My Life and Karate, Day One

My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!

My first memory of karate in real life was in fourth or fifth grade, on the playground. A very sweet if dorky boy named Ben (I have long since forgotten his last name) was attempting to win my favor by bragging about his karate skills. His account of a couple years of classes at the Y failed to impress me - I had hit a growth spurt and probably had three inches and thirty pounds on him, and I knew it.

He waved his arms around in a way that was, I suppose, intended to be menacing. I did not feel menaced. He came at me. I picked up a four-foot-long fallen tree branch the width of my thigh. He stopped.

Apparently his training, which obviously didn't impart the wisdom of not showing off in the schoolyard, also didn't cover how to cope with an armed attacker. I felt sorta bad for him - he was obviously trying to flirt in that fourth-grade-boy sort of way - but the fellow was barking up a tree in the wrong forest altogether.

Many years later, I found a school that teaches practical self defense as well as fancy hand-waving. Hopefully poor Ben eventually found a girl to swoon over him.

Everyone should know what to do when confronted with clueless ten-year-olds or smart-alecks holding chunks of wood. Help us teach people these critical skills by donating $5 to our fundraiser!

Training for a 5k

After my last post, I've made some progress towards improving my approach towards fitness. I set the specific, achievable goal of improving my 5k time by the Race for the Cure. My friend Jo volunteered to put together a three-day-a-week training program for me, and that takes care of the regular scheduling and accountability parts. I've done four workouts so far, and plan to keep it up for the full six weeks. My latest 5k time was pretty terrible (about 37:30) so I am confident I'll be able to improve on it.

Going Both Ways

There is too much I want to do with my time and energy. The three big ones: I want to finish a novel, I want to study karate, I want to get really fit. I end up not reaching any of my goals because even when they don't actively conflict, there's just only so much time, energy, and focus I can come up with.

Lately, studying karate has been winning. I think that's because of a couple of things:
- It's regularly scheduled. I am totally a creature of habit.
- There are other people involved who will notice if I slack off
- It's got regular, predictable milestones and goals.
- It's fun!

Hmm, that's sort of a useful little list. Consistency, accountability, clear progress markers, and... fun. I wonder if applying that to my other two goals will result in anything interesting.

The novel - it's been making some progress, although not nearly enough to suit me.
- Consistency: none. I write when I feel like it, which isn't all that often.
- Accountability: I have recently improved this, and that's really the only reason I've been making progress. It's harder to slack off completely when I know I have to cancel a coffee date, or sit through it knowing I haven't done my share.
- Progress: On the one hand, the work is divided neatly into chapters. On the other, I haven't really set time-based goals. So about 50% on this one.
- Fun: I enjoy the process once I get started, and I do feel really good when I finish a session.

That more closely resembles "getting really fit." (Which I am counting totally separately from karate, because if that alone got me really fit, I'd be a ninja already.)
- Consistency: None at the moment. I can be good about this for about six weeks at a stretch.
- Accountability: Posting to the blog doesn't seem to do it. Possibly because only half a dozen people (at best) read it.
- Progress: Let's face it, "getting really fit" is a crappy goal. I need to define that better.
- Fun: I do enjoy the various activities involved, when I make myself do them.

So I need to define my goals better for fitness, and figure out how to get into the habit of both sitting and writing and... doing whatever will support my fitness goals.

More to come in further posts.

Rawr

I definitely need to make sure I'm eating enough during the day - I was pretty crazy by 6pm yesterday. Once I chomped through a third of a pound of roast beef I was all better, though.

As I often do, I deliberately went a bit overboard this weekend, so I was artificially bloated when I hopped on the scale Monday morning - but I am amused to report I'm six pounds down already. That might be my new record for water-weight loss.

My caffeine plan seems to be to avoid sugared sodas but go ahead with the sugar-free ones, at least for the moment. Maybe in a week or two I'll feel strong enough to give them up too.

Daily Posting

The daily check-in is really helpful for me when I'm trying to do something new, hence all the posting.

Yesterday went just fine, although I realize I'm eating much less than usual. It's not precisely bad, but it's not precisely intentional, either, and it's something I'm going to need to keep an eye on to make sure I don't go overboard.

*blinkblink*

Day one went pretty well, on the whole. I confess I cheated a little bit and ate the last few bites of a couple of desserts lying around the house, because I couldn't stand to throw out perfectly good Ben and Jerry's, but otherwise I was fine.

I need to consider my caffeine solutions - Jamba Juice is clever and all, but it's a whole meal by itself. Caffeine isn't actually on my to-avoid list, but sugar is. We'll see. I should go off it again but I can't face that while I'm quitting everything else.

Day One

Started the morning with an all-fruit smoothie from Jamba Juice, and lunch will be sushi. So not a success on the "hey, this will save money!" front, but yummy all the way around.