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Understanding the Health Benefits of Exercise Want to feel better, have more energy and perhaps even live longer? Look no further than exercise. The health benefits of regular exercise and physical activity are hard to ignore. And the benefits of exercise are yours for the taking, regardless of your age, sex or physical ability. Need more convincing to exercise? Check out these ways exercise can improve your life.1: Exercise controls weightExercise can help prevent excess weight gain or help maintain weight loss. When you engage in physical activity, you burn calories. The more intense the activity, the more calories you...

Imagine an activity than can develop more than just the ability to throw a power punch or a super high kick ... an activity that encourages the development of the key life skills of confidence, self-esteem, communication and more. Many parents have little or no experience of the martial arts and for some the image conjured up is one of violence and danger for kids. Upon closer inspection, however, many find that their kids will reap an innumerable amount of benefits from participation especially from a VERVE Martial Arts club. In addition to busting sedentary habits and getting kids in...

Yet, if you really think about it, most of us (martial arts instructors) probably embarked on teaching children soon after we got a black belt or before, without any real understanding about how children learn and develop. Another misconception is the notion that if we are parents ourselves, we assume that it is enough of a qualification to let ourselves loose on other people's children. The reality is, often we end up teaching children the same old things, in the same old ways that we learnt martial arts ourselves, and this is not adequate enough.The good news is, those who...

There are plenty more factors that can be added to the diagram but if we are to build and develop speed it is important we try and break it down and to understand it. A number of highly esteemed martial artists and theorists have researched 'speed' further and suggest that it can be broken down into several specific stages, up to 7 elements have been suggested but for simplicity I have categorised the following. Elements of SPEED ... STAGE 1 - Perception – the ability to recognise a given stimulus / that a response is neededSTAGE 2 - Reaction –...

Confidence, self-esteem, assurance, focus and mental strength are all phrases and synonym traits of a black belt, along with these elements, and many hard years of training, also comes the additional facets of commitment, perseverance, self-control and humility to name but a few. It is often suggested that as well as the mental benefits martial arts training provide, an individual can increase their personal physical strength and power by as much as 3 ½ to 4 times, this of course done with the correct guidance, methodology and practical application of given skills. Having said this, to achieve top level performance,...