At the moment, training is going well. I am doing relatively well. N and I are having little competitions (he's a black belt so he usually wins). I did push ups on my knuckles on the school gym floor for karate, and Master L pointed out that N hadn't used his knuckles. Score one for me.

During patterns, Master K allowed me to learn tae gae, which is actually two belts above me, a blue belt red stripe pattern. That must mean I'm not doing badly, right? Haha. I'm putting a lot more effort in. Although I think I say that every blog entry, and eventually you can only put in 100%. Either way, I'm coming away from the sessions feeling beat.

Master K took some photos of us stretching for his website, and looking at them made me realise my flexibility has increased. Score. Onwards and upwards.

Not only all that, but I've lost weight thanks to my increase in exercise and lower input. I gym basically everyday, doing cardio and weights. It's important to get to a weight where I can fight fast. My sparring may not be great at the moment, but once I'm faster, it'll be easier.

An old black belt 2nd dan friend of Master K came along yesterday. He was in the world championships twice, once gold, once silver. I was very excited to train and talk to him, but he fell flat in my opinion. I don't mean he didn't have skill, but I found him to be more arrogant than necessary. He didn't appear to want to talk to colour belts much, and that irked me. Maybe it was just because I was tired and it was his first lesson back. Hopefully he'll get off his high horse. I know he won the world title, but I want to talk about how he did it, and aspire to be like him. There's nothing wrong with sharing that and basking in the glory with lower grades, imo.

Until then, I'll just keep pushing myself. My body is incredibly tired and achey all the time, but no pain no gain. It'll all help in the long run, or so I tell myself.