Tonight, made me aware of a new, terrible form of situp that he found from the Krav Maga episode of Fight Quest. I was able to do three of them as a test of feasibility, and its a whole other brand compared to what we’ve been doing.

I’d be more than happy to attempt a few more on Saturday just to give some additional terrors to unleash. 🙂 I have to admit, being able to do those at all made me feel pretty badass!

I found out from my good buddy Debra over at Reflecting that this year NaBloPoMo has decided to go monthly, like some other very skilled, attractive, and handsome bloggers that I know.

I plan to fill out the appropriate forms and install the appropriate banners to associate myself with this fine batch of regular bloggers, hoping that it will further embolden me on my quest. I found out that there is already something called Blog365, which aims to blog every day for a year… if I would’ve known about that when I started this year I probably would have signed up for that too.

Since I’ve already missed a day in January I’m going to skip that for this year, however it might be a possibility for next year.

To all of my friends out there that blog occasionally… give this a try for a month! If you worry about writing giant novels and have a large check/recheck cycle before you post anything GET OVER IT. After a little practice I can literally knock out my blog post inside of 20 minutes a day… and if you’re too busy to muster 20 minutes a day you really need an enjoyable diversion more than I do.

Pretty much everyone I know is interesting enough to have blog topics for a single month, so get with it! I have faith in you all!

Today’s workout was fantastic! I was running a little behind because I stayed to help Tasha with her Perfect Pushup Workout #2, she did great and had much better form this time around.

After I arrived at Mapleton, we did “endurance basics” which comprised the entire tests syllabus (and then some), each pass up and down the gym was done without a break. We would switch what basic we did at half court and it was tough. My technique didn’t feel terrible, but my stance was betraying me around every corner today.

After that, we did some sparring drills focusing on pressing and cutting blocks. During the first set of drills I got the good fortune to be across from who was throwing out some wicked reverse punches, a series of which caught me in the rib cage. A few times I had to stop for a bit because she was very precise in hitting the same three inch stripe over my ribs. I have a cool “rib outline” red bruise to show for it! (Good job, Liz!)

This grew into some training that we don’t often do in our club on throws and arm locks. I’ve come to find that the body action isn’t all that different than my normal blocking, so I think I may take a few of the smaller lighter people in our dojo and try turning a few of these hip throws into my sparring repertoire. This was extremely fun and I hope we do a little more of this… it reinforces the importance of hips and timing… I think it applies across the whole gamut of sparring training.

I finished up with Perfect Pushup Workout #6, which I’m pleased to say is getting easier and easier. I momentarily considered adding the second set of regular pushups into the mix but decided against it since it was around 10:15 and I had to get to the bank today.

It’s the end of February, and that can mean only one thing! It’s time for another goal update!

• Debt: YTD – 6.24%, Overall – 50.45%
• Karate: 19 workouts, 5 perfect pushup workouts
• Relaxation: Not much to report here, yet.
• 2008BloPoMo: FebBloPoMo complete!

There ya have it! Those of you with goals, waste a post on your goals and lets see the update!

It was just Erbe-san and I to start the class tonight, Sensei Brewer showed up a few minutes after seven. led the class through a good warmup while Erbe-san and I made plans. Those plans changed rapidly, when halfway through my basics I gave Sensei Brewer the option of stepping in and he told me I was doing find and to do Heian Shodan.

So we did. I gave tips, took questions, offered some ideas to sharpen up the whole class (we had a lone blue belt and several brown belts) and I thought the class ended up really well. The best part about doing kata was that I got to do it with them, so I had a good sweat going by the end of the first class.

For the second class, we did still more kata. All the Heians and Tekki Shodan twice and Bassai Dai once. We focused on going slow and working on the fundamental body mechanics… as Sensei Brewer said beforehand it was more of a cerebral workout however I think it ended up considerably physical too. I was sweaty by the end, so it was a good night of karate stuff.

I haven’t had the opportunity to take a full class in awhile, it was a nice change of pace!

Red Eye
Originally uploaded by dalcher.

This one’s for you, . You can still see that the orange stain still visible over my blue eye. And the redness. Oh, the redness.

Now that I know I can do this and it turns out, when I’m healed I might remaster my cyber-eye icon with a higher res version. 🙂

Yesterday, I noticed that my eye was a little irritated. I chalked it up to a rough edge on my contacts, so I didn’t think a lot of it. I woke up this morning and my eye was red and swelled up a little, and I was blessed with some crustiness so I was starting to get concerned.

By the end of the day my eye was still pretty red, so I decided to get right in to UrgentCare. So yeah… apparently I was pretty sick because I left with three prescriptions: one for my cough, one for my sinusitis (which the doctor said was fairly obvious after I explained my symptoms), and one for my eye, which he determined to be infected as well.

To figure that one out he DYED MY EYE which was creepy, and then ran me through this device that felt like it was nothing short of some weird Pink Floyd laser light show or something from the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was quite weird.

Either way, I’m all medicated up and should be good to go in a few days.

Tonight was Perfect Pushups #5! I got through my set without using my knees once again, and I am happy to report that Tasha got in on the mix and completed her first set of 4-3-2-1 knee pushups. She really gutted it out and did a great job and I’m proud of her!

Snow Teddy!
Originally uploaded by dalcher.

Caught Teddy rolling in the snow! I was trying to catch him in the process of making doggie snow angels, but he was done by the time I got my camera.

I traded out my Tuesday night workout for a Monday night visit to Mapleton. While the rest of the class was warming up, I did my perfect pushup routine and I’m happy to say for the first time I was able to do the whole thing without using my knees!

The workout was a good basics set which built up to some Taikyoku Shodan. We ended with a very fun set of Battle Kata, where we could replace the punches with any attack we wanted. It was a lot of fun!

The second class was one-time sparring drills much like we did during last Saturday’s workout. It was a good time and most of the crew in Mapleton was picking up on it very fast.

It was a good one, ready for more on Thursday!