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!