A lot of what I write is common sense, or it's not worth reading, but I am really enjoying writing these.

Yesterday in the morning I went to the gym with my red belt friend. It occurs to me how funny it'd be if I called him 'sir' outside of the dojang. The looks we'd get would be amazing, I think. Anyway. The point was so that he could show me how to use the free weights. Maybe it's obvious how to use them, but I wanted to be shown anyway. As a woman, the free weight section is a bit intimidating. The primary users of it are very built men who make the most obscene noises when lifting heavy objects.

Having looked at weight lifting for some time, this was all exciting! I don't want to be a body builder, not at all, but I do want to target certain areas. I frequent a site (http://www.fitocracy.com/) where you can log your workouts and earn points. Some of the women users I follow use weights, deadlifting, curling, kettlebelling, etc, and they look fantastic and not bulky. Their strength is amazing! The two I particularly look up to are users 'Wani' and 'Buns'. Check them out if you get a chance.

After doing some moderate lifting, for a beginner, and ten mins of cardio, we left. My friend was feeling sick, so it wasn't the longest session ever. The point is, we didn't do /that much/ but MAN I have DOMS today. DOMS stands for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and fuck does it feel horrible. You know if you haven't done exercise for a very long time? And then you go and do 100 push ups? Or run 10 miles? The soreness you get the next day is killer. I have it all in my back, arms and back of my thighs. At least it shows I was actually working out.

See, lifting weights in a certain way is great for explosive power. If you put a large weight on your shoulders/back and squat down, and work on exploding upwards with it, your thighs will be able to kick out with much more speed, and much more power. Also your shoulders will be build that way, too, so you can punch faster and cleaner. It's all science.

In the evening was training again. It was the kid class, but we did a bit of tag team sparring with them. The paired up with a 5-6 year old, and we were against a 7 and a 9 year old, or there abouts anyway. Obviously I spent my tag-ins dancing around the kids and teaching them to better their guards and footwork, ect. This was up until I chased one of them to his partner, and he tagged in the ref, my red belt friend. Bit unfair! He said he wanted someone I could actually fight. I think /he/ just wanted to fight.

The point of all of this is to mark that apparently I have improved. My guard is higher and as such much better. I only came to the conclusion today that WTF guards are lower because you're not allowed to punch to the face. I'm a genius. My footwork has vastly improved, I'm able to dodge more and find openings. Still getting hit in the face by some people, but generally a lot less. I'm also achieving head-shots a LOT more, and I put this down to my extra 20mins of stretching a day. I usually finish the day up with it, and it appears to be helped more than expected. Only been doing it a week. My aim is still to do the splits and squat with my feet flat on the floor.

Let's do it.