in paying people for work. None of this "it is good for your portfolio" nonsense. If you are doing a job, you deserve to get paid for it. End of story. Everyone has to make a living and artists deserve to be paid like everyone else.
Below is Cardio Trek's Five Rules for having a Merry Christmas...
Rule #1. Eat lots of carrots. And veggies in general.
Rule #2. Enjoy the little things, no matter how small.
Rule #3. Reward yourself for all your hard work during the holiday season.
Rule #4. Pay attention to things that don't make sense. eg. Why does the reindeer in the image below look evil? You should avoid evil things during the holidays. Krampus for example.
Rule #5. Have a sense of humour. Because laughter is the best medicine.
Also please note that I am also offering Archery Gift Vouchers, so for anyone not sure what to get Grandpa or Grandma or your favourite Aunt / Uncle this Xmas, but you know they have an active lifestyle, maybe archers lessons is the way to go.
For those people wishing to purchase Archery Gift Vouchers for friends, family, co-worker, etc simply contact cardiotrek@gmail.com to begin the process. When you are done, give the Gift Voucher to the lucky person and they can redeem it at their leisure.
Archery
Gift Vouchers come with a Voucher Number that is redeemable for archery
lessons. You don't need the card to redeem it, just the voucher number. Vouchers have an expiry of 18 months after the date of
purchase. No refunds. Vouchers have no cash value, but are transferable.
CardioTrek.ca cannot go a week without someone leaving a Spammy comment in the comments section, usually generic bla bla bla with a link at the end of the comment.
Unfortunately for the spammers, all of the comments are moderated. By me personally.
Which means I delete all the spam. None of it ever gets so much as a brief appearance on the final product that the public sees.
Sometimes, very rarely, a spammer actually tries to leave a comment that is meaningful and includes a link at the end of their comment. That is deleted too.
Basically, if it contains a link that is clearly meant as spam advertising, it gets deleted.
Now I do allow advertising on CardioTrek.ca, but I charge DOUBLE of what normal market rates for such advertising is - and I refuse to advertise anything like casinos, diet pills, bogus nonsense. So they have to first jump through the hoops of both credibility and morality, and once they have done so they have to pay double of normal market rates.
And furthermore, I charge a fee for guest posts - because that is still technically advertising. And if you don't like it and/or think you are providing me with a service, then clearly you should read Wil Wheaton's post about "free exposure". "Free content" from people who just want advertising, I don't care about. Complete waste of my time to even post their junk writing - which guests posts need to be the following:
High Quality Writing
Moral and Ethical (eg. not advertising casinos or cigarettes)
Credible + Not Obviously Bogus (eg. diet pills, health gadgets that don't work, etc)
Don't like my rules? Take your diet pills / shoddy writing and peddle it somewhere else. The back of a tabloids newspaper seems like a good place.
And because no notice posts should be left hanging without something funny, I give you the following photo on the topic of Roller Derby. :)
If I ever become a sell out personal trainer who becomes so focused on selling books and DVDs that I am no longer providing free advice on my website, will someone please leave a comment on this post and remind me to stop doing that nonsense.
I am speaking of course of the "personal trainers" who apparently spend more time writing books and making DVDs (that very few people actually read or watch and often collects dust) than they do actually training people.
Also I should note, yes, I am currently writing a how-to book for archery, however I should note one of the reasons I am writing that book is because I am so busy I cannot teach everyone who is asking for archery lessons, so my plan is for whenever people have schedules that don't match mine, I can simply point them towards the book instead.
So I am not doing it for the money. I am doing it because I genuinely want to help people learn archery.
Also it is nice being on the CBC, CityTV, TSN, etc for archery clips because I enjoy promoting the sport - but I don't want to be doing that stuff full time. A few days ago I was contacted by a journalist student from Ryerson who is making a documentary about archery. Unfortunately their schedule didn't mesh with mine, so I couldn't help them.
So it is a matter of priorities and scheduling in my opinion.
Less than a month ago I was contacted by a television producer looking for someone for a reality TV show. With some trepidation I put my name in the hat of candidates, even though I despise reality shows. Does that make me a hypocrite? Maybe. But it also makes me realistic. The reality of the situation is that I would probably enjoy being on that show. If I don't enjoy it, I could go back to what I usually do.
Thus, note to future self: If I am not enjoying something, stop doing it and go back to what I do enjoy.
In other news, Happy Halloween! Below are some zombie archery targets, both 3D and 2D.
In order to promote my new service of "Winter Archery Lessons" I have added a new logo for promoting Winter Archery in Toronto. It is basically identical to the normal archery logo, with the added bonus of a stylized snowflake in the background.
I also have retroactively gone back to older posts and added the new logo.
This is not the first post regarding logos on my website. In September 2012 I announced the Cardio Trek Logos that have long since become the standard for how Cardio Trek has chosen to direct itself with respect to logos.
The other new logo below is for Archery Biathlon Training - a new service I first offered last year, geared towards those rare few individuals who wanted an unique challenge. For obvious reasons not everyone in Toronto is into archery biathlon, but for those who are it provides a great cardiovascular challenge while simultaneously challenging your endurance and accuracy.
For those curious about whether it has to be cross country skiing. No, it does not. Snowshoeing also works quite well in my opinion. For more information on either Winter Archery Lessons in Toronto or Archery Biathlon Training please email cardiotrek@gmail.com.
Earlier this Summer I began contemplating changing my minimum age requirements for archery lessons. Previously they had been a minimum of age 10 or higher, but as of 2016 I will no longer be accepting students younger than 15 and maintaining a minimum age requirement of 16.
Why the change you may ask?
Multiple reasons...
#1. Lack of attention span. This is more common with teenagers, 13 to 15, in my opinion. Often teenagers in this age group just want to try archery and once they've tried it they either love it or they begin to lose interest. If they lose interest their attention span goes out the window and it is a bit like teaching someone who isn't even listening. "Failure to listen" has basically become a pet peeve of mine when teaching teenagers who just don't want to listen.
#2. Lack of emotional maturity. I find this is more of a problem for kids ages 10 to 13 and I have to be extra watchful of what they are doing to make sure they don't do something unsafe. I have the same concern for kids under the age of 10 too, which is why I previously set the standard of minimum age 10.
#3. Youthful Stubbornness. I wish there was a better way to describe this. I have on occasion encountered teenagers who not only refuse to listen, but just outright ignore the instructor and do what they think is right - and is ultimately wrong judging by their arrows flying right over the top of the target and have to coax them to shoot and aim properly, however no amount of coaxing will work if they are so stubborn that all my efforts are basically an exercise in futility. I encountered one such student in 2014 that was so stubborn I became suspicious that they might have a learning disability that caused them to refuse to listen to instructions. To this day I am unsure which it was as they seemed intelligent, but were so stubbornly opposed to listening / following instructions.
#4. Parents lying about their kid's age. Because I had previously set the standard minimum age of 10 I am pretty sure some parents were lying about their kids age so they could get their 8 or 9 year old archery lessons. Parents claiming that their kid is "small for their age" for example makes me worried they are just plain lying to me, and the behaviour of their kids often reveal their true maturity.
#5. I am not a babysitter. Parents have sometimes been known to sign their kids up for archery lessons and then disappear during the 90 minutes I am teaching, ignoring my request that they stay present at all times during the lesson. I require parents to stay present in case the kid has any health issues (allergic reactions, asthma, etc) and also so that their kid behaves themselves, thus reducing the chance that they might misbehave in a manner which is unsafe on the archery range.
By increasing my minimum age requirement to 16 I am guaranteed to get more mature students who have longer attention spans, more emotional maturity, less likely to refuse to listen due to youthful stubbornness, a significantly higher age that parents will be less likely to lie about their kids age, and lastly because they are at least 16 years old I don't feel like I am babysitting a kid any more.
Now in theory it is still possible that parents might try to lie about their 15 year old's age and claim they are 16, but I would hope that parents don't try to deceive me in that manner. If they did and I discovered the falsehood I believe cancelling the lessons (with no refund) would be an appropriate punishment for such deceit.
I should note that there are many kids I have taught in the past who listened, were very attentive, very safety conscious and their parents were equally responsible and took an interest in what their kid was learning - sometimes even developing a keen interest for having lessons themselves. It pains me that I have to change my rules / requirements, but sadly some bad eggs have spoiled it for other potential students.
As your kids get older contact me about getting them archery lessons for their 16th birthday. Have a great day!
Above - Jeff and Austin, father and son, admire a shot at 60 yards that went half way through the target.
For archery lessons I normally offer a Senior's Discount of 5% for people over the age of 65 (with proof of age), however for a limited time I am offering a 15% discount for seniors over the age of 65. This offer is only good for people booking their lessons in September or October 2015.
So if you live in Toronto, you were born in 1950 or earlier, and you want to learn archery now is your chance to get archery lessons in Toronto. For more info email cardiotrek@gmail.com with any questions.
Weekend archery lessons is one of my most popular / most requested services. Unfortunately, weekends also tend to be time I want to spend with family - and due to supply and demand there are only Saturday and Sunday to choose from.
(Or alternatively, you can prebook Winter archery lessons.)
During the 2015 archery season I opted to charge a different rate from weekday lessons and quickly determined that charging extra for weekend lessons was not much of a deterrent. People booked them up so much that every weekend time slot was fully booked to the end of the year by the time mid July rolled around. Logically this meant every person contacting from mid July to the present and asking for weekend lessons was going to disappointed that I had only weekday time slots to offer - or worse, I was pointing them towards prebooking for 2016.
So if you are looking for weekend lessons and reading this, you are coming to the conclusion that weekend archery lessons are rare - and more so if you are looking for a quality instructor. This is one of the reasons why I have been devoting more of my free time to writing my new book on the topic of recreational archery, because I know I cannot teach everyone. I simply do not have enough hours on weekends to teach every person who emails asking for weekend archery lessons.
But I can however sell them a book that teaches them all of the fundamentals.
And for those willing to pay a premium for weekend archery lessons, here are my new rates that are coming into effect at the end of October.
2 Students
$120 for 90 minutes; 3 Lessons - $337.50; 5 Lessons - $540; 10 Lessons - $1050.
3 Students
$150 for 90 minutes; 3 Lessons - $427.50; 5 Lessons - $675; 10 Lessons - $1320.
(Note that I also charge the weekend rate for ALL lessons conducted
outdoors during the Winter. If I am going to freeze outside in the snow
while teaching, I should get paid extra for it.)
Time is running out to prebook for archery lessons in Toronto - the only time slots remaining in 2015 are in September, October and the start of November. (The archery season ends roughly when there is snow on the ground and it is too cold.)
If you still hoping to get archery lessons in 2015 sign up now for lessons in September and October.
For a limited time you can also sign up for compound bow lessons and get a 10% discount. This offer expires July 31st.
During the past year I have been working on my forthcoming book on recreational archery and compiling various chapters. However for those of you who cannot wait for the book to come out, have a look below at samples of my past writing on the topic of the archery.
Arrow Splitting String Down Middle
Below is a list of 12 archery posts on CardioTrek.ca ranked by their popularity (excluding archery lesson testimonials).
On the topic of recreational archery I feel that is archery at its purest form. The sheer joy of archery for archery's sake. No compound gadgetry or Olympic gadgetry, no confusing hunting or competing with the sport of archery, just archery in its most natural form without anything added or subtracted.
Earlier this week I was named "Athlete of the Week" by CityTV News, not because of any great deed in terms of competition, nor for any feat of bowhunting skill, but for my interest in furthering recreational archery as a sport. Yes, I teach archery - but I don't limit myself solely to bowhunting or solely to people who want to compete in archery. My goal is much simpler: To promote archery as a whole, both as a pastime and as a recreational sport.
The CityTV news clip made reference to my ability to shoot at moving targets and shooting while walking, but I do many other things too. For example in my personal practice I routinely practice shooting at many different distances, sometimes while also shooting at moving targets. Such practices force my brain to work over time, to force myself to concentrate on the task at hand.
In my most recent personal practices I have taken to shooting at tiny moving targets, the size of a bottle cap. Or other similar targets so small most archers wouldn't even attempt to shoot at a moving target that small. Such practice causes me to go into a semi-meditative state as I study the moving target and determine how best to hit it. Part of it is timing, other parts are things like aiming (finely honed aiming), perfect form, perfect release, etc.
Bullseye on Plastic Bottle Cap
If you are looking for archery lessons in Toronto or if you want to add your name to the waiting list of people who want a copy of my upcoming book, send me an email. Sometime in the future I will also be adding a form for people who want to pre-order my archery book*.
* Note - Technically it will be my 2nd archery book. The 1st archery book I wrote was a book of zen poetry on the topic of zen archery and is titled "Dreaming of Zen Archery", which is available on Kobo.
On several occasions I have been contacted by men who are into MMA (so-called "Mixed Martial Arts") who are looking for a trainer who trains MMA fighters.
Every time someone contacts me for this particular specialized kind of sports training I laugh. Not so much because it is funny, but for several reasons.
#1. I actively make fun of the "sport" of "Mixed Martial Arts". I don't consider it to be a real sport compared to boxing, for example. It is not a "Martial Art" either. Visually speaking, it is an activity wherein one man jumps on the other man, they wrestle and then the one on the top start punching (if you can call those punches) the one on the bottom. There is almost no fighting skill required either, as MMA has the same level of technique utilized by chimps or gorillas fighting each other - or little kids fighting in a schoolyard. No noticeable skill. Just brute force. It is a sport for gorillas and like minded individuals.
Boxing on the other hand is a sport for gentlemen (in a broad sense of the term). Boxing has rules (no punching below the belt, no kidney punches, etc) and your goal in a boxing match is to score more points (hits) than your opponent. The sport of professional boxing therefore has seen many upsets over the years as savvy boxers will focus on scoring more points than their opponent, and win the match through points. Winning a match via KO (Knock Out) doesn't actually mean the opponent was knocked out cold. It simply means they didn't get back on their feet before the count of 10. There is also a TKO (Technical Knock Out), which is when the ring physician declares that one or more fighters are not healthy enough to continue.
Thus someone contacting me asking for MMA training is a bit like contacting a vegan and asking for tips on how to fry bacon. You are asking the wrong person!
#2. Why is the person contacting me not contacting someone who specializes in training MMA fighters? Wouldn't it make more sense to hire a professional MMA coach or perhaps a former MMA champion who has retired and might be tempted to start coaching?
This is what I mean by Specialized Personal Training. You contact someone who is a Specialist in the field you are seeking to learn about, because they are an expert in that field and you will learn far more from them than you would from someone who is not an expert in that field.
It would be like contacting a piano teacher and asking them to teach you how to play the bagpipes. It just doesn't make any sense. I laugh because again, for a separate reason, you are asking the wrong person!
#3. Several of the people who contacted me asking for MMA training were clearly amateurs trying to get into MMA fighting - and clearly had no clue what they were doing. Thus the visual image of a complete amateur getting beat up on the floor gorilla-style was inherently funny to me.
#4. The phenomenon of MMA in North America is pretty much limited to the type of gorilla-minded individuals who think what they are seeing is entertainment. You get the same level of entertainment watching actual gorillas fight. It is always the same thing too. The two gorillas attack each other. One gorilla realizes he is outmatched and tries to keep his distance. Eventually their struggle back and forth meets a climax when the two gorillas roll on the ground and one gorilla pounds the other. Don't believe me? Search for "gorillas fighting" on YouTube and then compare what you see to MMA videos. Any time people mention MMA I laugh, either aloud or in my head. MMA is basically a joke.
If you want to be entertained more, try watching the recent Planet of the Apes movies. The fight scene between Cesar and Koba will suffice.
Specialized Personal Training
There are many kinds of personal trainers - and no two trainers are completely alike. For example:
Weight Loss Personal Trainers (sole focus on cardio exercises).
Weight Loss Personal Trainers / Nutritionists (similar, but heavier focus on diet).
Sports Trainers / Coaches for Specific Sports (eg. boxing trainer, Olympic skiing coach, figure skating coach, marathon coach, football coach, etc).
Muscle Gain Personal Trainer (sole focus on weight lifting).
Body Building Personal Trainer (sole focus on weight lifting, with an eye for competitive bodybuilding).
Powerlifting Personal Trainer (sole focus on competitive weight lifting).
Examples of Specialized Personal Trainers in Toronto
In Alphabetical Order
Briar Munro - Holistic fitness for women. Charles Moffat - Archery instructor and general fitness personal trainer. Dena Ryde - Pre and post-natal personal trainer for soon-to-be moms and new moms. Gary Roberts - Former pro-hockey player turned personal trainer. Only trains young hockey players.
Greg Hetherington - Former pro-football player turned personal trainer. If your goal is football or rugby, he is your guy. Joanna Zdrojewska - Olympic weight lifting trainer.
Joel N.M. Kerr, Dr. - Rehab personal trainer.
Kathleen Trotter - Weight loss and general fitness personal trainer.
Lyzabeth Lopez - Gymnastics, aerobics and body shaping. Melissa Wessel - Strength training for women.
Nick Vernelli - Olympic weight lifting trainer. Sarah Davis - General fitness personal trainer. Steve Ashalou - Sports therapist / massage therapist and weight loss personal trainer.
Toronto has many other personal trainers, but you have to realize that each one has their specialties. Don't waste your time with a personal trainer who is doing something other than what you actually want to be doing.
So for example if you are looking for a MMA coach, contact a MMA coach. If you are looking for an archery instructor or general fitness, contact me. I also teach boxing, swimming and ice skating depending on the season.
The Pan Am Games are coming to Toronto this month and will take place from July 10th to July 26th. The Parapan Am Games will also be in Toronto, August 7th to 15th. The sports involved in the Pan Am Games are as follows:
Archery (70 meter Olympic style archery only, no field archery, no flight archery, no equestrian archery)
Athletics (includes all the track and fields events such as running, hurdles, discus, javelin, shot put, high jump, long jump, etc)
Badminton
Baseball
Basketball
Beach Volleyball (seriously, beach volleyball is a separate sport from regular volleyball)
BMX (as a separate category from cycling)
Bowling (why is billiards, darts and lawn darts not considered sports if bowling is included?)
Boxing
Canoe / Kayak Slalom
Canoe / Kayak Sprint
Cycling - Road
Cycling - Track
Diving
Equestrian (just horse jumping, no horse racing for some strange reason)
Fencing
Field Hockey (as if we couldn't find an ice rink to have a normal hockey game in Toronto...)
Football (World Football, or as Americans call it "Soccer")
Golf
Gymnastics - Artistic
Gymnastics - Rhythmic
Handball (it is like a cross between hockey and basketball)
Judo
Karate
Modern Pentathlon
Mountain Bike (why isn't that considered to be a cycling event?)
Open Water Swimming
Racquetball
Roller - Figure Skating (wait, wait, wait... figure skating? But no ice hockey???)
Roller - Speed Skating
Rowing
Rugby Sevens
Sailing (small sailboats that are built for speed, in other words a sport only rich people can do, although you could say that about many of the other sports listed here - like horse jumping)
Shooting (rifles, but why not crossbows too? Crossbows at least require more exercise to load.)
Softball (baseball with bigger balls)
Squash
Swimming (for speed that is, including many different styles of swimming)
Synchronized Swimming
Table Tennis
Taekwondo
Tennis (another sport for rich people who have their own tennis courts)
Trampoline
Triathlon
Volleyball
Water Polo (but not normal polo, the kind you play with horses - although admittedly polo is another sport for rich people)
Waterski & Wakeboard
Weightlifting
Wrestling (Olympic style wrestling, not the American version with play-acting and steroids)
I am ever amazed as to how certain "sports" get into these large scale events like the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, etc. I do therefore have some criticisms, on this and other topics.
#1. Some sports just aren't that popular, so why are they included?
Are there really that many people who play handball or water polo? I think not.
#2. Some sports aren't really sports in the normal sense.
eg. Shooting or Bowling, yes, I get it they do require some physical strength to do them - but they're not exactly something you break a sweat doing. Worst case scenario you might get a sore trigger finger or sore bowling fingers. And if shooting and bowling are sports, why not darts, lawn darts, billiards, or the biathlon (shooting and skiing)?
#3. Sometimes it feels like they are just inventing new sports.
Waterski, Wakeboard, Trampoline, Kayak Shalom or Sprint... if these are sports why not also:
Surfing
Windsurfing
Dolphin Riding (no seriously, if we have horse jumping, why not dolphin riding?)
Rock Climbing
Skydiving
Team Paintball
Team Archery Tag
Snorkeling
#4. Some sports are really just aimed at rich people.
Golf, tennis and sailing are three good examples of sports that are mostly only done by rich people. Equestrian horse jumping and any other sport involving horses also falls into this (as would Dolphin Riding...)
#5. What if a Parapan Athlete wants to compete in the normal Pan Am games?
This is an idea that has always made me wonder. For example lets say a man is missing a leg, but wants to be in horse jumping? His single leg might be a minor disadvantage when it comes to riding the horse, but you could also argue that he weighs less and the horse might be able to perform better with a lighter rider.
Same goes with golf. Do you really need two working legs to play golf? I think not.
Shooting rifles? Sure, they just need one good eye and a trigger finger.
Archery? Same deal. No reason why a person in a wheelchair cannot achieve greatness as an archer.
Fencing? A person with one arm only needs one arm to do fencing. In the video below you see a French citizen who is missing part of their arm.
So in conclusion always remember that the sports during the Pan Am Games (and the Olympics and other similar events) are the result of a committee voting on feedback from not the athletes themselves, but from sponsors. Sponsorship money is really what it comes down to.
The same thing goes for the athletes. The necessary time needed to practice a sport, train, eat properly, the cost of coaches and traveling to competitions is often the result of money from sponsors. If sponsors were sponsoring equestrian archery for example, then that would likely be a sport at the Pan Am Games.
In the world of competitive sports, it really all comes back to the issue of sponsors and money.
If you can think of a sport that should be included, leave a comment below.
If you have comments on the issue of money in sports, absolutely leave a comment about that too.
Looking to sign up for archery lessons, boxing lessons, swimming lessons, ice skating lessons or personal training sessions? Start by emailing cardiotrek@gmail.com and lets talk fitness!
