Health Corner: Calories and Exercise

Calories are the amount of energy in food.  When you do not use the energy, it is stored as fat. To avoid excessive fat storing, it is recommended to do at least 30 minutes to one hour a day of physical exercise. Let’s look at what activities burn the most amounts of calories in 30 minutes:

Holiday Sale This Week: 15% Off (Nov 14 - 22)

For the next few days, students can take advantage of 15% off any item in our Pro-Shop. We stock items like shirts, patches, hoodies, gloves and uniforms yet students can also order custom items like belt racks, shoes, practice weapons, catalog shirts, etc.

Holiday Sale 15% Off

This Week (Nov 14 - 22)

New punching gloves, FMA hoodies and 

workout T-shirts can make great presents.
Place your orders with Jane Anderson or Andrew Wallace.

Punching Gloves: Improving Krav Maga and TKD Programs

                               
For the improvement of our Krav Maga and Taekwondo (teens & adults) programs, we are incorporating exciting new punching drills.  These new exercises will include boxing combinations practiced on shields, mitts, and bags. The use of targets will give students more well-rounded, challenging, and exciting training.

To maintain our level of safety at FMA, we ask that teens and adults Taekwondo & Krav Maga students add a pair of punching gloves to their gym bags. This is a valuable implementation as it will enable our instructors to teach more in-depth punching techniques. Gloves will challenge you to punch harder, yet safer, building your punching muscles effectively.

We ask all students who don't own open-finger punching gloves to stop by the Pro-Shop and pick up a pair.  It retails for $40 a pair, and we are offering it at a special price of $30 for a limited time.

Regular Price: $40

Holiday Sale: $30
25% Off

Enjoy the new punching drills, and the confidence of knowing you can throw a solid punch.

 

FranklinMartialArts.com Gets a Makeover

We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to completely revamp our website, and we are pleased to announce that the new site is up!

We created a welcoming, interactive and informative online space for students and visitors alike. Aside from providing detailed information about our programs, our new site is chockful of pictures of the FMA family – see if you can spot familiar faces!

The Lounge
Don’t forget to stop by the Lounge, a social wall built right into our site where you can socialize with other Franklin Martial Arts members and visitors. Start a new topic at the Lounge and enjoy the new site. Please forward any suggestions or comments – we are always looking for ways to improve.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Belt Promotion and Seminar in December

We are happy to announce that our academy will hold a Blue Belt Promotion & Seminar on Saturday Dec. 3rd, 2011.  We will review some important principles blue belts must know. Although some will be promoted, everyone is invited to attend.   

Date: Saturday, December 3rd, 2011
Time: 12pm – 2pm
Location: FMA upstairs
Fee: This seminar will be free for all students. There is a $25 charge for those receiving a belt promotion (for belt and certificate).

After the seminar and promotions, join us for lunch at a nearby restaurant.  There will be no regular 2pm class that Saturday.

Belt Promotions:
Saulo Gomes  Blue Belt
Steve Kane Blue Belt
Richard Mello Blue Belt
Chris Beauregard  Blue Belt
Jordan Torti  Orange Belt

Stripe Promotions:
Ryan Burke  Blue Belt 3rd stripe
Shane Brady  Blue Belt 2nd stripe
Keith Desautels White 4th stripe
Shadi Rajeh  White 4th stripe
Josh Black  White 4th stripe
Ben Bertram  White 3rd stripe

our new facebook page: Franklin Martial Arts

In an effort to correctly categorize our school on facebook, we created a new Facebook account.  The new Franklin Martial Arts facebook page has even more pictures, plus numerous videos of students in action. We would like to ask students who have pictures or martial arts videos on Youtube, to continue sharing them with us on Facebook: Franklin Martial Arts.

Please follow the link and click "Like".  
Franklin Martial Arts on Facebook

Bruno Souza: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Brown Belt!

Many of us know him as Master Souza, the Taekwondo 4th degree black belt, and head of our school. Some know him as Bruno, the former purple belt Jiu-Jitsu instructor.  That's right, our Head Instructor and Programs Director is also a student, still learning and improving, just like all his students. As a good FMA family friend once put it, "We must keep the beginner’s mind.” To Bruno Souza, this means even the teachers have to keep learning, maintaining the hunger for more knowledge, and fueling the drive to set and achieve new goals.

On November 5th, Bruno Souza was promoted to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu brown belt under his teacher and friend Roberto Maia of Gracie Barra Boston Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the pioneer of BJJ in New England.  Bruno Souza is now one step away from his dream of BJJ black belt...  Go Master Souza!  

In addition to teaching Taekwondo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Souza is also an instructor in Krav Maga, Boxing and Muay Thai, as well head coach of Taekwondo competition team, Team Edge.  All of these programs are offered right here, at Franklin Martial Arts.  Go FMA!

Quote of the Day

“Being happy doesn't mean everything is perfect.
It means you have decided to look beyond the imperfections.” 

– Unknown Author

Souza Says: We Are Creatures of Habit

The benefits of setting a regular schedule - and sticking to it - are numerous. Studies show that individuals with a consistent schedule for an activity are more likely to participate in the activity for longer. They are also more likely to experience greater benefits from practice, and tend to derive greater enjoyment from it than those who practice inconsistently. This holds true for many kinds of activities, physical or not.

The human brain responds better to things it does habitually. "We are creatures of habit," Souza says. Change your habits and you will change your life.  This is absolutely true for Martial Arts training.  Speaking from two decades of experience with teaching martial arts, Souza firmly believes that the student who commits to regularly attending twice a week will go further in the martial arts than the student who goes "when s/he can."  

Establish a goal, set concrete action steps, create a realistic schedule and stick to it. If you follow the plan, you will train your subconscious brain to understand that you participate in the activity habitually, thus “hypnotizing” yourself. As a result, doing the activity becomes easier and more fun.  Something similar can be said for replacing bad habits.  You have to do just that: replace them with better habits, not attempt to simply stop them.  

Souza says: create workout schedule and follow it, especially for your martial arts training. Attend two to three times a week, faithfully.  This is best. If you have more time, energy, and desire to learn more, you may want to consider cross-training into a different martial art style we offer.

Let's replace our okay habits with great ones...

Thank you for reading our Newsletter.  Check us out next month!