Adam’s Cerebral Spillage

...and it is there, only there that you shall find the master

It really doesn’t matter how long I’ve trained for, I permanently feel like I’m only just getting to grips with a lot of things.  Last week we worked one of my favourite combinations;  san dan tollyo chagi > san dan dwi huri chagi (high section roundhouse to high section spin hook kick), and doing that against a slap paddle is enormously satisfying when you feel the heel whip through. Right-sided was fine, I’m quite obtuse in as much as I prefer left footed spin hooks, which is unusual for a righty. Left side though was a nightmare, the roundhouse coming out 6 inches lower than they should with enormous tight pain across the front of my pelvis. Something’s not right here I thought, and over the course of the next few kicks I started trying to analyse what I was doing wrong.

I’ve always trained for myself, to make myself better. Being a big guy I was never in any illusion of being 6 feet in the air with a perfect box splits kick, or side kicking vertically, so right from the off I’ve never been too… competitive. I’m naturally a very competitive person, and it’s not a trait I’m always very proud of, but I temper it back significantly during training. I think it can be good in a way, but only when it’s either asked of us (endurance and speed exercises), or when you’re competing against yourself. Some people seem to try to compete at just about everything, and the times when I see it most I notice how detrimental it is to progression. It’s not even when you might expect it, like sparring for example (where it obviously does belong to an extent), but something as silly as stretching. I’ve seen people trying to be the furthest turning during spinal stretches, the longest in a splits stretch etc., but all of that negates the point of a good stretch.

I think the problem comes mostly with advancing rank when it does happen, which is ironic as we should be showing more kyum son (humilty) as we progress. It’s almost as if some feel the need to prove their rank, and more often than not it seems to lead to bad technique if nothing else. I’ve been guilty of it in the past I know, but I make a concerted effort to keep my head in the moment now.

The reason for my apparent tangent above is because the situation I found myself in on that Friday could well have led me to making my technique sloppy just to try and touch the target and avoid some pushups, and I hate it when hook kicks get sloppy, as they turn into ugly looking crescents. Instead I just made a concerted effort to look at what I was doing and see what I could do to fix it. In this case I was holding my hips back, under-rotating, and not leaning back on it far enough. I didn’t fix it, but I at least managed to get a few kicks out without hurting myself or looking like a praying mantis with an inner ear infection.

I still find it amazing that even now, over four-and-a-half years after I started learning, I still have to look at how I throw a roundhouse kick and make big changes. And it’s not just with roundhouses either, I could write a list of things which need improvement but I’d be here all day. If I could give anyone any advice to help them make the most of their training, it would be to swallow their pride and look at themselves, not the people around them. I’ve been training for such a short time relatively, so this will probably sound very up myself with an over-inflated sense of self-importance, and I feel a bit stupid writing it if I’m totally honest, but this is my place so there you go .

(and I managed to get a very tenuous link to The Last Dragon in there too!)

Technorati Tags Kyum Son, The Last Dragon, training

It’s another catchup post, hooray!

Last weekend was the first Moo Do Summer Retreat for our club, which meant ~15 of us packed up and headed off onto Dartmoor for a few days to completely immerse ourselves in Tang Soo Do. We had a hostel to ourselves to cook and sleep, and a field about half a mile away for training, and we didn’t need any more. I couldn’t get the Friday off that I’d already booked (….not that I’m bitter), so my brother and I headed up on the Friday night. I was gutted to have missed the first day of training, but glad that I could be there for the other two.

A 4am wakeup call was harrowing after a couple of hours sleep, and that Saturday was a long one, but at the same time the various sessions went very quickly. Before I knew it 10 hours of training were over and it was back for a chilled out evening with a couple of barbecues. Sunday started with a more humane 7am alarm, but again was a very tiring day. I won’t go into all the details of what we did here, as the vast majority of people reading really won’t be interested, suffice to say I came back exhausted, blistered and very happy. The fact that people are already asking to be booked onto the 2011 camp is a sign that it went very well.

Because of being away all weekend, and then being so tired I could barely function for the next couple of days, I’ve not been out for a proper ride for a week now. I mean, I’ve ridden it training and to the shops, but that doesn’t really count. If the weather stays not-too-monsoony today I’ll try to get out for an hour tonight, but the impending apocalypse clouds out the window suggest otherwise. The cycling is really working my legs, and the weight is continuing to drop off which I’m very pleased about. It was one of the main reasons I bought a bike again, as I know how good the exercise is. Time will tell how far it’ll get me before I have to start putting some more serious miles in, although I hope being lighter by then will make it less arduous than it feels right now.

Things are going well all in all at the moment, a bit more summer sun would top it all off.

Technorati Tags bike, Moo Do, tang soo do, training

Where to start? It’s been a while since I updated here so I’ll try to cover as much as I can for now. It’s been a busy couple of weekends as far as Tang Soo Do is concerned, with more to come. A couple of weeks ago I headed up with three others to Rushden for a Masters/Dan seminar with the rest of the EMTF, in a very hot hall, where we went over some higher-level forms.

The afternoon started with a big group warmup led by Master (Jan) De Vry which as well as being very hot, was hilarious. Master Kumar Jr took us through some basics which were far harder than they had to be. I don’t mean what he was asking us to do was difficult, because it wasn’t particularly, but the combination of the heat and my outrageously long dobok bottoms (I really must take them up!) made me give a much worse account of myself – and more annoyingly my club – than I’d have liked. But glancing around it was clear I wasn’t the only one struggling, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Later we split into smaller groups each with a couple of masters teaching, and I was with the very likable Master Mantle who took us through Jinto (one of the forms I’ll need at my next full grade) and my favourite form-I-won’t-need-for-a-long-time, Rohai. It was a really strange experience being taught by a different master, as everyone teaches differently, but it was valuable. Rohai especially; it’s not a form I actively practise, but I love the shape and movement in it. I cracked my knee on the floor far too hard with an over-enthusiastic ‘break’ punch halfway through, which still hurts if I kneel.

Later we all re-grouped and went through the second dan gum (dagger) form. I’d been through it a few times before with the people who went to the first seminar, but it was nice to have it drummed into my head with constant repetition for an hour or so. There were some finer details that I wasn’t sure about too which I’ve been able to clear up since which was good. The main problem with the day for me and many others wasn’t the heat directly (although it was really debilitating) but the kicking and turning on the wooden floor. I think a combination of the humidity and the wood meant that we ended up with a lot of blisters. Proper nasty, deep blisters. Most of them have healed now, but one tore open last weekend and now I have that super-soft baby skin on the bottom of my foot; I can’t see it being much fun to train on. The Masters ended the seminar by being taught the first new sword form introduced to the EMTF. It’s a very nice looking bit of very Korean sword, and I’m looking forward to learning it in the future. Our great hosts made sure we went away with full bellies as Master Kumar Snr’s wife prepared a great buffet with homemade samosas and pakoras – heaven!.

Skip forward a week, and it’s another weekend of Tang Soo Do. Saturday say my brother take his First Dan grading, and two others take their Senior First Dan tests in a scorchingly hot dojang back here in Cornwall. The heat was really oppressive, but everyone gave a great account of themselves despite it, I felt tired just helping out with the Ho Sin Sool, Il Soo Sik Dae Ryun and free sparring at the end – I can’t imagine how it felt for everyone else. The following day we all went down to the Falmouth dojang for the gup grading, which again was very hot, but a lot better thanks to the breeze. Again, everyone did very well, and at the end of another long day (which thankfully kept me from watching England’s dismal display in the World Cup) we had a quick lesson to brush up on some of the changes made to various bits and pieces we do. My blister tore open during one of the races we had at the end, but by then I didn’t even notice. A really good, if long, weekend which saw a lot of people take their next step on the ladder.

This weekend is free so far, so I’m planning a Saturday involving a long lazy barbecue in the afternoon followed by a trip to the Blue Bar in the evening for a pint on the beach watching the sun go down. I’d better make the most of it, it’s the club’s first annual summer retreat the next weekend, three days of 4:30 am starts and 12 hours a day training, eating and sleeping Tang Soo Do.

Awesome.

Technorati Tags Blue Bar, EMTF, tang soo do, training

Not only one of my all-time favourite albums by the mighty Fear Factory (I strongly suggest you listen to it if you’re into Metal in any way), but also a word that’s been in my head lately when I think about my Tang Soo Do training.

For me, training seems to go in cycles, ones which have happened enough times now for me to recognise and acknowledge them. I’m at a point now where I’m looking at everything I do and pulling it to pieces, and this is due in no small part to the new teaching changes which see Sunday evenings focusing on the lower gup syllabus. We’ve been taking apart a lot of the stuff I first learned years ago, the building blocks of the art, and it’s really making me think about how I do them, and making me want to greatly improve these parts. I touched on it in my last post here, but introducing Shin Chook (tension and relaxation) into things I do automatically now such as the first few il soo sik dae ryun, makes them feel very different – but at the same time very familiar. A bit like the first time you put your favourite jeans on after washing them.

I do a lot of my best thinking and analysing of what I do in the kitchen these days. While I’m cooking meals I’m constantly working through moves, combinations, forms – anything and everything basically – and since tearing those basics apart and starting to rebuild them into a better, stronger version of what they were I’ve begun to look at everything and question my execution. Am I putting a full amount of hip into high blocks? Nope. Am I STILL not locking my back leg out in a front stance after years of practise? Yep. Are my shoulders and hips square when I perform a simple choong dan kong kyuk? Not on your life.

I’ve also started looking at the various moves and turns in the forms, and trying to decide on what the applications could be. We learn this sort of thing in our lessons, and every man and his (computer-literate) dog can look up ‘bunkai’ on youtube, but personally I feel there’s a lot of value in trying to work it out for myself. I don’t believe for a second that there’s a single intended application for every movement during the hyung, so putting an imaginary opponent(s) around you and deciding how you might use or adapt a sequence is mentally challenging and really interesting; to me at least. I realise just how pretentious this could all sound, but I don’t care .

I imagine this all sounds pretty familiar to a lot of practitioners of classical martial arts, especially those who have an active interest in it and don’t just go through the motions and switch off once they get home. At least I hope so, I’m not that odd am I? It’s one of the cycles I mentioned at the start. Every so often I think ‘Hey, you know what, I’m really beginning to get this now’, only to be made to look at what I’m doing and then think ‘Just how badly have I been doing that??’. I remember a few weeks after I started training in Tang Soo Do thinking ‘I wonder if it gets boring once you get to Dan grade and know how to do everything?’. Oh how wrong could I have been?? I know now that the learning and improving never ends, and in a way it’s a very reassuring thing. It’s nice to know that in 5, 10, or even 50(!) years time I’m still going to be looking at what I’m doing and trying to make it better in some way.

I’m doing it again now, thinking too much. I was just re-reading what I’ve written and started thinking about the forms and applications. A lot of what we do is derived from Chinese kung-fu styles, which got me wondering about what their applications for the forms involved. The use of huri (hip) in the movements is a very TSD thing, and when I think about some of the throws and re-directions in the forms (low blocks, high blocks etc), I wonder how practical they’d be without that efficient use of body weight transferral that the hip movement affords us. I can’t imagine it was designed with brute force in mind, so was there a completely different intention for those motions or does it work without the huri?….

*That paragraph above is pretty much a stream of consciousness as it came. That’s what it’s like in my brain most of the day when I’m not concentrating on something else, it’s no wonder it takes me so long to get to sleep*

Technorati Tags application, bunkai, Fear Factory, tang soo do, training

It’s about time I updated I think. I had the week off last week and spend 5 days of it up with the in-laws on holiday in Somerset. It was a nice relaxing time and I got to spend lots of time with my extended family, especially my niece who insisted I went on as many rides as possible at the nearby theme park! I visited Longleat for the first time too which was awesome, there’s so much to see and do and feeding the deer through the car window while we went through the safari area was hysterical.

But now it’s back to normality and back to work. Luckily the unseasonably hot, sunny weather is still with us and I’m loving it. I’ve already managed to get a couple of barbecues under my belt (literally, with the amount of meat I ate), and it’s when I’ve been sat in the back garden in shorts and a t-shirt, relaxing with a beer in the sunshine that I have to remind myself it’s still only April! Long may it continue I say.

I’ve got loads lined up over the next few weeks, starting with a rock night before too long. It’s been AGES since we had a good club night out. I’m looking forward to hopefully having a few(!) beers this time and getting my mosh on! I’m feeling in the need for some excessively loud metal and a lot of leaping around with like-minded folk . With a bit of luck we’ll entice some rock night virgins up too and get them well and truly initiated (and inebriated). After that I’m off up to the bright lights of London for a weekend with my mates. It’s smack-bang in the middle of birthday season, so we’re going up to watch a night of boxing at West Ham’s Upton Park ground, featuring some of our latest Olympic stars such as James DeGale and Frankie Gavin. It’s on the same Saturday as the FA Cup Final, so it’s going to be a great day. Football, boxing, then back to the hotel to watch Amir Khan’s fight in the States on the same night – good times! Finally, the end of May sees our long-awaited holiday. Twelve of us are packing our bags and heading to sunny Spain (volcanoes permitting…) for a week of lounging in the pool and relaxing. Despite the fact that it’s Seni that weekend (noooooo) and the Eurovision Song Contest final on the same day (double-noooooooooo), it’s going to be great. I’ll just have to buy more pointless weapons and awesome Muay Thai shorts another time .

Training’s great at the moment, the change of each class to be focused on a specific grade has meant I’ve revisited a lot of the very basic stuff I take for granted now, and taken them apart only to rebuild them incorporating concepts I wasn’t introduced to the first time I learned. I can already see just how powerful those simple techniques are with proper use of shin chook applied, not to mention just how much better they look when done that way. I’ve always thought you can tell how accomplished a martial artist is by how natural and easy they make things look, and I’m hoping this is just the start of working towards that. I’m still struggling with the recurring hip injury I’ve been carrying for literally years now, and it’s really painful (not to mention annoying) at the moment. I ought to go back to the doctor again but they just seem to shrug it off, the most I’ve ever had done is some simple exercises from the self-referral physio. Ho-hum, maybe I should just take a leaf out of Bill Wallace’s book and only kick left-sided .

Technorati Tags barbecue, boxing, holiday, tang soo do, training

Yesterday we gathered students from all three of the different schools in the county currently training under our Kwan’s banner and got together for a big training session. It was the first steps toward the European championships being held this spring, and it was to give us a chance to have a look at what categories we might want to compete in. It was an early start for a Sunday morning, I’d normally be tucked up snoozing at 7.30, but instead I was in the kitchen ironing my dobok and making some sandwiches. It was absolutely perishingly cold too, there was ice outside and just after we got to the dojang in Falmouth it started pouring with snow. Conversely the dojang was really warm inside thanks to the central heating, a blessing which soon turned into a curse once we started exercising, it wasn’t long before I was dryer than a <insert dubious metaphor here> and gasping (although having a cold didn’t help my cause any).

The day was a great success, we all mixed and worked with people we wouldn’t normally train with or speak to, and everyone got on well. Everyone got a taste of competition style performing, being marked and feeling what it was like to perform in front of a crowd of people, and I think it was a bit of an eye-opener for some. While the first half of the day was entirely forms-based, the afternoon saw the stark contrast of sparring. After some tough strength-building exercises things got moving and everyone got to feel what it was like to throw, and more importantly take a punch or kick. We organised a mini-tournament towards the end of the day and stood out (as seniors) to referee and take charge of the teams. It was really encouraging to see how into it everyone was getting, so much so that the fighters couldn’t hear us screaming ’stop!!’ when we wanted to award points. Seeing and talking to some of the junior students afterwards, for many of whom this was their first taste of proper sparring, it was a real flashback to my own first tastes of it. Everyone was buzzing and grinning and saying they wanted to get back in and go again, which is always a good sign. Sure, there are going to be some bumps and bruises today, and at least one black eye, but that’s all part of it. Six-and-a-half hours after we started and a few of us trundled down to the local pub for a quick pint and a natter.

Actually it would be remiss of me to not mention the other thing that happened before the end of the session while I’m at it. Everyone was asked to sit, and then I was told to stand, walk to the front and turn to face everyone. In all of the excitement of the day I forgot that I was due to have my black (blue) belt presented to me. Sadly I’ve seen enough of these presentations to not know what was coming next, the legendary ‘Chilli powder test’. Lots of martial arts clubs like to take their newly promoted students down a peg or two to make sure ego doesn’t get the better of them, for some it’s a run down the line as the rest whip them with their belts as they go, for us it’s the chilli powder test. ‘Chilli powder’ is a bit of a misnomer, as times and tastes have changed, so just plain chilli powder doesn’t cut it any more. No, today our instructor likes to mix things up with his own concoctions, and it wasn’t until after that I found out what was in mine. A spoonful of the ’stuff’ was pushed into my mouth and then I was told to do twenty good pushups in front of the assembled mass without swallowing any or spitting any out, with everyone counting them out for me (and don’t think I didn’t notice those of you who tried to reset the count partway through!). I took my trusty old red belt off and had my new one tied around me, and then made a hasty retreat to the kitchen to rinse my mouth out! It turns out that my own personal blend of heat was a mixture of chillies, chilli sauce, rehydrated chillies that you’re not supposed to touch with bare hands(!), a tub of wasabi paste and to top it off, a sachet of the sauce from a Bombay Bad Boy pot noodle. Nice.

I’m enormously proud of what I’ve achieved, and it was made all that more special by having it presented to me in front of the rest of the students. It still hasn’t sunk in yet really, maybe once it does I’ll have more to post, but I think I’m going to be kept pretty busy in the meantime now. Here’s what my 1st Dan certificate looks like (it feels good writing that).

My 1st Dan certificate - this one's going in a frame!

Technorati Tags 1st Dan, belt presentation, chilli test, sparring, tang soo do, training

This last week or so has been the first time I’ve been back in proper training since before Christmas, and it’s kicking my ass so far. Our instructor is determined to get us back in shape and strong again after a festive break of decadence and not working hard, and despite the pain and panting it’s causing so far, I’m very glad.  We’ve been focusing on strength work which is always a good thing, and on top of that I have new things to learn, for the first time in ages.

There’s quite a gap between 1st Dan and 2nd, and with good reason, there’s a lot to take on board. I’ve started learning the first on the new forms I need to know, namely Naihanchi Ee Dan (Tekki nidan). The Naihanchi hyung have always seemed strange to me, very different to any other that we practice, and I hope that as I progress further I’ll start to understand more. I find it interesting that traditionally it was always seen as a really important kata/hyung, and yet it employs so few of the ‘basic’ moves that we as Tang Soo Do practitioners understand as staples of the art.

As well as the practical applications of any form, I’ve always found myself drawn to learn the origins wherever possible. Naihanchi is a nice form from that point of view, as the history is largely well-known and seldom disputed. I’ve known for a long time that the Japanese name for the form is Tekki, which translates as ‘Iron Horse’, but what I didn’t know was a) how recently it got that name, and b) that it was almost inadvertently a return to tradition. Let me try to explain a little more clearly. Naihanchi is now taught as three separate forms, but originally was brought (from China naturally) as one, longer form. This longer form was named Nifanchin, which (apparently, my Japanese isn’t great these days!) also translates as Iron Horse, but it was that stalwart and lynchpin of modern karate, Gichin Funakoshi who renamed it Tekki. He renamed it in honour of his teacher (and creator of the Pyung Ahn/Pinan/Heian forms), Anko Itosu. Between the two it became Naihanchi, which means ‘Internal divided conflict’, and that’s where it stuck as far as Tang Soo Do is concerned.

Although anecdotal, I think for once the Chinese origins of the forms might actually be explained quite well too..

In the 1960’s a kung fu practitioner, Daichi Kaneko, studied a form of Taiwanese White Crane Boxing, known as Dan Qiu Ban Bai He Quan (Half Hillock, Half White Crane Boxing). Kaneko, an acupuncturist who lived in Yonabaru, Okinawa, taught a form called Neixi (inside knee) in Mandarin. This form includes the same sweeping action found in the nami-gaeshi (returning wave) technique of Naihanchi. Neixi is pronounced Nohanchi in Fuzhou dialect, which could indicate Neixi is the forerunner to Naihanchi.

The fact that it was called Inside Knee sounds right for me, especially with the movements contained in Naihanchi Cho Dan, as anyone who has learned the form will recognise.

The fact that those three short forms are considered so important in karate, even to the extent that not so long ago teachers were teaching them to students with the understanding that they contain everything they need to know, is strange to me. That’s probably just a result of the way the arts have changed though, and the changes in training and teaching in the last hundred years. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in one of those old Okinawan dojos to see just how it was taught, practised and applied in those days.

Technorati Tags hyung, naihanchi, tang soo do, tekki, training

Gah, this sucks. I’ve been ill for over a week now. The thing is it’s not just one illness, it’s like some kind of auper-adaptive thing which is working its way down through me. I’ve gone from having a horrible head cold to a nasty sinus infection, and over the last couple of days it’s continued its journey south and I now have some kind of tonsillitis/laryngitis combination. Talking absolutely kills, and so far I’ve spent most of the day talking on the phone – brilliant.

Training with any kind of illness or infection is always difficult, but I’ve stuck it out this last couple of sessions at the dojang, even if simple warmups are proving to be ten times as much work as they’d normally feel. I’m suffering for it though, the day after training at the moment is a wash-out, I’ve not go an ounce of strength or energy. If it weren’t for the fact that Mondays and Tuesdays at work are absolutely crazy and very stressful at the moment, I’d be at home tucked up watching feel-good films with some hot lemon and honey.

I’m becoming more and more aware of just how close my Dan grading is now, and I really couldn’t have had a worse start to my preparations for it. My fitness is down, my strength is down, I’ve been missing a few lessons. All in all, not ideal.

We had a nice distraction on Saturday though, with the Falmouth Beer Festival. Twice a year CAMRA organise big beer festivals in Cornwall; October in Falmouth and May in St Ives. As usual, it was a great day. A group of us headed down in the afternoon and spent a few hours sampling the various ales and ciders, watching the live music and this year some morris dancers too. I love the beer festivals, it’s such a good atmosphere. By the time we left I’d worked my way through quite a few half-pint vouchers and whoever suggested getting a Chinese on the way home – I salute you. The dark evenings and being a bit merry played havoc with my head. My body thought it was about 11 o’clock, when in fact it was only just past 7. Great times though, and officially the start of the run-up to Christmas. Five weeks ’til my holiday, eight-and-a-half until Christmas – the countdown is on.

Technorati Tags beer festival, CAMRA, ill, tang soo do, training

The unseasonable weather continues with some gorgeous sunshine, and we were blessed with some on Saturday too which was a real treat. It meant that although the field was absolutely soaking at dog agility, I didn’t have to wear a massive coat and end up looking like a drowned rat. Murphy’s going really well at agility now, he’s turned a corner and when I think back to a year ago when he started, it’s like having a different dog. It used to be nigh on impossible to keep his attention or to stop him buggering off to sniff something or someone, but now he’s a little agility machine! It used to be the case that I could see he was a way behind the others in his group, and although Murph couldn’t care less, I found it quite demoralising. I’m fiercely competitive in just about everything I do, and not being the best at something (regardless of having a few days or a few years experience – I expect to be amazing at everything straight away) was infuriating for me. But now he’s really very capable. Granted, I can’t work as far away from him as some can, but I’m sure that’ll come with time.

We’re up to 20 obstacles or so now on a course, and that’s including everything except weaves. This week was the first for us with a seesaw in the middle of it, and he absolutely nailed it. Weaves are by far the most difficult obstacle to learn, there’s so much to it and there’s so much that can go wrong. You always enter the poles from the right, and making sure they do that at speed, from any angle, and without skipping a pole is really tricky. I’ve been holding off entering any competitions with him until I was confident he was capable. I know he’d have fun regardless of how well he did, but I’d like to be able to give a good account of myself. I think he’s nearly there now, and while it probably won’t be a full agility course (he’s not up to 9-12 weaves in a course yet), he could still do jumps and tunnels or something similar. Maybe once I get him measured we’ll look at entering something in the Spring.

Training with a broken finger and with most of the club away at the tournament was pretty depressing, but in a way quite rewarding as well. Other than the person instructing, I was the only adult present. It was quite good to work one-to-one with the kids, especially with them having just graded. It meant I was able to help them start to learn their new one-step and self-defence techniques. Tonight’s where it’s really going to hit home again what I’m going to be missing when I don’t train at BJJ. I went up to see the guys at our new gym on Saturday and let them know what happened, and my instructor (speaking from a lot of experience) told me I’ll be looking at two weeks before I can start to make positions again, and four or so before I can roll properly. I wanted to get back a lot faster than that, but after giving myself a day off the splint yesterday and spending a lot of it in a lot of pain, I’m sure it’s not going to happen.

Halloween isn’t far away now and I’ve got a fancy dress party to go to. I’ve had an absolutely genius idea for a costume, and I can’t wait to get it done. How many people will recognise it? Probably not too many. I don’t care though; it’s far too cool to not do.

Technorati Tags BJJ, dog agility, injury, tang soo do, training

Ok, ok, ok, it’s the last Friday of the month, and that can mean only one thing; Rock Night!

Well, it should normally, but for one reason or another I’ve missed the last two or three, but tonight I’m determined to make amends. I am desperately in need of a damn good night out and a few beers, I have a lot of steam to blow off, and where better than in a club playing my favourite music with my friends? I have to think of a long list of requests as per normal, I love the fact it’s quite quiet (metaphorically at least) there, you get to hear just about anything you want.

The club has a grading this weekend, two in fact, but only one I’ll be present at (the other is for 2nd Dan and is done behind closed doors). It’s nice not having to worry about it for myself, but in the back of my mind I know that it also means the next time will possibly be for my own Dan grade. Brown dobok time! Before all of that we’re off to the British Tang Soo Do championships in a fortnights time, and I’m competing and fighting AND forms this time. I’ve never competed with forms before and I’m getting nervous about it already. It’s kinda nice to be taken out of my comfort zone.

If any of this seems a bit random or frantic, I apologise. We’ve had a charity coffee morning at work today (which I made cake for!) and I just drank two cups of filter coffee. Not much to brag about for most people I realise, but as someone who is hyper-sensitive to caffiene it’s a big deal and I am BUZZING! I can’t sit still or shut up, it’s a very strange feeling, kinda cool and kinda freaky at the same time. Blah blah blah blah.

Can’t wait for training and my night out now, hurry hurry hurry afternoon!

Technorati Tags coffee, hyper, rock night, training