Well the last month or so has been a very strange time for me.
My 29th birthday actually managed to span an entire week and I received some really nice messages from people who I haven’t spoken to for ages which was unexpected but very welcome. I obviously had my ass well and truly kicked at training too, but that is how it works these days and I wouldn’t change it for anything. On the day of my birthday I hit an all time low though, thinking about how much my life has changed in the last couple of years and the realisation that my youth is now officially over hit me like a train. I’m sure it is something we all face at some point in our lives but I can be a bit of a sensitive soul underneath my ripped, rock solid exterior you know! To make matters worse my birthday excesses also came at a price and the successive late nights, alcohol and sleep deprivation caught up with me one Monday morning when I woke up feeling like absolute death. I managed about an hour in work before being driven home. I spent the next three days in bed with the worst bout of illness I have had for years. Not cool. Luckily it only lasted for about a week or so unlike some of my more unfortunate friends and I didn’t miss out on too much training.
Training has been extremely cool recently and is always the best way to take your mind off the stresses of day to day life! I feel a bit under par fitness wise but we have all been a bit under the weather recently so the lessons have sometimes needed to be a little slower than normal, but this has been made up by the intricacy of the technical side of Tang Soo Do especially in our senior class, we could easily spend four or five hours training on Wednesday night and still not scratch the surface with some of the higher forms. My main aim at the moment is getting Bassai into my head which I have requested at the last two sessions and with the right guidance is starting to come along now (my favourite form is still Chil Sung Sam Ro though!) and had a good question and answer style, form based senior class yesterday which helped iron out some of the differences and stumbling blocks we all pick up along the way.
It was followed by a really different Sport Tang Soo Do class which I thoroughly enjoyed. It started off with boxing style drills using various partner assisted combinations against focus mitts which absolutely killed me, I couldn’t catch my breath at all. I have been really into boxing at the moment probably due to the recent Haye – Valuev fight but am also becoming a very big fan of Manny Pacquiao too who is just unstoppable at the moment, so it was great to work on some hand techniques in light of that. Very tiring though. We then moved onto some takedown stuff and luckily I managed to perk up a bit as it would seem that I enjoy being thrown around almost as much as I do dropping people, which is a little worrying! It is something I have always thought about trying again, although I would probably veer more towards Jujitsu than Judo now especially as there is a club we are quite friendly with a stones through away. My friend has been asking me to come along to his old boxing club with him so I am not really sure what to do (if anything). Maybe one day. The best part of the lesson was the one on one groundwork and submission fighting with my instructor at the end which completely drained the rest of my days energy from me. I haven’t done anything like that for a very long time and it was great to try some locks, chokes, arm bars, etc. The most fun I have had lying down for a long time, which definitely isn’t a good thing!!!
It is apparent that the whole Christmas thing is beginning to creep in again and even though I always end up moaning about how much I hate the festive period, I am determined to have a good one this year! After days of negotiations the work rota for December has finally been agreed and for once I am actually ok with it. The only harsh thing I can see is that I might have to miss one or two training sessions on Wednesday due to the Truro late night shopping and am going to have to set a new Guinness world record by getting from City Music to the Dojang in under half an hour for the kids class on Sunday, but apart from that it is all good.
It would also appear that I have gained an unexpected birthday present too, which I might be allowed to keep…