Life, in a nutshell....

...is pretty well the same old, same old. Unless it has to do with karate workouts, I really have nothing interesting to say. So I s'pose I should just keep my yap shut, eh? Nah....

...so karate it is. I went to sparring class last night. I feel a bit cheated...the teacher has decided to drop the class for the summer, but just NOW is deciding that it's worth actually teaching us stuff. Does anyone else see the insanity of that? Last night was a good class. Not only did I get instruction from sensei, one of the other guys who used to instruct more at the school worked out with me. He worked the same drill pretty much for 25 minutes straight with me. How awesome to get instruction like that! Of course, then I thought about how pissed off I was to not get that from sensei, and how the other guys WEREN'T getting that kind of attention, and I feel a wee bit guilty. That's ok. I s'pose it makes up for the times that I didn't get that kind of attention. But I worked out so hard that I had to take off my head gear because I sweat so much. Icky!

...and I've told you all how I'm so loving the Phillipino stick fighting. I went to Wal-Mart on Sunday and found dowell rods that are nearly the same size so that I can practice at home. With willing participants, of course! *wink* I do need to cut about 10 inches off of each stick to make them the size that we work out with, but it certainly was a cheap alternative. If I really stick with it, I will get some cool "real" ones. But the other instructor hasn't been to the classes where we're learning the stick fighting, so I told him that I'd teach him. So after sweating my ass off sparring, I stayed for another 20 minutes or so teaching him the basic combination that we've been learning. It was fun to actually teach the teacher who'd been teaching me so much about everything else karate.

...I can't tell you all enough about how karate has slowly been transforming my body. I feel so much stronger than this time last year, albeit with more aches and pains. And all my clothes fit looser, even though I've not lost any poundage. But each thing I do seems to work a different part of me and make that part stronger. Kata helps with my core and with my leg muscles, and can be good cardio when done repeatedly. Stick fighting helps my arms and shoulders (which tend to be the weakest part of me anyway). And sparring is awesome cardio.