New Orleans Health & Fitness: Shaolin-Do Kung Fu & Tai Chi

Looking for some personal inspiration? Read this!

Shaolin-Do at middle age: Major Health Turn-Around
“Not to sound too melodramatic, but by the end of 2002 I thought I was dying. Climbing the stairs to my loft was an ordeal. I had no energy. I decided that I needed to take drastic action. I had come to the conclusion that I either had to kick start my body or I was going to just slide down lower and lower and die. I decided to sign up for Shaolin-Do lessons.

"I decided on martial arts because I took classes in a couple of different forms of karate when I was in college. I have a good friend who assured me that I would be welcome at your school, no matter what kind of shape I was in.

" After a month of Shaolin-Do my total cholesterol had dropped to 120. I was on a cholesterol medication at the time, so my doctor lowered my dosage My doctor tells me that except for my blood sugar the rest of my blood chemistry is enviable. I was already on a strict low carbohydrate diet when I started Shaolin-Do, but, I was gaining weight because of my high blood sugar. Two months after starting classes my weight started dropping. I have lost over 30 pounds since February of 2003. The rate of loss has varied between 5 pounds/month and 2 pounds/month.

" In the same period my blood pressure has also come down, and my resting heart rate has dropped more than 10 beats per second. I recently discovered that doing an hour a day of Shaolin-Do keeps my average measured blood sugar at near 100. It has taken me 10 months to get into the kind of shape that *lets* me do an hour of Shaolin-Do a day. When I first started going to Shaolin-Do I could not go all the way through even the lowest effort classes without sitting out. Sometimes I spent more time sitting out that working out. Now, I can get through most classes without using my inhaler. Being able to get through any class, with or without asthma medication, feels like a victory to me.”

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Tremendous Fitness Breakthroughs

“Before I started Shaolin-Do I could do maybe 5 sit ups if someone was holding my legs. I did not believe I *could* do a sit up with out having my legs locked down. Now I can do sit ups! What an amazing thing. Now I can do fingertip push ups. Now I can do knee bends and frog leaps. I can't express how surprised I am at what I can do. Things I never thought I could do. All the gym classes I ever took never had the effect that 10 months of Shaolin-Do have had. In my life I have worn out two exercise bikes, a tread mill, a Nordic Track, and accumulated a nice collection of free weights. None of that gave me the effect of 10 months of Shaolin-Do. I have a knee injury and a back injury that have limited my mobility for nearly 30 years. They limited my mobility because I was told they would, and I believed it. After 10 months of Shaolin-Do training they do not limit my mobility and they do not hurt anymore. They hurt me almost every day for most of 30 years and they don't hurt any more!"

People of all fitness levels welcome
"Not long after I started I was waiting for a class to start and I was feeling rather out of place and I was wondering if I wasn't too old to be starting a martial art. I was feeling like the only fat old person in the school. I got talking about it to a young woman who was also waiting for the class to start. She let me know that many of the skinny students I was comparing my self to had been fat when they started. And, it turned out she is a year *older* than I am... I thought I was 15 to 20 years older than her. She had been doing Shaolin-Do for a year. I've learned that it is very hard to judge the age of Shaolin-Do students. The standard rules just don't apply."

One man's remarkable progress
"You are getting this because you asked about my health statistics. Another quarter has passed and I have a new set of blood chemistry data. This test marks the end of my first year with Shaolin-Do. (I tested for my green belt a year and a day after my first lesson.) The good news is that my total cholesterol was down again. This time to 118. As a result the Dr. lowered my dosage on my cholesterol medication. I now take it 2 times/week. Over this year my dosage on that drug has dropped in steps from
7/week (daily) at the start of the year
5/week after 1 month of Shaolin-Do
3/week after 4 months
2/week after 12 months

"The other good news is that I am still losing weight. I'm down nearly 40 pounds it the last year.
My A1c hemoglobin is up 0.1, which leaves it at 6.0, the top end of normal. Which is still significantly better than it was a year ago. I was very disappointed with the result. My Dr. checked my records and noted that I was sick more times during the last quarter than I have been for the previous year, and noted that blood sugar always goes up when you are ill. He thought the level I was maintaining was amazing. He asked me a number of detailed questions about Shaolin-Do. It is completely out side of his experience.

"I got the results of my quarterly blood test on Tuesday. I am happy to report that I am no longer taking Lipitor, my cholesterol medication. My total cholesterol was 129 which is *below* normal. The ratio of "good" to "bad" cholesterol of 3.44, which is normal. My bad cholesterol was actually very much below normal. My A1C, a measure of blood sugar levels, is holding steady at 6.1 which is at the high end of normal, but still normal. My Dr. bluntly said that he has never seen anything like this before. I am on the lowest level of diabetic medication of *any* of his patients *ever* and he has never seen *anyone* get off of cholesterol medication. Between following a strict low carb diet and many hours of Shaolin-Do training I am regaining my health. Needless to say, he asked a lot of questions about what I was doing!

"I cannot express the sheer joy I feel every time I walk in to your school."

Thank You
Bob Pendleton

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