I was recently in Ghana, visiting my parents for the holidays. We took a trip to Kumasi, which holds West Africa’s largest market and had a tour guide show us around. As we walked through the thousands of small family-operated stalls, and were over-stimulated by all the sights, smells and sounds, I couldn’t help but notice the business patterns they all seemed to adopt.

These small family operated stalls had been passed down through generations for several decades, and served the same customers over and over. All the stalls were fairly small, but they had a set of regular and loyal customers buying their goods every week. They knew their customers and were able to not only small talk with them but also ask them more personal questions. They knew what their customers wanted and sometimes had their orders ready for them. Even with the smallest of stalls the owners were able to make a living and support their families, all from the repeat purchases their loyal customers brought them.

What can you learn from West Africa that may benefit your brand?

Customer service is a great way to differentiate your brand – The owners of the stalls knew their customers, their likes, dislikes and more personal details, which allowed them to move past the small-talk stage and really get to know them. They differentiated themselves from the competition by becoming familiar with their customers, and also providing great customer service by having a real interest in their customers’ lives. Being friendly with customers can differentiate your brand because customers feel you are providing good customer service. Understanding your customers may even help you suggest other products they may be interested in, or let you realize the need for a new product or service.

Engage your customers & make them feel special – Each customer was made to feel special. The initial questions of “How are you?” and “How is the family?” led to a unique conversation between each customer and stall-owner. Giving each customer a unique and personal experience, makes your customer feel more special and is more likely to get your brand more Word-of-Mouth and repeat purchases.

Loyal customers drive repeat purchases – Every person at the market seemed to have their usual stall to buy from, even though there were hundreds on each side they could have chosen instead. Once your customers really get to know the person behind the brand and the great service you provide, they will think twice about moving their business to one of your competitors, as that would be time and energy consuming. They may choose to purchase several products from you, or become a fan/cheerleader for your brand and spread the word about your great services.

Loyal customers build your network for you – Groups of friends were also often gathered around each stall, and the guide only took us to speak to people at the stalls she normally shopped at. Your loyal customers will do the same, and refer their friends and acquaintances to your services. Word-of-mouth from a friend or someone held in high regard, often gives people that extra nudge they need to buy a product or service.

Once upon a time, customers used to be just some numbers that you added up to get your total sales. In those days, your customers had limited options about where to buy from and what they could buy. Fast forward that to day when consumers have so many product choices and can buy from literally thousands of companies spread all over the world. For example, let’s consider shoes. A person who wants to buy a pair of shoes has thousands of shoes to choose from and several hundred companies. As a shoe manufacturer, your aim would be to create something in your shoes that the consumer won’t find anywhere else. You would strive to create more comfortable, stylish and better fitting shoes so that the customer buys from you.

This basically changes the whole dynamics of the customer-business relationship. The customer now holds the power in most cases and businesses scramble around them to gain their attention. In the last decade, ‘customer loyalty’ has become the holy grail of researchers and marketers all around the world. The traditional ways to measure success by conducting customer satisfaction surveys didn’t seem to make sense as they realized that customer satisfaction does not necessarily result in repeat purchases.

The chances of a customer giving you repeat business definitely increases if he is satisfied by a previous purchase of your product. But the chances are that he can easily be swayed away by the barrage of advertisements being bombarded at them from all sides. So with this paradigm shift, ‘customer loyalty’ became the latest buzz word to measure success of any marketing department.

Several studies have shown that customers become loyal when they have repeated outstanding experience with a product over time. Not only that, they become emotionally attached to your product, which might cause them not act rationally next time they’re making a purchase of your product. They become more tolerable if you mess up your product sometime. They recommend your product to their friends and family and they’re not easily swayed away by latest fads or price differences. In short, they not only buy your product, but they also act as evangelists for your products. And we all know, word of mouth marketing is the most effective kind ever.

One of the best examples we see today is the Apple’s Macintosh cult. These Mac fans swear by all things made by Apple. They’ve gone through considerable trouble to co-exist in a world dominated by PCs. They wait in lines for hours (sometimes even days) before the launch of a new Apple product. With loyal customers like these, repeat business from them is almost guaranteed. This is exactly why marketing firms try to develop a similar emotional connection between consumers and their products. Because they know that if they can attain this brand loyalty, everything else will naturally follow.

Can you spare five minutes a day to practice a mental conditioning technique that can literally save your life? The answer better be “yes!”

Physical conditioning and skills practice comprise only 50% of the training necessary to help police officers survive a critical incident. The other 50% lies in something most officers have neglected; mental conditioning. Eastern cultures have long embraced the practice of mental conditioning to complete their training and I am convinced from my experiences on the street that this type of training is at least as important as physical conditioning.

I’ve spent the last 12 years researching, practicing and perfecting a skill that very few people in emergency services have ever heard of, let alone experienced. It involves a powerful training technique using mantras for focused mental conditioning. Mantras are phrases that are repeated over and over to strengthen the mind. Mantras have been used and perfected in the East for literally thousands of years to produce some of the greatest warriors the world has ever known. I have discovered a way that we can adapt certain aspects of this incredible training into our daily lives. The results are remarkable and they will make a powerful contribution to your survival training.

You can begin this process by selecting your specific mantra. Mantras can be any phrase of your choosing, whatever suits your needs at the time. Some examples of possible mantras include the following:

“I will survive!”

“I can control my fear!”

“I will not panic!”

“I will stay calm at all times!”

“I can control my pain!”

I recommend upon awakening you sit on the edge of your bed and settle your mind. Take three deep, slow breaths and begin to silently repeat your mantra. Continue breathing normally and silently repeat your mantra with intense focus and deep inner conviction. Make this your only thought for a full five minutes to set this as your mantra for the day. You may continue throughout the day to repeat your mantra whenever you wish. This will help to engrain it even deeper into your consciousness.

Once you begin to make this training a part of your daily practice you will begin to see positive and powerful results. You will find that your mind and body will be better prepared to face your next crisis. Without conscious thought your mantra will echo in your mind, strengthening your resolve and ability to survive. Do not underestimate the power of programming your mind to survive. In his book, “On Killing”, Dave Grossman describes how mental conditioning is a revolution that represents total superiority in close combat. I could not agree more. It can literally be the difference between life and death.

The challenge resides with your willingness to implement this technique into your daily training. If you apply yourself, this technique combined with your physical conditioning will help to develop your survival skills and ensure you will walk the warrior’s path for years to come. Can you spare five minutes? Yes, you can!

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Are you disappearing into your relationship?

Relationships offer a wonderful gift for growth and learning to love our self and our significant other without condition. But too often we forget about our self, our needs, wants and desires. We can get up wrapped up in love.

No matter how successful, or powerful some women are, they give up parts of themselves. Like their social life, their time alone, even their beliefs and values, or spiritual development. They don’t tend to voice their needs, or desires and wants easily. So, they end up on hold or forgotten.

You may think there are many reasons you maybe knowingly hiding yourself. For example you may consciously avoid arguments for fear of confrontation. A fear learnt from the way your parents fought a lot.

However, the underlying reasons we make ourselves invisible, or merge into our partner’s world, is largely an unconscious act. Which over time our personal needs and desires wane, where they no longer are important. They become like a distant dream we once believed was possible, but are now less important or completely forgotten.

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Childhood trauma greatly impacts on our ability to feeling empowered in relationships.

How we show up in all of our relationships is a reflection on what we learnt about inter-personal relationships when growing up. Trauma experienced in childhood greatly impacts on our ability to maintain a sense of self awareness and feeling empowered in relationships.

Unhealed trauma does not form a sound basis on which a healthy relationship can develop. By that I mean, a relationship in which you feel wholly loved just for who you are. It’s easy for relationships to slide into disrepair, when one or both partners are unconsciously holding onto past hurts that are buried deep within the emotional body and the physical body.

So what did you learn from your parents?

Did you learn to be independent and to value who you are? Was our voice heard?

Were you treated as equally important as your siblings, especially with the males in the family?

Were you taught to speak up and to voice your needs and wants and not made to feel selfish in doing so?

Did mum and dad treat each other as equals?

Or did mum play the peace keeper role to avoid conflict at any cost?

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Sophie The Invisible.

Sophie 38, explained to me that she was raised to believe that the only way to obtain any significance was to marry a wealthy man. As a result Sophie thought the only way therefore, she could develop her own sense of self worth; would be through supporting her husbands accomplishments.

In other words, Sophie’s needs would be met by satisfying her partner’s wants. She came to believe her needs as a woman, were not so important.

And that’s exactly what happened. She met and married a very successful businessman. At first it seemed it just what Sophie had wanted. People paid her respect. She felt important. She felt significant for the first time in her life.

But after some years she began to realise just how empty and lonely her life really was. Her entire world had been centered around pleasing her husband.

She made a point, which she obsessed over for fear of criticism, to alway look good for him. Sophie was intent on not letting him down.

Appearances was something her husband was fanatic about. So much of Sophies time was also spent on maintaining an immaculate home for him to come home to.

Sophie woke up to the disarming truth that over the years she had allowed herself to disappear.

She did not know who she was. The real shock though came after the divorce in not knowing how to simply live her life for herself.

She was so conditioned to ignoring her own needs as a matter of course, it was difficult for Sophie to literally even think for herself.

She really had no idea of how to connect to Sophie. It took some time however, to bring out the real Sophie. Especially where she learnt to feel good about taking care of her own needs.

The biggest hurdle was for her to get to know what it felt like to experience feeling empowered and unafraid in getting her new life off the ground. But now that Sophie does know what it feels like, she is determined never to disappear again.

Her road ‘to recovery’ is now filled with conscious acts of self love. But she has now discovered a happy, joyful, adventurous Sophie she never knew before.

Our biggest challenge is learning to put our self-first in a self-loving way and not feel guilty.

For those of us that find ourselves disappearing into a relationship, our biggest challenge is learning to put our self-first in a self-loving way. This is not a selfish act. It is the most important change you can make. To love oneself is a precious gift that we should all fully embrace.

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When you reflect on your relationships past and present- who showed up? Who is showing up today?

Here are 10 signs which can indicate you may be hiding in your relationship.

1. People Pleaser

2. Forgoing your own needs and interests, putting your partner’s first

3. Finding comfort in food or alcohol

4. Waking up in the morning tired, restless, anxious, insecure

5. Feeling unappreciated

6. Always trying to fit in

7. Prefer to be at work than at home, or a workaholic

8. Make excuses by ignoring your feelings

9. Feeling trapped

10. Feeling resentful

How much of yourself do you allow to show up in your relationships?

Let me leave these thoughts with you…

How much of your relationship is a reflection of your true self?

Do you make a point of being fully present no matter what is occurring?

Or do you pull back, retreat and hide?

In other words, is your relationship filled with your presence each day? Does the real you tend to show up?

Or are you hiding parts of yourself in there somewhere?

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.29.3″ _i=”2″ _address=”1.2″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.29.3″ _i=”0″ _address=”1.2.0″][et_pb_cta button_url=”https://go.oncehub.com/SandyHounsell” url_new_window=”on” button_text=”If you feel like you are on your way to disappearing, or feel you have already disappeared and you want to explore how you can get back the real you, I like to offer you a ‘no obligation’ breakthrough session. Which you can book here.” admin_label=”cts background colour aqua b/t session” _builder_version=”3.29.3″ background_ button_alignment=”center” hover_enabled=”0″ _i=”0″ _address=”1.2.0.0″][/et_pb_cta][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

Printing from screens prepared from paper, silk and others are one of the efficient printing techniques in the modern society. However, the printing technique poses some challenges to amateur printers. Thus, solutions to some of these problems in screen printing have been suggested. Most of the problems that are likely to occur in screen printing are:

(i) Bleeding of colours

(ii) Unequal gaps left between repeats

(iii) Irregular placement of screens or block/leaking screens and soiling of clothes

(iv) Formation of colour patches on the cloth

(v) Pin holes

i) Bleeding of colours may occur when the pigment (printing paste) used for the printing process is watery. If the pigment watery, during printing, at every registration, the pigment will bleed to the surrounding areas of the motifs thereby spoiling the printed cloth. To solve that problem, the printing paste must be thick enough so that at every registration, the pigment will stick to the fabric. Also at every registration, the under part of the screen must be cleaned.

ii) Unequal gaps left between repeats may also occur when the registration of the screen is not calculated. If the registration is not calculated, subsequent repeats of the design may not join thereby creating gaps in between the repeats. The problem could be solved by checking the repeats before printing starts. The repeats can be checked by using a coloured chalk to mark the various repeats on the fabric so that at every repeat one will know where to place the screen. Another solution is, a coloured strand could also be placed at the edge of the design widthwise so that the screen could be placed directly on the strand when the repeat is registered, the strand will be removed and the design will be printed.

iii) Irregular placement of screen may occur if the repeats are not checked. To solve it, the repeats have to be checked before the placement of the screen is done to register the print. Blocking /leakage of screens and soiling of cloth may also occur when the edges of the screens are not blocked. If the edges are not blocked, the printing paste will leak through the edges and soil the cloth. This is solved by using a masking tape to tape around the screen before printing starts.

iv) Formation of colour patches on the cloth may occur if the pigment is not distributed evenly on the screen. To solve this problem, enough pigment has to be used so that the paste will be evenly distributed to prevent this patchy effect. Also, the pulling of the squeegee must be well done.

v) Pinholes may occur as a result of any of these:

(1) The mesh used for the screen may contain some oils or gums and dirt in it. So if the development of the screen is done, because the silk was not washed to remove the dirt and other foreign matters in it, it will block the light from passing through so during washing, those portions would be washed off thereby creating pin-holes there. This could be solved by washing the mesh to remove every impurity before stretching it onto the screen.

(2) Pinholes may occur when there is under exposure of the screen during developing i.e. during the development of the screen, the due time for the screen to develop will not be sufficient or would not reach and the screen would be washed. If that is done, the chemicals would not develop enough on the screen so during washing most of it would be washed off, creating pinholes. This could be solved by allowing the screen to develop well, that is to reach the due time before it is washed.

(3) Coating of the screen can also create pinholes in the screen. This is so if the coating is not well done most especially when it is done once. After washing of the screen, there would be pinholes in the screen. This could be solved by coating the screen twice or thrice before developing is done.

These suggested solutions to the identified challenges are time-tested and born from the experiences of skilled screen printers. Therefore, printers using screens who confront the same or similar challenges can utilise these suggestions.

If you look at any of your problem areas in your life, you’ll probably find they are rooted in faulty and limited beliefs, imbedded deeply in our subconscious mind. Because they are in the subconscious mind, often you are not aware that they are the source of your thoughts and actions.

These negative and dis-empowering beliefs, are the reason our life does not work as well as we would like it to; they are the barriers and blockages that stop us from reaching our full potential.

I believe these are the source of our self-sabotage, and through daily affirmations and declarations we are able to imprint in our mind a new way of thinking, new beliefs that are empowering, boost self-esteem and develop self-confidence.

We are re-programming our subconscious mind through daily repetitions of these affirmations, and remember that every new belief needs time and attention to flourish.

You can’t do these affirmations for a few days and expect to get long-term results… you will have to imprint them daily; repeating and contemplating on each one for at least 5 minutes, for a period of one month or two. Anything less will not succeed.

Affirmations can be used for immediate, short-term results as well, when you want to influence and redirect the thoughts that occur in your conscious mind.

For example, in a situation where you are feeling stressed, tense or upset, you can repeat an affirmation such as, “I feel calm and relaxed. I feel calm and relaxed. I feel calm and relaxed” for a couple of minutes.

Since your conscious mind can only think one thought at a time, you are able to “fill” your mind with thoughts that support you or your goals. You can repeat these anywhere, whilst driving, loud or silently.

One thing to remember is that you don’t necessarily have to believe your affirmations; all you have to do is repeat them.

I have put together 27 of the most powerful affirmations and declarations that I have come across, specifically to boost self-esteem and develop self-confidence.

You can choose to start with the ones that fit you best, and rotate them daily or weekly, whatever is appropriate for you.

Daily affirmations and declarations:

1. I am unique. I feel good about being alive and being me.
2. Life is fun and rewarding.
3. Amazing opportunities exist for me in every aspect of my life.
4. There are no such things as problems, only opportunities.
5. I love challenges, they bring out the best in me.
6. I replace “I must”, “I should” and “I have to” with “I choose”. (try it with something you think you have to do, and replace must with choose… notice the difference?)
7. I choose to be happy right now. I love my life.
8. I appreciate everything I have. I live in joy.
9. I am courageous. I am willing to act in spite of any fear.
10. I am positive and optimistic. I believe things will always work out for the best.
11. It’s easy to make friends. I attract positive and kind people into my life.
12. It’s easy to meet people. I create positive and supportive relationships.
13. I am a powerful creator. I create the life I want.
14. I am OK as I am. I accept and love myself.
15. I am confident. I trust myself.
16. I am successful right now.
17. I am passionate. I am outrageously enthusiastic and inspire others.
18. I am calm and peaceful.
19. I have unlimited power at my disposal.
20. I am optimistic. I believe things will always work out for the best.
21. I am kind and loving. I am compassionate and truly care for others.
22. I am focused and persistent. I will never quit.
23. I am energetic and enthusiastic. Confidence is my second nature.
24. I treat everyone with kindness and respect.
25. I inhale confidence and exhale fear.
26. I am flexible. I adapt to change quickly.
27. I have integrity. I am totally reliable. I do what I say.

My formula to organisational change involves overcommunication.

Too often, leaders think they’re communicating a lot. After all, they’re in meetings all day and they have an open door policy. How could they not be?

But that’s not how their people see it.

Sure, the strategic leaders spend all day talking… but the typical employee gets very little facetime with them.

If you have 30-minute meetings and work ten-hour days, you can meet with a hundred people in a week. That’s assuming you have nothing else to do with your time.

That sounds like a lot.

But what can you learn in 30 minutes?

And how many people do you have under you, or influence your team from the outside? Even with this crazy schedule, you can’t talk with everyone.

The result?

From a frontline employee’s perspective, strategic leaders are too distant to communicate often.

Let alone overcommunicate.

If you’re driving a change initiative, then your people need to hear about it every day. They need to read emails, hear speeches and talk with their supervisors about it.

And across all of these, the messages need to be the same.

How, though?

If, as a strategic leader, you start emailing your people every day… won’t they tune out?

If you ask your middle managers to pass on messages to their people, won’t they get bored?

The thing is, you can easily overcommunicate your vision for change without repeating yourself. Consider all the things you can talk about regarding a change initiative:

The reasons behind the change and the benefits it will bring.

How the change will transform the organisation.

What success looks like. This includes clearly defined targets to meet.

The strategic vision, including the goals of the change initiative and how to meet them.

Your personal vision, including what you hope to see as a result of this change.

Personal stories from you. This could include small wins you’ve had or moments in the past where this sort of problem led to disaster. This is a great opportunity to demonstrate you are leading by example and embracing the change.

Any progress made towards the strategic objectives – especially if it led to improvements.

Tips, tricks and tactics. For example: clarifying changes to policy, pointing out relevant reference materials and describing how to handle conflicts under the new system.

Acknowledging the struggle. Change is hard and stressful. It always requires employees to do extra work and learn new processes, at least at first. It’s important to show understanding.

Answering questions and addressing concerns as they arise.

That’s not even a full list, but it’s enough to get you started.

After a few cycles of that, your people will get it.

They’ll understand how and why they’re changing.

They’ll understand you’re serious about it.

And it won’t take long for them to see the best way to advance their career is to get on board.

If you are looking to make some money out of eBay, this article is for you. Follow this eBay selling secret to be successful on eBay. The number one tried and tested eBay selling secret is to have a simple website and a great eBay store.

The website does not need to be very flashy or high-tech. Put up a simple website that has all the information needed and regularly update it. The next eBay selling secret is to have a repeat buyers list. This may be tough, but once executed, an eBay seller can start gathering personal information about repeat customers, making it easy to keep in touch. To attract repeat customers, build an eBay store as:

o A store name is easier to remember than a username.

o A store allows item photos to be uploaded. The photos need to be detailed and should show the item closely.

o eBay store provides tools that eBay normal listing does not provide.

o eBay store listings stay for longer periods of time.

o Many a times eBay store does the work of a company website.

o Apart from customer feedback, the store has a tool that allows the owner to see how many people have clicked through the items. This helps them to analyze why a certain item is not being sold.

The above mentioned eBay selling secret, that is, putting up a website and setting up a store can make a great difference to the overall sales and profit revenues of the business. eBay is probably the most inexpensive way to attract customers, provided one has the right type of experience. Finally the key to successful selling on eBay is patience and consistency.

There are a couple of very easy ways to become more persuasive. In fact, they are so easy, you could learn them from children. One of them is simply the use of repetition. The more often you repeat something, the more likely the chance that you will finally achieve your desired outcome.

There are certain rules and restrictions to this of course. You can’t just repeat the same sentence over and over and over again – that will just annoy people at some point and make you look childish.

But a lot of people are way too afraid of coming across as childish, and thus never make enough use of the persuasive power of repetition.

Think about it – what is one of the biggest areas where persuasion is applied? Advertisements! Billions and billions of dollars are being spent on advertisement every single year.

And all these ads – they show them again and again and again and again. We already know them. We have become familiar and accustomed to them. They have been repeated so many times, we hardly even notice them consciously anymore. They are like a person living in the same neighborhood that we have seen many times already.

This constant state of repetition creates a kind of familiarity that makes it more difficult for our minds to resist. We are more likely to chose that which we already know and are familiar with than the thing which is foreign and unknown.

Repetition also helps to anchor something into our memories more deeply. When you were studying multiplication tables in school, you probably recited three times three is nine, four times three is twelve and so on dozens of times. A slogan, a speech, a commercial – the more often it is repeated, the more deeply it gets embedded into our memories.

And then, constant repetition even has a hypnotic effect on our minds, and hypnotists use repetitive statements to put people into deep hypnotic trance states. It is true that repetition can make you feel sleepy – and once you are in that state, you become more susceptible to any kind of suggestion.

So experiment with the use of repetition when you try to persuade other people. Be a bit bold – sometimes even chose to be overly repetitive, to the point where even you feel a bit uncomfortable about it. Even if these attempts will not work out good enough, they will no doubt widen your mental flexibility when it comes to making use of persuasive techniques in your communication – and that in and of itself will turn you into a better persuader.

It is very important that the workouts you are completing as part of your fitness and conditioning are catered towards Judo. Judo fights are 5 minutes in length and you need to be fit enough to be able to fight hard for five minutes, have 5 minutes off and then fight again. Therefore your training should be something very similar to this.

Here are 6 circuits designed specifically for Judo. These circuits will dramatically increase your cardiovascular fitness quickly.

Metabolic circuits

Metabolic circuits are designed to simply wreck you metabolically. This simply means we get a particular muscle group and one minute of work on it. When the muscle is on the verge of failure we change to a different part of the body and repeat.

I chose to do 7-10 minute metabolic workouts.

Metabolic circuit 1:

1 minute bodyweight squats

1 minute push ups

1 minute skipping

1 minute chinups

1 minute shuttle runs

1 minute scooping push ups (Hindu push ups)

1 minute sprawling

Have a five-minute rest and repeat another 2 rounds.

Metabolic circuit 2:

I minute chin ups

1 minute squat jumps

1 minute skipping

1 minute farmers walk (walking holding dumbbells)

Have a five-minute rest and repeat another 2 rounds.

Metabolic circuit day 3:

15 deadlifts

15 push ups

And then Repeat 14, 13, 12, etc., all the way down to 1 repetition.

Circuit 4: Tabata intervals

A Japanese sports scientist Izumi Tabata studied and came up with the Tabata interval training system.

It is pretty simple training session:

5 minutes warm up

20 seconds of a particular exercise at 100% effort (as hard as you can)

10 seconds rest

Repeat 8 times

2-5 minutes cool down

You may do Tabata intervals with:

Burpees, Sprints, Sumo Deadlift high pulls or Skipping (if you are a good skipper).

Running circuits

There are times when you cannot get to the gym or only have a skipping rope and a pair of shoes. If this is the case these next two workouts are fantastic.

Running circuit 1

Skipping 200 times

Sprint 200 meters

Repeat for 20 minutes

Running circuit 2

This workout is great if you have nothing but a pair of running shoes and nothing else.

Run 1500 meters (or if you don’t know how far you are running-run for 6 minutes)

5 mins Rest

Repeat for 2 more rounds

Run 1000 meters (4 mins 30)

Run 500 (2 minutes)

Repeat 2 more rounds

If you add these workouts as part if your cardiovascular training you will feel the benefits on the Judo mat