{"id":275504,"date":"2019-11-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-24T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/kicking-retirement-with-kung-fu\/"},"modified":"2019-11-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-24T08:00:00","slug":"kicking-retirement-with-kung-fu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/kicking-retirement-with-kung-fu\/","title":{"rendered":"Kicking retirement with kung fu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Experts say that doing things together through life is the best way to keep relationships alive, especially as the years mount up. Retired SDSU professors Don and Ann Cottrell took that advice to heart, and for more than two decades they\u2019ve been doing that regularly.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the activity that keeps them humming at the ages of 80 (Ann) and 81 (Don)?<\/span><\/p>\n

Martial arts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kung fu.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tai chi.<\/span><\/p>\n

And they are really, really good at it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Good enough to have won awards and promotion in the ranks, and be admired by people much younger than they are.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We got interested when Don took our son to the school where we now study and work out,” Ann said.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Rather than sit and watch, Don thought he\u2019d give it a try, and he liked it. He got me interested and it\u2019s gone from there. It\u2019s great exercise, and great training. We\u2019ve each earned a black sash award in kung fu, and a black fringe in tai chi. We\u2019re in the senior division now, and have no plans to stop it.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Kung fu is definitely a combat art, complete with swords, knives, spears, clubs and whatever else comes to hand. The moves are primarily oriented toward fighting, and have been since it was invented by Shaolin monks in long-ago China.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Many of you have probably seen one or more of the violent action movies Hollywood and Beijing put out. That action is badly overcooked, and, you know \u2026 they\u2019re movies.)<\/span><\/p>\n

People often say tai chi is simply exercise in slow motion, and it can be that \u2014 usually is.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also useful at speed. Tai chi can be used to defuse an attack by preventing attackers from getting started \u2014 stop them from attacking you. It\u2019s definitely a martial art.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can see what the martial arts training has done, and is doing, for Don and Ann.<\/span><\/p>\n

Watching them move around their College Area home, you don\u2019t really realize these people are in their 80s.<\/span><\/p>\n

They move like retired athletes, not retired college professors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pictures show they know what they\u2019re doing.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Well, there was the time when Ann accidentally broke Don\u2019s arm, but she was instantly forgiven.)<\/span><\/p>\n

“We\u2019ll never stop unless we have to,” Don said.<\/span><\/p>\n

So far, neither of them show any inclination to do that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Good for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2014Doug Curlee is a longtime San Diego reporter for both print and television news.<\/em><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Experts say that doing things together through life is the best way to keep relationships alive, especially as the years mount up. Retired SDSU professors Don and Ann Cottrell took that advice to heart, and for more than two decades they\u2019ve been doing that regularly. What is the activity that keeps them humming at the […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":275505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Kicking retirement with kung fu","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sdnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}