01209dom’s Weblog

After a tip off from a friend at work that we might be in for a change in the weather, I had a look on the Met Office website’s five day forecast and was overjoyed to see that the forecast for Saturday and Sunday was “Scorchio!” which prompted me to round up the troops and get a beach party organised ASAP. The weekend for me, always starts at half past five on Saturday which usually can’t come soon enough and this was definitely the case last Saturday. Typically some tw@ came in at twenty past five and took the best part of twenty minutes buying a bloody Harmonica, and coupled with the fact that my till was completely wrong I was subsequently late for the party and had to meet everyone at the beach later than I wanted.

I had managed to grab two large pallets from work for the fire and after putting up my tent I started breaking them up with a couple of the guys. Now, I am sure that most people are already aware that I can be a little accident prone at the best of times, so when told “watch out for all the nails in the wood Dom” what was the first thing I did? Yep, stood right on a bit of wood with a nail in it, which went straight through my shoe and into my foot. It was ok but it did hurt, at least until the alcohol started kicking in!

When the night really got going we all decided to go for a stroll down to the beach, which must have been at around midnight. I took on the role of beer supplier as everyone piled a load of cans into my large backpack and acquired the nickname of “the Waterboy” at the same time. As we got onto the sand most of the males in attendance decided to answer a call of duty, which didn’t bode too well for Rob who unfortunately managed to step in a rather large rock pool and got soaked up to the ankles. Naturally I didn’t find the sight of my instructor getting soaked at all funny, and definitely wasn’t laughing my ass off…

This was actually only the beginning, as soon after James R decided that, if this was going to be the final beach party of the year everyone had to strip down and go in the sea. After a bit of ‘mild’ persuasion, myself and the others decided that the only way to do it was to just run full charge and dive straight in. To my surprise it was actually quite warm and I could have happily had a few waves if there were any, and I had my board! After that we managed to successfully steal a few large stumps from the car park (to top up our firewood cache) and headed back to the camp. My memory of the rest of the night is a little hazy as “the keg” came out when we got back and was probably responsible for my acute hangover the following day.

After a very long and very hot shower I managed to get in an hour or so looking at the new set of forms which I was to be taught in the afternoon. As with many of the TSD forms, my current set (Pinan/Heinan/Pyung Ahn) trace back to Okinawan roots, and although we apply our own unique differences, are still not Korean forms. The two hour seminar that I attended on Sunday was (apart from brief teachings) my first real chance to learn some very tough, traditional forms created by our Grandmaster. They are named “Chil Sung” which translates to “Seven Stars”. When I was a white belt I was taken through Chil Sung Il Ro even though it was completely out of my league in terms of ability (and still is!) but it stuck in my mind and I have to say is one of my favourite forms even though I don’t know it all the way through and cant perform it, if that makes sense! I just love the blend of slow movement combined with regulated breathing and fast powerful strikes and attacks. I am going to try and remember and practice all that I learnt, but we only learnt Chil Sung Ee Ro in its entirety and the first half of Il Ro and Sam Ro as they are extremely complicated, and will probably take me years to learn before I can even think about making them look good!

After the seminar we had one of the most enjoyable training sessions to date which consisted of Adults vs Kids for the whole hour and was a really good way of switching from technical stuff to fun stuff! I really enjoyed that and it capped off a fantastic weekend. When I got home I just about managed to stay awake through one of my favourite films “The House of Flying Daggers” which I watched from the comfort of my bed. I woke up with a right grump on knowing I had to work, but after a coffee and not actually doing a shred of work until about one o’clock I started to feel a lot better, although it feels like I really need another day off just so I can have a massive lie in. I’m so lazy!

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The last few weeks have been pretty uneventful to say the least. I have let myself slip into the mind numbing tedium of the working mans daily routine. Get up, go to work, come home, go to sleep, get up, go to work, etc, etc. It doesn’t make it any easier when you actually realise that the four days of summer we have had so far this year are seemingly not going to be extended, and on many occasions I have wondered how there can possibly be any more rain in the sky. Strangely enough, this hasn’t affected my mood too much and apart from being faced with a few personal challenges, I have been in reasonably good spirits.

As soon as July ticks over into August my mind becomes fixed on the ominous black cloud which is the City Music annual stock check. This is by far the hardest working day of my year, which is made harder by the fact that we normally have to start it at half five, having just done an entire days work. Luckily this year we were let off and we actually closed the shop for the day to get it done, which also resulted in my boss letting us go home early which was pretty sweet. Staying on the subject of work, I had to attend one of my work colleagues leaving party last week, who is off to the Royal Academy of Music in London. I am not really the emotional type and have been commended on my ability to close doors very quickly, but saying goodbye to someone I have really bonded with over the last couple of years did put a lump in my throat.

Another storm which has been quietly brewing at work too has finally erupted with an almighty bang. I can’t really elaborate too much but at 5:30pm today there was shouting, tears, area managers, threats, warnings, people throwing stuff at each other, all resulting in me having to stay an hour late and also having to go into work tomorrow on my day off to have a “management meeting”. Uuugghhh. All I ask for is a simple life, that’s all I want, why me? Apart from that and an angry drunken Glaswegian tramp telling me he was going to smash his guitar over my head, work hasn’t been too bad lately so I can’t complain.

Outside of work I have rekindled my love of films and have spent a fair wack of my wages buying as many DVD’s that I can, which apart from the occasional trip to Camborne’s finest ale house, has pushed me into becoming a fully fledged recluse. Not good really seeing as I probably should be working on my fitness due to fact that the Great North Run is like, under a month away. I received my official race number and timing chip the other day, which gave me a bit of a wake up call. On the subject, if anyone wants to sponsor me then please, feel free ; ) all the money goes to charity, and thinking about it, probably best to go to St John’s ambulance to cover the cost of them trying to revive my lifeless corpse from a Newcastle pavement.

This weekend I am privileged to have been invited to my friends wedding on Saturday which should be a bit of a riot! I know that she loves to go wild on the weekends and I don’t expect her wedding after party to be anything other than absolute carnage. How I am going to get home from Mevagissey is another matter, but at least I have been promised there will be single, attractive bridesmaids and guests! It’s a good job I have a day off the following day as I have training in the evening.

Not much has really happened with regards to my own training recently, apart from the addition of a small piece of blue electrical tape to my belt indicating a successful (and very painful) grading. I missed out on an EMTF seminar in Bedford which really pissed me off as I had to cover holidays in work, but have enjoyed going through my new syllabus stuff and especially learning my new form, which I have been practicing constantly. On that note I would like to vent a little frustration at my performance in one of last week’s lessons. We had to perform all of the forms, from Basic form one up to our highest form, and to say that I was crap would be the understatement of the year. How on earth I managed to bugger up Pyung Ahn Cho Dan is completely beyond me, and Pyung Ahn Ee Dan and Pyung Ahn Sam Dan would probably have been demonstrated better by a dying goat. I do feel like I have slipped a bit recently, so am determined to up my game over the next few weeks and try and get back to firing on all cylinders. My Ribs are pretty much healed now and I am going to focus a lot of my time on my sparring, as it is about time I got this up to speed too.

Well I guess that’s about it for now, will finish off with another one from Judas Priest (ignore the video).

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…and now something completely different! I think Bono writes really good songs, but unfortunately i really dislike U2. I prefer listening their songs performed by other artists…

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