Fraggle Rock is going to be a movie!

I got 33 Sochin in tonight. That was really everything of note tonight, Sensei Hartman was waylaid by a few flat tires so we were left to our own devices. Saint Louis on Saturday, much enjoyment will be had by all.

Courtesy of BoingBoing, this article confirms for me the raw essence of why I have resisted getting World of Warcraft for so long. This is exactly what I’ve witnessed with other games for other people and been a party to myself during my time playing Gemstone IV.

It appears, given the description in the story, that WoW has basically turned up the knobs that control the “I must keep playing to retain my place in the world” response. I like passive roleplaying games like Gemstone IV, but the social nature of these games will drive people constantly compare themselves to other people in the game (their “friends”) and continually progress. Eventually you find yourself having to continually run with the pack in order to keep up in terms of ability, roleplaying, or loot-getting. After college and the friends that I had were scattered to the winds, Gemstone became much less fun for me. The social aspect of the game was largely gone, my real life support structure for my in-game habit was gone too. I realized that the hunt for loot, gather experience cycle was really just situational OCD and it really stopped being fun. I mean, how many times more do I have to type “attack [creaturename]” before I get the next level? Is this even fun?

The answer for me was no, no it wasn’t. I was spending many, many hours of the day (or night) to keep growing my character. So I cancelled my account right around the time that I got my job, starting training seriously in karate again, and went on with my life. I’m happy I did.

What I find amazing about this is how he plows right through this guy’s stance, while using the punch to get his center of gravity moving backwards. When I first watched this, I thought it was a rear leg sweep, but he’s just plain dominating this guy with his hips and bodyweight.

Before class, I knocked out 10 Sochin to round myself out to 1700. Since I made it to a rounder number, I elected to give myself a bit of a break from the deluge of Sochin that I’ve been doing lately. My break consisted of some Gojushiho Dai with .

Sensei had not arrived in time for the first class to start, so we got warmed up and partially into a test oriented class for the different belt ranked groups. and I got the brown belts, and we basically just ran them through their test basics while giving them a buffet of fine points to work on. If one or two stick it’ll be a victory, as it always is.

The second class was more timing and distance drills with partners. Since there was an odd man out, I was in a group of three with and Erbe-san. We did the various drills that Sensei led us through, working on block-counter timing, body distance, and the like.

I was reminded of an important lesson of the ages tonight, when during a drill I ended up a little too close to Erbe-san (he contended that he might have raised his leg up a little to step), but I kicked him SQUARE in the knee as I was starting my front kick attack. It was so solid when I connected that I was certain that I hurt his knee. Then I realized that my foot was numb, and felt like it had the radiating out of it stars coming from it that you see in cartoons. Interestingly, it did not really hurt though. I took a few minutes to walk it off and let Mike attack for awhile (remember, we were in a group of three), but it quickly became apparent that I did not injure myself severely because I curled my toes back and contacted with the ball of my foot.

The takeaway lesson I was reminded of was to raise your knee more, however I had to feel a little good that my toes aren’t shattered into a million pieces. Later, after the class I asked Dave how his knee was and he said, “Oh, it’s fine. When you kicked me it felt really solid, however it felt like it hurt you.” It did, but just a little. I may have a bruised ball of the foot for a few days, but it sure beats two broken toes.

As for the drills, I got a lot of mileage out of varying the timing of my punches. I found that my jab/reverse punch combination is faster than I remembered it, however I have a lot of work to do when body shifting. I want to stutter-step a lot, and this causes problems when dealing with bigger, stronger opponents like Mike and Dave. We had many good exchanges tongiht and I think everyone had fun, so it counts as a great night of karate stuff!!

Tonight Dad and I made a special trip to Mapleton in order to get a little more kata work in. I got 25 kata in as well as some Bassai Dai with Dad. We made a lot of effort to get some extra relaxation into our katas tonight. I wanted to increase the speed and power of my punches in Sochin and Dad wanted some to increase his endurance. It went pretty well tonight and it was a good workout.

I was happy to see there working on his kata goal too. Motivation is a hard thing to have all the time, and sometimes you just have to make yourself work through it like we did tonight. I’m glad I did, I had a few kata that actually felt good tonight and that is a good motivational tool.

This video, “JKA Rocks”, demonstrates what a reverse punch should look like. I think that’s Tanaka and Yahara in there, I can’t identify everyone though. It’s got some loudish rock music in it, so beware if you’re not on headphones. 🙂

I’ve watched this thing about a dozen times… I suppose I’m getting an early start on the goal for next year. 🙂

* Don’t tell me its a 30-35 minute wait if its a 50 minute wait.
* If kept waiting 50 minutes, a half-assed apology does not cut it.
* If you are a waiter, don’t try and act like my friend because honestly I don’t really give a crap about you.
* If you are a waiter, don’t come and ask me if I want a refill 35 seconds after dropping a fresh drink in front of me.
* If you are a waiter, do not force the “birthday sundae” down the throat of the person having the birthday. If they don’t want it, walk away.
* The time spent retrieving my bill should not be greater than the meal length.
* Don’t tell me you’ll be right back to get my payment if you don’t intend on coming back within two minutes to get my payment.

For all these reasons and more, be sure to check out the wonder and glory that is the Pekin Applebee’s on Saturday night.