A Life Less Ordinary

I did it! I passed my black belt grading, whoop whoop. It was a long day and a hard test, but I got through it. One of the senseis said it was the hardest shodan test she had seen in quite a few years, so I'm really pleased to have passed. I have honestly never been hit as hard as I was in a few fights, and during one of them I got completely winded and nearly threw up, but managed to recover quickly enough to keep going.

More stories and maybe some pictures later. Today I am nursing my bruises (I've got quite a few in strange and unexpected places) and enjoying the fact theaches and pains have resulted in something positive.

Am absolutely shattered. School has been good, exciting and really intense. I;ve taught my first few lessons whoch went well. No-one set themselves on fire or drank out of the test tubes: mission accomplished. Preparing lessons is still taking quite a long time and the work load is bilding up quite quickly.

Tomorrow is the first part of my shodan grading: we will be tested on our syllabus at our club. Currently I am too tired to be anywhere near nervous. I have just eating a whole load of pasta and am drinking lots of water to make sure I have enough energy for tomorrow.
Monday is going to be our blindfold and essay class, then the rest of the week of (except forsome light stretching) before the final test on the 14th. 8 days left and hopefully i will have completed this journey, only to start the next one.

I've been to the hairdresser again and my hair is shorter then ever before, and I like it :-) It's so easy and it looks good as well. Always a bonus of course.

It's 5.30 pm and already dark, I'm not enjoying the early dark hours :-(

Training is ok; yesterday I did the boxing class followed by kettle bells (weights) and in a bit I'll be going to the gym to do another class followed by some bag work. Although I feel tired I also feel very fit. I've lost quite a bit of weight and can fit in my skinny-days jeans, whoop whoop.

Next week school will start again and I will do my first teaching, aaaah. I was supposed to write my essay this week, but haven't gotten as far as I should have. I have had a hard time motivating myself to read about the philosophy of science and form an opinion about it. Hopefully this weekend I can kickmyself up the butt and do some bloody work.

Right, time to get changed pack my bag and go to the gym. See ya later!!

16 days and counting!

Yesterday's kata class was really good. We started with a warm up circuit that we nowadays always start with: 5 stations, doing push ups, weights, star jumps, plank position and burpees. As I had done a hard session in the gym on Tuesday, including many many many burpees, lateral jumps, squat jumps etc, my legs felt like jelly within seconds.

After going through the circuit a few times we moved onto kata. Us 4 girls going for our shodan were taken aside and put through our paces. Basically we went through all our kata: taikyoku 1, 2, 3
pinan 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
seido 1, 2, 3, 4
sanchin
gekisai dai
yansu
tsuki no kata
saiha
tensho

In random order, no time to rest, just go go go. Sweat was pouring out of every part of my body, bt it was really good. We all stayed together really well, we had good focus and energy. We finished with us doing our favorite kata in front of everyone. I felt really good after class, tired but accomplished.

I also need to do 13 street defences that I have come up with. we were told the attack, and have to come up with our own defence. The person who is partnering me is great, she's very enthusiastic and keen, but also a great laugh. My self defences are coming along nicely, and it's something I don't think I need to worry about.

So yes, 16 days to go, it's the final stretch, the last mile in the marathon. I'm starting to taper my training, with this week being the last hard week. I can't believe I'm nearly there!

Being exhausted does funny things to me; it mainly makes me very emotional. Ask me how I'm doing and I will burst into tears for no reason, a sad advert on the telly will open the flood gates, a sad songon the radio and I am sobbing. It's quite pathetic in a way. I don't like the fact I'm a weeping mess when I'm overtired. For so long I am trying to prove to everyone that I am tough, that I don't need help, that I can do it all on my own and that I am strong, physically and mentally. Crying stands for feeling defeated, failig to be strong, failing to be independent. Don't ask me where this comes from, but it's in my head.
One of my instructors at karate said "there lies real strength in being vulnerable", so maybe I should try to keep that in mind a bit more.

I am a biologist turned teacher. So my first lessons are on:

solutions
chemical reactions

closely followed by

energy and electricity.

So basically chemistry and physics....nowhere near anything biological....mmmmm, interesting
:-/

Karate is going well. 3.5 weeks until my grading. At the moment I am struggling to get enough rest, waking up at night thinking about university, school and training. It's a bit annoying not being able to turn of my brain. I am a white belt again, as part of the proces towards becoming a shodan. The idea behind it is:
In a beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in an expert's mind there are few.
So it's all about keeping an open mind, and not being tempted into thinking now I;m going for my black belt I suddenly know everything, but it is only a new beginning.

I'm pretty fit, my push ups are getting better and better, my stamina has really improved, and recovery time is getting shorter and shorter. So I'm on top of that aspect. My sylabus is also going well, so as long as I keep up the good work and avoid injury and getting il I should be fine.

Time to go to bed. Night night :-)

Will I ever learn that kicking someone's elbow with your toes is never a good ideas, unless your toes are made of stainless steel. Mine aren't I can tell you. Yesterday in sparring I managed to hurt my pinky toe this way, grumble grumble. It is now the same size as my big toe, and has a nice purple-blue glaze to it. It's funny how you take your toes for granted, until you hurt them and you suddenly are painfully reminded how important they are in activities like ... well ... walking.

Despite my injured toe training is going well; the intense programme I'm following really helps getting my fitness and strength up to speed. My sparring is coming along because of it which makes the thought of my grading slightly less daunting.

On the other side of what's going on in my life: I'm loving my course and my school placement! The school I;m in is a lovely all girls school, 11 - 16 year old and no real behavioural issues. My mentor seems really nice and down to earth and he said he had a good feeling abot me as well, yay :-)

Right, now I need to head to the gym once more. It's become like my second home almost. I'm wondering what I'll do after my grading with all the spare time. Oh, and remind me that I will need to tell you about my ever-evolving crush on one of the gym instructors at some point. (I think he might like me as well, *mini-hurray*).

Bye for now.

It's Saturday evening and I'm chlling out at home. I am shattered after this week and particularly karate today so instead of going out I decided to watch Strictly Come Dancing adn the X factor instead. Sad?? Maybe, but as I have trouble moving my legs (will explain later) I'm not really able to walk to the bus/tube/train or cycle anywhere.

Uni is going well, although still slightly overwhelming. Lots and lots of work to do, assingments to write, and school to prepare for. Wednesday I will go to my first placement, which will last until mid December. It's an all girls school, 11-16 years old, and well-known as well, so I;m pretty lucky to get that placement. It's a bit of a track to get there, 1 hour 15 mins by public transport or about 40 mins cycle (so I'm going to cycle it). Tonight I had to shorten to pairs of smart trousers that I'd bought a few months for when I would start school. Tomorow I will have to irona few shirts (shock, horror!!). I'm really looking forward to starting the placement although also slightly nervous. Hopefully I am cut out to be a teacher, I'll just have to wait and see.

Karate is going ok. It's tough, and I am tired a lot because of all the training, and to be honest I'll be glad when it's all over. Today's sparring session was pretty damn tough. Tired from all my daily sessions during the week my body felt exhaused before class even started. Kids class was ok, although I had to really call on all my patience when I had to do the new beginners (bless them, but some of them ar harrrrrrd work and I didn't feel up for it today). Basics class was good, we did a lot of basics, focussing on blocks and shuto strikes. I didn't feel too bad when I started sparring class, and the first few rounds were fine. And then...then I got paired up with one of the senseis, and he did not hold back....at all. He managed to thigh smash me a few times right on both legs, hit me right on the breast bone, and eventhough I don't bruise easily, I now have a beeeyaaaaauuty of a bruise on my left arm. The rest of the session was good, but when I got home and sat down for a a while I had a hard time getting up, and my legs are really sore at the moment.
Tomorrow morning I'm meeting my friend at the gym at 8.30 am, ouch... So it's an early night tonight despite it is saturday night. Wow, my life is eciting these days (yes, i meant to put a 'hint' of sarcasm in that last sentence). Good night :-)

Hi there, am still alive and kicking, just very very busy.

Karate is going well, just had a beach training weekend in Cornwall, lots of hard work but so much fun as well.

Uni is very interesting, and I'm loving every second of it.

Don't have any energy left to write more, but just know all is well :-)

I am extremely tired at the moment, and would really like a nap, but don't have time for it.
Last week has been incredibly busy and unfortunately this weekend I haven't been able to catch up with sleep.

Friday I started university, which was good fun, but I can already feel the pressure. For the coming week I will have to read up on a lot of stuff already and I'm not sure how I'm going to do it all.
Karate is going well, but all the training is really tiring me out. Yesterday there was a kyu grading, and me and the other girls who are going for our shodan grading had to a little part of it as well. This was mentioned to us about 1 minute before, and I was lucky to be the last one so I had time to think what I was going to do. The rest of the grading wasn't physical for me. I partnered a few of the candidates for the self defences, bag work and had to help out with kions. So to make sure I still had a good workout I went to the gym in the afternoon, did some running, then went through all my katas:
taikyoku 1, 2, 3, both sides starting (starting normal way, then starting rightside forst)
seido 1, 2, 3, 4, both sides as well
Pinan 1 to 5, normal and ura
Sanchin, gekisai dai, yansu, tsuki no kata, saiha and tensho

In between I did a 4x 4 sets of 10 dips, 10 press ups, 20 sit ups, continuous. So one superset was 40 dips, 40 press ups and 80 sit ups. In total I did 4 supersets, equalling 160 dips, 160 press ups and 320 sit ups. I was properly tired after all that.

Today I had a monster workout as well. I did 48 minutes of interval training on the treadmill: 3 minutes 'on', 1 minute off. the 'on' I built up, starting on 11 km/hour, 11.5, 12, 12.5, 13, 13. 'off' was 9 m per hour. After 6 sets I had 3 minutes rest, then another 6 sets.
Interval training was followed by weight training, but only half the sets I normally do:
squat and clean press: 2x 8, first set 25 kg, 2d set 30 kg (I nearly dropped them though, whoops)
90 degree squats, 2x8, 40 kg
pull ups, 2x8 (with 15 kg contra weight)
dumbbell routine, 2x8, 10 kg
lost of different ab exercises.

This was all followed by a really nice back massage. And now I am exhausted. But I will kick my but into gear and do some reading :-)

Today is my last 'free' day before mayhem starts. I spent yesterday all day ringing schools to ask if I could do a day of observation and after 20 rings I finally got lucky. Tomorrow and Thursday I wil spend observing classes in a primary school, and Friday I wil have my induction at university. I am still waiting for my loan application to cover my fees to be granted and I have no idea when I will start receiving my bursary, which reminds me I should email the admissions office to ask about that. Damn it's hard work to even get into university, despite all the adverting by the government that they need more teachers. Anyway, it's upwards and onwards at leats, eventhough it might be slow.

Karate is going well, my back is continuing to improve and my training is as good as back on track. I am not sparring yet, and yesterday instead of doing class myself I was asked to take the white belts and put them through their paces as there is a grading coming up. In a way I was disappointed I couldn't train myself, but sensei A. made the right call by saying he wanted me to still take it easy and not psh my back over the limit again. It's great to know he (and all the other instructors) care about me, they all want me to grade and be in one peace.
Teaching was good, although very hard work. One of the white belts is very slow to pick things up, both techniques as well as etiquette and my patience was tested. I put a lot of pressure on them and they looked flustered at times, especially because 2 weeks ago when I taught them I was very nice and easy on them. But reality is that Saturday will be even harder for them and pressure will be way higher. I warned them, telling them to whatever happens, keep up good ettiquete and not panic but take things one at a time. In a way I was talking to myself as well; instead of panicking about all the things you need to do, just deal with the here and now. There is no point worrying about the 40 fights I will need to do during my grading while I still have other things to deal with first.

Training in the gym is going well. I have starte drunning on the treadmill again and did 40 minutes of interval training without my back in pain today, followed by some heavy bag work. I feel pretty tired now but also very good. I have picked up my weight program as well, and am nearly to where I was before my back injury.
Physio is going well as well. I;ve gotten a few more challenging exercises as I am progressing well, and the hysio said I could challenge my back more and more, still taking care of course.

So all is well, and I feel positive and happy. It's going to be busy the coming 9 weeks but in the end it'll be worth it :-)

I'm in love with my new hair, it feels great to have it short.










Also last year in June I injured my big toe during my grading and since then I keep getting it hurt. I keep tripping, hitting it by accident or 'accidently' kicking someone in the forarm/shin/elbow/any other bony part of the body and every time my toe is the one that looses the fight. Yesterday I actually discovered I have a bit of a lump right on the top of my toe, which probably is some kind of scar tissue. Not really happy with it, and I hope the lump doesn't get any bigger as I don't really fancy having a Hunch-back-of-Notre-Dam-toe.

Also did I mention before I had done my back in? It turns out I have a tilted and skewed pelvis, which is putting pressure on my lower back, causing me some trouble at the moment. But things are getting much better already and I am slowly getting back into my normal routine again, after 2 weeks of rest, physio and low impact cardio. I'm feeling a bit nervous and impatient when it comes to not being able to train full out just yet and my grading comeing up in about 10 weeks. But patience is key....
Kids are back on again as well, so tomorrow I'll be helping out in class again, which is something I look forward to. Then an hour of basics class but I'll have to skip the sparring class for now, which is a bummer but I need to look after my back for now.

It's been a while since I posted properly. Somehow I didn't have the inspiration, eventhough I have enough to write about. I won't go in every single detail from the past few weeks but give you some highlights.

I am IN the course!! Whoop whoop. I passed both my maths and english with flying colours and my conditional offer for the course is now definite. I will start on the 11th of September which is just over 2 weeks. This morning I assembled a desk and I need to tidy up my bookcase to free some space for my new uni books that arrived this week as well. It's pretty exciting to know I'll be a student again in a couple of weeks time.

Karate wise I am having a little stumble. After a pretty good week last week, with a really good sparring session on Wednesday, I managed to pull a muscle in my lower back in the gym during some stretching. It's been sore the past week and I haven't been able to train. yestreday I went to the physio and it turns out I have a tilted pelvis, which is also slightly higher on my right hand side, causing some instability in my spine and resulting in my muscles doing things they shouldn't be doing. He elbow-massaged my butt muscles which was far from pleasant as you might imagine. I need a few more sessions but he said I shiuld be able to get it sorted in not too long and a properly aligned pevis will also result in higher kicks :-)

luckily there is no karate this weekend and Monday because of the bank holiday, and I am allowed to go to the gym for some low impact exercise. Saturday morning I have the next session with the physio and he will give me some more exercises to do.

In about 45 minutes time I'm going to have my hair cut off. I decided I don't want my hair long anymore and it's time for a change. I always wear my hair in a pony tail, it gets greasy really quickly because of all the exercising and when I wear it down it only looks nice for about 5 minutes and then it starts to bother me. I'll post a picture of it after it is done and you can all judge whether I made the right descision.

OK, that was a quick update. I'll try to be a bit more on it now. Sorr for the spelling mistakes, my keyboard is playing up and I am also too lazy to check it all :-P
Cheerio

I had my maths exam today. This week I kinda panicked a few times, because failing the exam means not being able to enter the course. But I think I woried for nothing because the exam was fairly straightforward and I think I did pretty good. I'll find out the results in about 2 weeks.
Saturday I need to do an English exam, which hopefully will go well. University is one step closer....

Hello, I'm still alive and kicking :-) Just been on a 2.5 week holiday to sunny Croatia, and OMG it was sunny. Plus 30 degrees every day and over 40 degrees on one particular day as well. clear blue skies and clear blue water, palm trees, sun, sea, swimming and lots of fun. People fly across the world to visit destinatons like this while we have countries right on our door step which can offer the same. So go to Croatia, before tourism really takes off and prices go way up.
I'll sort ot my pics as well and post some on here soon.

This week I also started my serious training program for my shodan grading on the 14th of November. It's tough, focussing on basic srenght development and power, improving aerobic interval capacity and developing core strenght:

Monday:
morning: Basic exercises (BE), 4x press ups followed by dips, without stopping: and this 4x through.
Evening: Karate

Tuesday:
Morning: BE
Evening: Program 2 (P2): weight training (including squat and press, deep squats, a dumbbel routine, pull ups, lots of abs and other stuff)

Wednesday:
Morning: Program 1: running machine, 3 mins sprint, 1 min recovery, 6 times through, then 2 mins rest and the whole set of 6 again (and possibly a third time through), equalling at least 50 mins of running, up to an hour 15 mins.
Evening: karate

Thursday
Morning: BE
Evening: boxing class at gym

Friday:
P2

Saturday:
karate only

Sunday
P1 and half sets of P2

This is for July and August. In September I get an even harder program focussing on power and speed circuits with syllabs and bag work, high intensity interval training and strenght maintaining.

So bye bye social life and alcohol, and I ned to sort out a healthy and balanced diet to keep me going. It'll be worth it though...it has to be worth it....

But for now I need to study, maths test in a weeks time, aaaaaah.

I'm stil alive, still doing all the things I did before. Just a bit busy and tired. After karate training I'm usually too tired to post about it, and soon I'm a few training sessions ahead and still haven't posted. It's going well though, although tough, but I knew I wasn't in for an easy ride.

I'm getting myself sorted for the PGCE course. I've done my observation days and only need to tackle the 2 exams, beginning of August. I'm looking forward to starting the course a lot. It feels good to start afresh with a new career.

I'm travelling quite alot at the moment: have been to Holland in the past week, family parties and weddings, all good fun. Thursday I'll be off to Croatia for 2.5 weeks with 2 good friends. Can't wait.

Also the guy I really like told me yesterday he has to move back to his home country in a months time. Just my luck, grrrr. I really like him a lot, even though he is completely the opposite from what I am like. Nothing really happened, we've just talked a lot. Poo :-(

Right, now I;m off to the bank, then to the pharmacy and then a quick visit to my friends and her kids. Catch you later.

Too tired to write much. Let's just say that my senseis have forced me and the other shodan candidates to refocus on our grading,as we were put through our paces today. It was very physical, and even included push ups on the bo. Now I'm very tired but glad I got through it ok, without breaking down.

On another note, I have decided to quit my current job, and my last day is friday. Various reasons for it, mainly that I'm going away on weekend breaks and holidays, I need to prepare for my exams and prepare for the course. I feels good to have made the decision.

Good night.

I don't bruise easily, so when they do appear, it means that I definitely got hit hard. I have several bruises on my left arm at the moment, which is my leading arm in sparring, and also have some weird marks on my stomach and a bruise on my thigh. Sparring class on Wednesday was serious business. It is finally starting to hit that I am actually training for my black belt at the moment. The pressure was seriously on on Wednesday, and one of the senseis did not take it lightly on me and the other candidate who was there. I basically got chased by this 6 ft 3, +100 kg guy who did not hold back at all. A few days later the bruises started to appear, and I know that those won't be the only ones.
On Saturday morning during kata class we were put under pressure again, being pulled out in frot, having to do all kinds of kata, with eyes closed, sarting the other way around, 3 kata in a row withot stopping, being asked loads of questions, lots of push ups and sit ups. It was tough, bt really good. It finally dawned on me that I am actually training for my black belt, whoohaaaaah.
My sensei said that we all looked very fit at this stage of the road, and quite on the ball. He warned us not to go too crazy just yet, and only really pile up the exercise 12-14 weeks before grading date.
The girls with who I'm going for my shodan with are great; we are all quite similar in our level of karate, as well as mind set, and we work really well together as a group. But individually we are all very different in our style.

So yes, karate is going well, and I am enjoying it. I feel good and confident about it, and I know that although the journey is going to be really togh, it's going to be worth it in the end.

Hey again, it's me, goudsekaas, remember me? Sorry I haven't been writing so much lately. These days I don't spend all day sitting in an office on a computer, and in the evenings I;m usually a bit too tired to string an understandable sentence together.

Last weekend I went to Holland for a few days. It was my friend's hen night, that she didn't know about until we turned up on her doorstep. A couple of friend's had organised some really funny activities, one fi which was a car maintenance workshop for women, where we learnt how to change a tyre, jump start a car (never knew it had to be done in second gear) and various other things. We all had great fun. In the afternoon someone came around to give my friend a colour consultancy (as she always wears black and white and it was time she tried something else) and we all had some style advise. I already knew I was an apple but appearantly I also have larger then normal upper arms and slightly chunky thighs; great news...
The evening was filled with good food and wine, making fun of our friend and her love for bald guys (she is marrying one in a months time) and we ended the night with some cocktails, after which we cycled through the city back home. Everyone had a great time and my friend was very thankful for it all.
the rest of the weekend was filled with catching up with my parents, brother and girlfriend, cousin, and one of my best friends andher new labrador puppy (so unbelievably cute!!).

This week was busy. At work they are very satisfied with my progress and decided to give me this new stop: a huge building where the sales are really good. Great news of course but it means I need to really step it up, no time to take it easy with the cycling and also my trailer is almost twice as heavy. My legs have really had a good workout this week, and they are about to fall off my body at the moment. But all in all I'm really enjoying the job, which is what matters.

On Wednesday I had an interview at Roehampton University for a place on their PGCE program. I had to do a 5 minute presentation which should be an introduction to a class of 13 year olds. appearantly I really impressed them with that, they said it was a breath of fresh air after quite a few boring ones from other candidates and they thanked me for that. they offered me a conditional placement as I still need to visit 2 state schools for a day and sit an English and Maths exam as my final exam grades weren't high enough (I knew I should have put a bit more effort in them ten years ago).

I should have been really happy, but Wednesday was such a busy and crazy day that I didn't ave the time to thik about it too much, and for some reason I felt really deflated when I got home lat ein the evening. Suddenly it started to hit me and I started thinking that I couldn't do it, I couldn;t be teacher, I couldn't do the shodan grading and I should just be a sandwich delivery girl for the rest of my life. I'm not sure where this all came from, I think it was just me being really tired and hormonal, and 2 days later I am actually really happy that I got teh place, even if itis provisionally. I just need to get my act together, get into 2 schools, and ace those exams. I just hope I won't sabotage it myself, because that would unforgivable.

Karate is going well. Wednesday sparring was ok, it wasn't great, but it wasn't too bad either. As I have a slight elbow injury on the left I had to change my leading arm to protect it. I suddenly hit me how crap I am when I'm leading with my right hand. something to work on in the coming few weeks. I asked one of the girls as my partner for the self defences I need to come up with, and to do some general training with, and she was over the moon. I really like and trust her and I think she will be fab to work with.

Well, that's it for now. I'll try to be a bit better and keeping updated. Hope you are well and all. Catch you later.
xxx

Last week on Monday I received the official letter for my shodan grading, with a grading date, the requirements along with encouraging words from the three senseis. Suddenly it started to hit: if all goes well it really is going to happen, in 6 months time I should be ready to undergo a gruelling test, after lots of pressure and scrutiny. Whoop whoop!!

Workwise it's going well, my round is really improving and I even managed to be the number one on or 3 weeks target challenge, which meant I got a bonus on top of my pay, hurray :-) It's really good fun and most of my customers are nice enough. I get called love, sweetheart, darlin', gorgeous, bella and what not by most guys in the garages I go to, which is quite funny. My legs are getting used to the cycling with a heavy load, and I also managed toloose a bit of weight in the first few weeks. I'm slowly working my way through the selection of sandwiches, and when I'm lucky I even manage to get a free dinner when there is a salad or rice dish left over. Definitely money-saving.

I;m also busy preparing for my next PGCE interview, on the 3rd of June. It seems slightly less demanding this time, and now I know what to expect as well. Bad news, my secondary school English and Maths grades are not sufficient enough, so I need to sit a GCSE exam for both of them. Bollocks, but hey, if that is something what I need to do then I'll do it.

So besides filling in forms, trying to get exam dates, cycling my but off, and training at teh dojo and gym, not much is going on. Still single as always, although the cute instructor guy at the gum is still very cute, and hot Spanish guy at the depot is very hot indeed. Once I have my admin all done I might decide to give either one a go ;-) not sure how yet, but I'll figre it out.