Adam’s Cerebral Spillage

Surely going back to the lower grades syllabus should be easy? You’d think so, easier at least at any rate, but no, not for me. Last night I managed to do something nasty to my finger doing the very first set sparring combinations from the old Moo Duk Kwan syllabus. I’m so clever!

It should have been a simple combination; the attacker throws a rear-leg front kick, I block it with an inverted inside-to-out palm and retaliate with a reverse punch and kick of my own. It was going really well until the last kick of the session, when for some reason my brain decided that a much better block would be a straight-fingered spear hand to a moving shin… I had that weird few seconds at first where you aren’t sure what happened, followed by the realisation, pain and the ‘ohmygod, ohmygod, what happened? Did I break anything? Is there blood?’ shock reaction. I’m not sure what I did exactly, but it was incredibly painful.

So today I have a freak finger. It’s about twice the size of the one on the opposite hand, and the middle knuckle is now turning purple and red and all kinds of interesting colours. If I try to make a fist with my left hand now it looks like the same kind of fist you’d make if you were trying to strike pressure points with your middle knuckle, and I also look a bit special trying to type. My first thought when I got home last night was that I’d broken it, because it felt just like when I broke my finger last year, the same throbbing pain followed by a dull ache and not being able to put any pressure on it at all, but I’m not so sure this morning. I’ll just keep an eye on it for the next few days and see what happens, I really want to avoid going to X-ray again because it’s so incredibly boring.

Other than that little episode training’s still going great. Little changes made to the most basic techniques have made it a real task trying to re-learn without losing power or form. Things like floating a foot through the most basic blocks make them feel a lot more powerful, but I know I’m getting sloppy doing them. It’s all too easy to let the forward momentum throw your body forward into a lean, and forget about keeping square shoulders and hips… for now at least.

I started back at Dog Agility last week after a while away thanks to my excursions and those of our teacher, and it was great fun. We’re back to Monday evenings now, but with a 5:30 start, which means it’s a pretty frantic race home, get changed, get Murph ready and get over to the ground. We still both love it, maybe this year will be the one which sees me get him measured and entered in his first competition .

Technorati Tags dog agility, finger, injury, tang soo do

Ok, first things first, whoever found this site searching for ’stollen no marzipan’ – are you mental?! As for the person looking for when the giraffes got burned at Paignton Zoo…..

Prototype Christmas dinner went very well over the weekend I’m pleased to say. After a big food shop after work on Friday we had everything necessary and just faced the slightly daunting task of making sure it got cooked in time. Dog Agility was canceled on Saturday morning due to the monsoon weather, and I was unable to train BJJ in the afternoon after cranking my neck doing some groundwork at TSD the evening before. When I woke up on Saturday morning I was in agony (and can still barely move my neck as I write this, 4 days later) and couldn’t think why, but now I remember a particular triangle attempt I postured up through, and I’m sure that’s what did it.

Anyway, I digress, the point of all of that was that I had loads of spare time to get busy in the kitchen. We each took control of certain stuff, and being the man obviously I insisted on preparing the meat! The meat in question was two large turkey crowns (noone really likes the leg meat, there’s not much point in cooking it) and a load of nice cumberland chipolatas wrapped in smoked streaky bacon. I’ll confess that I was nervous about cooking turkey. There are so many stories about over- and under-done birds I was apprehensive and did a lot of reading beforehand to make sure I avoided common mistakes. It turns out only cooking the crowns is actually one of the best decisions I made, as it’s the legs and the bones in them that take the time normally. Using my own amalgamation of the various formulae and instructions out there I decided on my cooking time and got to work.

Brushed with molten butter, cracked black pepper on top and a good knob of butter under the skin and my birds were ready for roasting. Covering them loosely with greased foil was a very good idea, it makes sure the outside doesn’t get done ages before the meat underneath. After two and a half hours at 180°C (fan assisted) the foil came off to crisp up the skin, and after another twenty minutes took them out to rest. They turned out perfectly. I couldn’t have been more pleased, and I’m filled with renewed confidence for hosting in a months time.

The evening itself went brilliantly. All of the veg and other bits and pieces were done at the right time, everyone had piles of food, and the home-made creme brulee worked a treat. We spent the rest of the night with paper hats on (yeah, we even went as far as crackers!), chatting and drinking with everyone and even cracking out the cheese and port later. Due to varying family commitments for people, I’ve never spent a Christmas day and dinner with my friends, this was the next-best thing and really nice.

It’s less than a week until my jaunt to Germany to experience Cologne and the Christmas markets and I’m getting really excited. I realised over the weekend that I don’t own a decent warm coat (not one that fits me anyway) and nothing waterproof at all, so I treated myself to a winter coat in a sale at the outdoors place in town yesterday. Now all I need is an outrageous hat and I’m ready to go. It’s apparently very cold there at the moment; I will be ready. It’s not a very good view of the city, but this webcam on the WDR building shows the Dom and weather. It’s worth checking at night time when it’s lit up.

Technorati Tags Christmas dinner, Christmas markets, Cologne, turkey

I got back into BJJ training properly on Monday after what feels like a LONG time out of action. I went back initially last week but only worked for the first half of the lesson while we were drilling positions (specifically escape from full rear mount) but didn’t want to risk wrecking my finger again. However this week I sucked it up a bit, bound my finger really well and got on with it. We worked a really good half-guard escape and transition to 100KG or arm bar which requires some really quick movement. Rolling for the second half of the lesson was a different kettle of fish. I was expecting to struggle after not having been for so long, but I really made hard work of it. I was completely gassed after my second rotation and one of the purple belts gave me an utter drubbing. At the time it was hugely demoralising and I found myself thinking ‘I really am terrible at this, why do I bother’, but with a bit of time I can look back on it and see a problem which is to do with me, not my training.

I am, and always have been, a bit of a perfectionist in many areas. I expect (rightly or wrongly) to be great at new things I try very quickly, and it’s my downfall. I’m guessing it comes because I am reasonably bright, and I do tend to pick up the basics and concepts of things quite quickly. Be it a sport, a language, a hobby; whatever. The problem is that it doesn’t last, and I have a really hard time moving from the ‘picked it up quickly’ phase through the ‘actually it’s harder than it seems’ one, and on to the ‘actually I can do it’ one. It’s always been the same and it probably always will be. Tang Soo Do, Japanese, learning to drive – all the same. I know that I’ve got to get on with it and work through the hard part, but at the time when you’re tired, frustrated and annoyed at yourself it requires a bit of fortitude to do it.

On to less reflective stuff then, time for some stupidity. I train on textured foam rubber matting five days a week and have done for quite a while now. In all this time I’ve only given myself a small amount of mat burn maybe once or twice, usually doing things like ‘zombie crawls’ during warmups. At BJJ on Monday I managed to put two burns on the top of my foot, one of which is about the size of a plum, and it REALLY hurts. I should end the story there and let you guess about what incredible guard pass I was going for, but the truth is much less impressive. With my instructor being Brazilian he’s fond of football, and so we had a game of five-a-side to warm up. Muggins here had a rush of blood to the head when he saw an opportunity to slide tackle and make a dynamic save, and in the process took the skin off the top of his foot. It hurts like crazy, and my decision to wear nice tight patent leather shoes to work seems less and less clever with every step I take. Doh!

On Tuesday night we had the first time an outside group has used the TSD academy building, and a few of us went along to show some support and have our first try at Korean Yoga! It was really good, not what I was expecting at all, and I think I’ll be back. I was surprised just how hard I had to work, and how much stress my muscles were put under in certain postures. The mixture of high effort and utter relaxation is a great one, so I was surprised when the session ended and I felt pretty much the same as normal. That feeling didn’t last for long though, within five minutes I had to sit down because I felt like I was going to fall asleep, and that night I slept like the proverbial log. I know that a lot of the relaxation and concentration works with Alpha waves in the brain, and I find it really fascinating. It’ll be really interesting to see how the Qi Gong aspects crossover with TSD.

I’ve got a busy few weeks ahead now, I think they’re going to fly by. Mrs AdamR has her 30th birthday, I’m going to see Dragonforce, I’m off to Germany for a week and then I have.. well, I’m not going to think about that now, I’m already starting to get nervous O_o.

Technorati Tags BJJ, frustration, Korean Yoga, mat burn, TSD

My cold has decided to compound itself by developing into a sinus infection now, which is really nice.  That combined with my incessant coughing and sneezing means that I haven’t trained since Sunday now, and even that was a light session. It’s starting to get me down when I think about it too much, my fitness is going to be absolutely shocking by the time I get back to BJJ and TSD properly. Still, I know I’ll get back there, it’ll just take more hard work again.

This weekend it’s the annual CAMRA Falmouth Beer Festival, so with a bit of luck, a group of us are going to head down and sample some ales and ciders again. I’ve not been to one for ages now, and I’m really looking forward to it. The atmosphere is hard to top, it’s full of local people sharing a beer, chatting and laughing. Considering the amount of alcohol consumed over the two days it’s amazing that there’s never any trouble or aggression, but I suppose that’s due more to the people attending (i.e. not chavvy alcopop drinking idiots) than anything else.

Christmas is drawing ever-closer now and so far it’s pretty much passed me by. Usually I’m overly excited as soon as I start to see mince pies and that sort of thing on the shelves in shops, but I’ve been so busy with one thing or another I’ve not really taken it in. I’m glad I think, it’ll be great when December hits and my trip to Cologne, I’m positive I’ll be my usual festive self by then. I loves me some Christmas after all! I probably ought t start thinking about what I’m going to get for people. I like to try to be good at presents, there’s nothing as nice as a gift from someone that shows they really gave it some thought.

I’m really, really looking forward to next week now, although it’s going to be knackering. I’m off to Plymouth with the TSD guys for the Halloween rock night on Friday, and it’s always a good night there. I don’t have to drive this time which is particularly nice, I can’t remember the last time I had a drink there. I never really drink at a rock night because I spend so much time throwing myself about on the dancefloor, and any time I have gotten merry I just end up sweating it all out (attractive!). When I get back in the small hours of Saturday morning I’ll grab a few hours sleep before dog agility and hopefully some gentle BJJ (making positions, no rolling), then we’re off to the Halloween party in the evening. I’ve been commissioned (well, asked nicely) to do a pumpkin carving for the night, and I’ve not even thought about it yet, let alone bought one to carve. I really enjoyed doing the Lost Boys and Frankenstein’s monster ones last year, I think it might have to be movie themed again this year. Costume crafting this evening, fun times .

Technorati Tags Christmas, Halloween, ill, injury, pumpkin carving