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!

So this is it. Time to take things seriously an even bit more. I've asked FP to help train me (although he insists it's 'train with', not 'train'). He was looking at getting in the cage in 6 months, and has a ridiculous amount of experience as a fighter. Since he's doing that anyway, I thought I could tag along for the ride. My aim may not be the same, but the methods will help me improve my fighting above others at the club, and be a deadly fighter in general.

Yesterday we stood in the car park and he helped 'condition' my thighs. Which fucking hurt. My arms aren't too weak, my stomach, etc, is actually very strong. But my thighs... yeesh. Wasn't aware how unconditioned they were until they took a few serious hits. In sport taekwondo, hitting below the belt is illegal, so there's not much need to condition the thigh. In kyokushinkai karate, they train almost excessively to deal with this pain as their rules allow leg kicks. Bruised up today.

He gave me a pep talk this morning, which included the usual 'no pain, no gain' kind of talk. But beyond that, he explained how when you're fighting, there's nothing scarier than hitting your opponent as hard as you can, and him not feeling a thing because he's conditioned. That's why we condition. We don't WANT to take hits, but we need to be able to deal with them if he do get caught out. Every morning I need to work on stretching and conditioning. At lunchtimes (or after work if time allows), it'll be gym, focusing on cardio and strength, and obviously after work mainly is training. Buying a medicine ball to help, too.

I am glad FP puts up with my bullshit and then beats me when I'm being a child. Yesterday I sucked in class, and (I'm sure it wasn't meant that way, nor was it wholly seriously) my belt was called into question. Obviously that's a sore point for me, so I kind of... switched off a bit. Still tried, just, felt shit the entire time. Headaches lasting days don't help either. I also accidentally punched my friend in the face. GOOD JOB RED BELT MEANS 'DANGER, NO CONTROL', AHAH.

Anyway. After class, FP helped me get out of my funk by beating the shit out of me and finding my yelps of pain highly amusing. Once I'm trained enough, I'll give him whatfor. I think we'll make a damn fine looking pair of fighters, actually! All stretched this morning, so off to do some conditioning against the corner of a wall. Off we go!

Ah, Monday.

Yesterday squad was cancelled, so instead I killed it at the gym. Seriously killed it. Was knackered all day, and then ended up only sleeping 2 hours at night for certain reasons. Did enjoy it though, closer to doing splits!

Today's training was frustrating to say the least. Master K's messed his shoulder up majorly so he can't take the classes. Master L took it instead, which is fine. The warm up was awesome. At one point we were too slow doing some things, so we had to do 101 sit ups as quickly as we could. I powered through to 50 before he stopped us and explained it was about willingness. I shone because I didn't grumble, I just worked really hard to get to 50 before others got to 23. I was prepared to do all 101. Being such an adrenaline rush with the warm up, I was majorly pumped.

What actually happened was I was used as an instructor, more or less. I was put in command of various things including line work, patterns and reffing point sparring. Whilst none of that bothers me, it helps the class out and is an amazing honour, I got to do no training other than the warm up. FP noticed and said I should tell Master L to stop being lazy and leaving me in charge. FP is quite outspoken when it comes to these matters, he believes grade means nothing if you're taking advantage of someone and stopping their learning. I don't think I can make myself confront Master L in that way. I will continue to help out, and work on the skills that gives me. I get the feeling FP will talk to people on my behalf anyway, jammy git, haha.

I'll wake up tomorrow and it'll all be fine.

I fixed the issue in my personal life. Rather than doing my usual, this one meant enough to me to actually try. It's worked out, and I'm fucking glad. My training will progress even better now.

I guess what I want to say is that we all have set backs, but what sets us apart is breaking through them and not letting them define us. My set backs have defined who I am all my life, and I am strong for it, but I can now no longer gain strength from it, I have to move forward.  Good luck to others doing this too! (:

A little update about the new club yesterday.

Our 7th dan Master, 5th dan Master, 1st dan black belt, FP the green belt and myself, red belt, all turned up at the club that has joined under us. The class was quite big, about 20 or so people, which was cool! Their grades ranged from white to green, with one blue stripe and one black belt (I think he was 2nd dan, I forget). Our 7th dan took the class, and we did a bit of everything! Sparring, patterns, padwork, drills and self defence/hapkido.

Since I was one of three seniors (masters not included), I helped out a lot with the class. A good bunch of people, actually! I really enjoyed teaching and working with them, and made a fair few new friends. They were very respectful, listening and absorbing everything I said. During the lesson I realised that our club is a lot harder than this club. They donned the whole gear for sparring (boots, shin guards, groin guards, gloves, gum shields, head protectors), while we tend to just use gloves and boots if we have them. They looked shocked when I only put on gloves. They also could take a lot less pain wise when people demonstrated hapkido techniques on them.

I don't point this out to get an ego boost, but more as a reflection of how I didn't really think we were that hardcore. I mean, because you don't know any other way than the way you train if you're new, you just go along with it. When people in the club would say "yeah we're harder than x", I used to just see it as a bit of a joke within the club. Actually we are pretty hard. But what is more interesting is that we are polite and good people with it. We never use it to exact brutality on our demonstrating partners (not on purpose, anyway!), or to be derogatory to others. In fact, we strive to teach them in order to help. Just struck me as odd.

In other news, I may have messed up again. I am good at that. However, in the last two months I've improved a lot mentally, and rather than be upset, I'm going to accept and figure out how to better my mentality further. Sometimes others need space, and can't be rushed. This is important. This is also a learning curve for me, I am bad at not-shallow relationships. That means I can act really well (e.g. for this new club, making them feel comfortable and be likeable to them), but I am very bad at real friendships and relationships. I'm getting better, hopefully. So yessss. WE SHALL SEE, YES.

I update a little less these days! It's because I have more to do these days!

Thoughts on being a red belt: Terrifying and wonderful at the same time. I've graded stupidly fast to this point. I think I've graded faster than even the now 1st dan, N. I've double graded twice in my martial arts career, which is ridiculous! But for all this, it shows how much work I have to do. If I want to achieve a black belt any time soon (usually to obtain black belt, it takes you about 3 1/2, 4 years), much sooner than most, I need to kick it up a gear. Today I felt shit, but gave jumping back kicks a good run for their money!

Patterns, I'm fine with. I was used by today's master as reference, even for the senior grades. Clearly doing something right. Today I didn't spar because of how I felt, but I was put up to ref. The master wants me to ref if we do competitions. I like that I'm being used in such a way, not because I get to run from fighting, but because it means I'm going to have good, strong skills in all areas, not just one or two areas, or being rubbish in general.

I'm back at the gym, too. Gotta get my head back in the game. I'm due to grade early to my black tag and there is so much more work to be done first!

Tomorrow, FP, me and a few others are going to a club that has joined under our JTF school. We're going to show support, and also to show that club how we train, and how good we are. It should be interesting! Gotta be on form for that, for sure.

Anyway, going to bath and relax. Hope you all are achieving great things also!

I'm a motherfucking red belt. Graded this morning. Apparently pass mark of 100%.

It's an odd feeling. I don't think I deserve it, but I never do? All blue belts grading together managed to get a red belt instead of a red stripe. I would be more up for disputing it bar two things: 1) P, the blue stripe, was told he wouldn't be double grading when he finished, that he wasn't ready to be red stripe, and 2) it still hasn't sunk in yet.

My head really hurts at the moment. We started at 10:30 this morning, and I left the dojang at 15:00. So a long day. We did drills, which took me a little while to get into, I was pretty fookin' nervous. We then did patterns, which I actually managed to remember! Last time I mega-messed up, the only area I lost points in. This time it all went smoothly as fuck (actually I messed up bit but correctly myself quickly enough that it looked like part of the pattern. OH YEAH, PLAYA). We moved onto one step and then some self defence. Then we did some cardio tests with the sparring gear on. I did well on that part, since I drill it outside the club. My cardio was the best there out of the blue belts, which is nice, because it shows the work I put in outside of alloted class time. Then we did fighting, three rounds of one-on-one, and then two rounds of two-on-one. I've never fought two-on-one before, and it was pretty hard. I took a fair few hits as sacrifice for moving, and that is why my head hurts right now. After the fighting was theory, the finishing part of the grading.

The fighting was interesting. I made one of my sparring partners cry, but because I didn't want him to fail based on an injury, I coached him through the match when he was about the give up. He earned his red belt today. The other one-on-one fights were okayish, nothing unusual. The two-on-one was again, pretty interesting. One of the rounds I had a little guy and a tall guy. At one point I turned my back on the lil' guy, 'cause I knew he couldn't do much damage, and just went for the taller one full pelt. He didn't enjoy that much! But it worked. With multiple opponents, stay out of the middle, line them up so you can take them on one at a time. Fact. The masters said as a woman, I take one fucking hell of a beating and keep going. It's true, I get hit a lot but it doesn't bother me much. They said even a lot of men can't take the beating I do, and it's one of the reasons they liked me from day one, I didn't back down, I just got up and went for it again, which is rare in fighters and especially women fighters. I want to show the lower grade women of the club how to be as good as the guys (not that we aren't already, but sometimes in a male dominated class, it can feel that way).

Self defence was a larf. I was with a black tag, and I may have been nervous and on edge enough that I hit him pretty hard a few times. At one point, he thought he'd be cocky and 'try something a little different', so he tried to strangle choke me around the neck. As he did so, I asked if he was sure he wanted to do that. He said yes. So (slightly quicker, more accurately and powerfully then I thought myself capable of) I jabbed him in the throat, and he choked and let go instantly. The master panels wet themselves.

So all around, an awesome grading. Can't believe I got 100%. And that I double graded. wtf. Now I just have to mainly work on flexibility and spinning kicks, according to my head master. I can do that!

I could not have graded, as far as I'm concerned, if it wasn't for the help of FP. We spent 6 hours after work yesterday going through things. He beat the shit out of my several times, I ended up on the floor more than him, and he put up with my bullshit breakdowns and hissy fits through the entire time. Because of the things we'd gone through, and he didn't let me take the easy route, when I actually came to do them on weaker people, it was so much easier than I anticipated. FP is a fucking saint for putting up with how I was acting.

His shoulder came out just before grading today, so he didn't get to grade. He's worked so hard, that I could feel him just... die a bit inside when he was told to not grade. He stayed to cheer me on, even though he could've just been consumed by the asshole-ish situation he was put in. They're going to grade him separately... just when his shoulder is back in. On that note, I got the watch one of the masters put his shoulder back in. Fuckin' weird! The entire shoulder blade was like.. half way down his back. Master K had to man handle it back in with such force! Then he had to pop the shoulder joint back in, too. FP's legs went from under him both times. Interesting to watch. I probably looked well morbid, watching that, ahaha. OH WELL!

I am still headachey, so I'm going to stop here. Might be training in the morning now, as well as gym at lunch and training after work. I have two months before my black tag. Fucking hell, is all I can say.

Tonight was a night of revelations. The night I learned I was sick.

Yesterday during a mainly patterns class, Master K announced that the blue belts grading on Sunday have a chance of being graded to red belt straight up. This was met with a lot of shock. Double gradings are rarely done these days, especially not past yellow, maybe green belt. I've been feeling stupidly hesitant about grading to red tag anyway, but this has made the pressure even greater. I've been trying to get out of grading. I am not ready to be a blue belt, let alone anything higher. I confided this in FP, and he was vaguely outraged. He believes me to be beyond ready, and is trying hard to get me to grade.

Up until tonight, I had been ignoring him.

I told N I wasn't ready to grade today, and he discussed it through with me. He understood where I was coming from as not being ready, since he himself skipped a grading between blue belt and blue belt red stripe. He too was shocked at the idea of any of us double grading at blue belt. He suggested I talk to Master K about it tomorrow, but I explained I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. If I talk to him, he will be disappointed. He can be emotional, and I worry he might be about this. He wants me to do well, not only for when Grandmaster RD comes across, but also because I am a female role model for the girls of the club, and am to be the first female he's had from white belt through to black. This is a ridiculous amount of pressure, and I feel I can't live up to it. N sympathised, and said it wasn't a nice situation to be put in. At least I'm not alone in my thinking.

FP, on the other hand, took a different stance. He challenges me a lot, both physically and mentally. He brings things up I don't want to broach, on purpose, to get me to face them. Today we learned I am sick. I think everyone lies. Because everyone does. I lie, about all sorts, small and large. If I lie, so easily, too, about the trivial and the not, then doesn't it stand to reason everyone else is too? And in such a case, how can we tell what is and is not a lie? We can't. Everyone lies about everything. With that said, if everyone lies, what's the point in anything? I used to think that how I thought was just a defence mechanism, I didn't really believe everyone lied, it was just something I said. But then I realised I do, 100% believe in it. It's natural to me.

This is when I realised that my old joke, the joke of being not all mentally there, is true. And I don't know how to get better. I want to get better,  I don't want to be sick, but how do you conquer such a thing? FP and I discussed this for a long while. He said if I don't get better, I will self-destruct. That was another old joke of mine, that I would be my own demise. I don't know what to do, but whatever I'm meant to do, it'll be done in the tiniest steps for sure. I am not sure if I should approach Master K tomorrow. It'll be the last time I see him before the grading on Sunday, if I go. It will be my only chance. This will either make or break both my career in martial arts, and my life in general.

Sorry this post isn't strictly MA related. It's more of a rant. I'm torn between two people I hold in very high regard, and this is my outlet. We'll see how I feel tomorrow. Goodnight, blogworld.