Officially told my master I'm not grading in Dec yesterday. Felt good. I told him I simply wasn't worthy of it. I don't train enough and am not committed enough to wear a black belt. All other colours I can maybe get over, but I need to feel like I deserve my black belt.

Back tracking a bit, I did referring for the tournament! I was all official like and was told I did a really good job throughout. It was hard work, a lot of concentration is needed. I know fighting is hard too, but at least they only have so many matches. Referring goes on the whole day. I didn't really get a break (sans when everyone went to lunch). Really fighting is harder, but I just wanted some buttpets, haha.

There were some really good, intense fights, like the heavyweights. Insane watching their power. There were also some disrespectful fighters from other schools. Shame I wasn't first ref for their match, I would have given them a hard time. Despite this, they won medals. Pretty much everyone bar one or two won medals. Without sounding harsh, it's a bit like they were given out like candy. But at least those guys took part, haha.

I took the junior class yesterday. So far I've only done warm up, stretches, a wee bit of drill work with kiddies, so that was interesting. It went pretty well. The senior class was a little intense since I've become fat, unfit and lazy, but not overly so. I still kept up so I'm not completely lost, hehe.

Onwards to another lesson tonight.

Hello, blog!

I don't remember if I ever said, but I quit my job about 2-3 months ago for various personal reasons. It affected everything in my life, including my training. I've found a new job and start tomorrow, which means hopefully I should be back on track! It'll be a case of up early to stretch, then work, (when I have enough money again it'll be back to the gym at lunch times), training and some running if my partner and I feel like it in the evenings/kid lesson days. I'll be watching my diet as well, making a lunch the night before instead of buying things in town.

I've done four days of training this week, and my partner and I were walking around somewhere and found free outside table tennis, which we hogged for over an hour. Based on how rubbish we were we must've burned so many calories at a) the exertion of new exercise and b) spending more time running after the ball than playing. Still fun!

Kids class again tomorrow, gonna get into the swing of things. My Master wants me to grade to Bo Dan (recommended black belt) in Dec. I don't think any of us inteded to grade will be ready, but hey ho. Recommended black belt means you have a black belt, but with no inscriptions, just plain. It means you're ready to make the final drive to 1st Dan. However if you pass your Bo Dan grading you have 6 months to take your 1st Dan test. If you don't, or you fail it, you're bumped back down to red belt black tag. Just another reason I don't want to grade yet.

In November the club is hosting its first tournament and a fair few schools will be attending. There are fighting and non-fighting catergories. I'm not partaking in this one but I have been enlisted to referee. I'd thought this an honour until my partner pointed out they're using me for free. Bastard, making me feel lousey. Still feel like it's a bit of an honour based on the fact I'll be the only colour belt doing such an official job, but it has been sullied a bit. Not the end of the world. I get to shout and disqualify people as well as judge patterns. It'll be good experience at least.

To sum this all up, I basically feel like I have all the black belt attributes with none of the skill. I can teach, referee, and am not afraid of grade when fighting, but I have no skills for others to learn from, I can shout and act like a referee while maybe not making the right call, I go forward in fighting, but without skill I fail. Shame really. I'll get through it, I guess, but not for some while. I guess at least I've won half the battle, be glad that I only have half to go.

Ja ne~

Went training yesterday for a kiddie session, but instead it was much more like what I'm actually after. Master K took all the kiddies to get ready for their grading next Sunday, and the three black tags and I got to decide and coach ourselves. I really enjoyed this. I got to work a lot on cardio and in general my own things to improve. I sent two black tags off to teach a little girl because neither of them have teaching experience, and they needed it. Master K was happy with that, too. I'm a fan of teaching by working on your own weak points, that way you get some useful practice in too. Obviously you tailor it to your audience, but you get the idea.

Today was a mammoth squad session. 3 hours long. Warm up was average, taken by a 2nd dan, just felt like a normal session to start with. It quickly ramped up. Master Beefy (a rather ironic nickname) took a fair bit, and switched it up with the 2nd dan, Master L and Master K. We worked all sorts, mainly cardio and sparring drills. I've never trained with Master Beefy, so it was cool to show him my skills, and to see his/how he teaches. The man is tall and rather incredible.

A confidence booster was that he was impressed with my power and tendency to just drive forward. We did a few points sparring rounds, and I won all but one of mine. I lost by one point. The annoying thing was that the last point should have been two points to me, as I'd gotten my opponent with a turning kick to the body. Only one ref saw it, the other two counted the punch, and so I lost. I was pretty angry, I lost against a blue belt (my little brobee Boob). I stopped being a hissy fittin' little bitch, though and praised him. He's improved very well. At the end of the session as I shook Master Beefy's hand, he told me I was an 'awesome fighter', which is quite nice.

In other news, my partner managed to convince me to try a lesson of Kyokushinkai out. Massive hall, lots of equipment, and it's run like an actual business, how it should be run. The lesson itself was fun, but simply too similar to what I currently do to be able to practice both at the same time. They were very impressed with my punching skills, and rather impressed with my power also. Shame I can't do both, it seems quite fun! What I did take from that lesson, however, is renewed envigour in sorting my own shit out at the club. Don't do enough cardio? Tell the instructors. Don't want to teach? Don't. Think something would benefit the club? Don't grumble about it, do it. Stop using it as an excuse to bitch, get on with improving things!

On the topic of teaching.. I might actually end up teaching a class myself, ahaha. One of the new girls at the club, a 10 year old white belt, has been given to me to coach. Since I'm there early on a Wednesday I offered to teach her one-on-one in that time (mainly for confidence in sparring. She keeps crying and not wanting to do it). Master K was chatting the other day and talking about a ladies only class, because it's a very female thing to back away/be scared of fighting/not do certain kicks. Obviously, as the only high ranking female there, it'd be down to me to teach it.

Whilst I don't want to teach, this would give me a gateway into improving the club. Certain things can be run the way I want it to, and if it goes down well, the feedback would be passed on to instructors/masters, and possibly implemented. Not too sure yet. All the little girls would be hard work.

Anyway. We'll see how things go!

Long time since I last updated, no? Oh dear, haha.

Looking back, I notice that I only blogged up until the second/third day of the seminar. In brief, I confronted some people about how I was being treated during the seminar, and Master K turned around and issued the explanation of "I was worried you were being lead astray. You're a good person." Hmmm. During one of the seminar days, I clashed shins with my buddy N, and cut muscle. Owing to that, I didn't attend one of the sessions. Turns out, they did an impromptu grading during that session, and all the rest of the red belts were promoted to black tag. I was not. There were no second chances for those not there, not even for those who had to go to work instead of a morning session.

It is because of this that I no longer care about the grading system (at least, not of this club). I was told continuously that "It was a shame you weren't there, we really wanted you to grade!", and the Grandmaster who held the seminar took me aside to say he saw ridiculous potential in me. Apparently he didn't see a black tag or a black belt, he saw a master, and that I should continue to my potential no matter what. Unfortunately words don't mean much if your actions don't back them up. I was the only red belt left behind. I don't believe I deserved the belt, but in the same vein I also don't believe certain others deserved their black tag either. It was given away.

To me, I can kick and fight to the level that I can. A belt is just a colour for others to arrogantly judge you by. If you're a white belt who can kick someone in the throat, then what does the belt matter? You can still achieve what you can achieve. I was graded recently in a class anyway. I did appalling due to health issues and was still told I did awesomely. Hmm.

Either way, I don't train as much as the club anymore. I help out in some kid classes and do some training when I can, but the club doesn't offer me much anymore. It feels like progression is slowed by inconsistency, free belts, and little discipline. Maybe it's the fact that I'm currently unemployed, my mum's on emergency dialysis, and my partner's anger at how I'm treated. Maybe I'll get my motivation back, but I feel jaded. FP went to a Kyukoshinkai Karate club yesterday. I watched for a bit and was far more excited watching for that 15 mins than I have been at my club in a while. Perhaps it's time for a change. But I'm close to black belt. Whilst it's just a colour, it's also easier to explain to people. It also feels like an end point, I'd be less of a failure. I'm a bit of a hypocrite with words, I know. We'll see how this continues, I guess! Getting a job will probably set me straight. I hope.

Anyway, this is already long enough, so until I next update! 

Everything is fucked up.

Recently I started dating FP. Through dating him, I started to become aware of little bits of the club that I wasn't meant to see. This is mainly because FP was so close to our master. I saw that one of the black belts wasn't treated fairly when he was the most loyal, I saw how other masters were talked about when they weren't there and such like. Beyond this, I saw how our master reacted to things.

A couple of weeks ago the Wednesday classes were stopped, owing to there not being enough students. The Monday classes went from being a junior and a senior lesson, to a slightly longer junior lesson. Feeling that I wanted to keep up my training, I began to look elsewhere for extra lessons. I would still do my normal tkd, just some extra. This would also help for my little side project. I never got around to actually going elsewhere. FP had talked to master K, and effectively told him he could not train elsewhere. FP said he wouldn't be stopped, and master K responded by saying at least do both clubs, and that he would train FP in MMA personally. During that conversation, apparently it came to light that I was not to train anywhere else ever. This was never said to my face. In fact, my master probed others about it behind my back, even after I had explained one of the reasons I wasn't at the club last Monday was because I took my mum to hospital. He hadn't believed me and thought I was at another club.

I do not enjoy being told I can't do something behind my back. I do not enjoy being thought of as a liar despite how fucking loyal I've been.

I am getting sick and tired of dealing with children. They automatically come to me now. During the seminar I was told the masters would step up and take the children off me, only for that to last five minutes. I was back with the children, learning nothing. The seminar week this week has three sessions a day (or it did). During one the waiting periods between sessions, I was asked by a parent (one I respect), to babysit. So I did. They were roudy, but roughly kept in line. Later, one of the master shouted at the adults there, FP, my brother, myself, for not keeping them in line enough. It wasn't our job. We did the best we could with lots of young, excitable, bored children. I shouldn't even be with them anymore, according to that same master.

On Tuesday, I didn't go to the seminar, even though I paid a LOT of money for it. I couldn't face the children. And now I am being called a traitor behind my back, that FP is leading me away. I am incredibly upset about all this, and just a little bit sick of life. Everyone and thing can fuck off, I can't deal with this.

I am alive! And yes, still training!

Lots has been going on. Right now, I train from 5:30-8:00 in the morning with FP. We run, stretch, and do hardcore training. I then go to work, work a full shift, and go training again in the evenings, 7:30-9:30. So quite a bit of training! Have already seen the improvement in working with FP in the morning. He can focus on one-on-one coaching, which is a bit beyond awesome.

FP and I are also working on a martial art project. We've both become fully invested, and are spending quite a bit of free time on it. Hopefully I'll be able to tell you more about it once it's all laid out and we're closer to the date we're hoping to make it public. Looking at end of October! Gonna be hard pushed, but it's possible!

What will become difficult is for us to make time for just off-days, just fun days and messing about. We both want to train hard, and to work hard on our project, but he's also saying to be strict on having some us time. Fair enough, but I will find that hard. I feel useless and lazy if the day isn't filled with training and work!

In just under two weeks time a grandmaster is coming to visit us and give a week long seminar. There will also be a 8th dan with him. We'll be training twice a day for seven days. 10:00-13:00 and then 19:00-21:00 or so. I am excited for this! I have that week off work so I can devote my time to it, and the inbetween seminar times to the project! I also have the week after that off, so can focus on training and project for a solid week. So excited.

One of the things we worked on in morning training today was kicking head height. The awesome thing was that I could actually apply it when it came to the evening class! Improvement in one day, awwww motherflip yes. You get out what you put in. I keep getting damaged, but you have to press on. If it's not serious enough to seek medical advice, push on. Obviously listen to your body, too, but get outside your comfort zone! I bummed my foot up this morning, but I managed to land a twin flying side kick today! So proud!

Anyway, I'm pretty beat, so catch you all around!

No training on Wednesday, bought a medicine ball instead. Also went to gym after work and whilst working out, had the most painful stabbing pain in my brain. Probably from overstepping the mark and pushing too much. Thought it was a stroke at first, so called it short after that.

Thursday saw Master K showing us off to the two new ex-TAGB guys who've joined us. We did jumping kicks, and I was told to do different ones to the rest of the class, I guess in order to preserve the club image. It makes sense, so it's okay. We also did some patterns, and then the black belts concentrated on theirs.

Friday was a bit of a piss take. FP managed to get partnered with the only other adult, so his training was fine. My training was shit. I had to keep telling children off, and Master J got irritated at them as well, and I was paired with a little yellow belt girl. It's not that she was bad, but I got absolutley no satisfaction from it at all.

Yesterday evening I went out with a friend to the cinema. The seat collapsed underneath him (seriously, he needs to sue), and as he went down, his shoulder dislocated and we had to be blue-lighted to hospital. We spent hours there, him in a fuck tonne of pain. Only one doctor was any use. We had to call Master K in to help pull the shoulder back into place as none of the staff were strong enough. Because of all this polava, I was going to skip squad this morning. Was just so tired. But FP turned up to drag me there. I am actually glad he did!

We ran around the lake in the nearby forest/park. I was at the back for the most of it, not because I'm unfit or slow, but everyone else is a 6' man, and my diddy legs struggle to keep up with them! Unfair! After that it was slab training, which I aced. Then some padwork. I got paired with N, which is cool because he pushed me. When I was switched to being paired with P, I was not nearly so productive. We finished off with some sparring. At one point, my opponent was N, and actually was really fun. We didn't have our gear on, it was all light contact, and was fast. I feel I fair alright against N, and he pushes me hard when sparring a) to help me and b) because he wants to train harder anyway! I'm okay with that.

New week tomorrow. Gym before work, training after. Gotta get that routine going again!