I'll rip yer bloody head off!

They make it look so easy

Before going on a holiday to sunny Queensland, our Krav Maga instructor introduced me to the strategy of escaping a head lock.

The problem for me was that my training-partner was a beefy ex-army guy who only knew one way of doing a head lock: as hard as humanly possible.

Thus began my FIRST EVER trip to a physiotherapist.

I'd never been to a physiotherapist before, so I was a little nervous. I even asked my wife if they ask you to take all your clothes off. Like I should know?!

Anyway, the physio gave me some excellent neck strengthening exercises, which I will need to keep doing if I have any hope of maintaining the art of escaping a head lock.

I didn't want to risk another neck injury before my holiday, so I skipped the class the day before my flight to Queensland.

I look forward to going back to class, but I hope my neck can cope.

New Directions - Krav Maga

Sorry about that

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I quit Kyokushin Karate, but I immediately began researching what other martial arts were available in my local area that also fitted my goals better.

I quickly discovered the world of Krav Maga, the Isreali self-defense system and thought this might be what I was after. I was fortunate to find a local school and tried the first three introductory classes, and I loved it.

We have a good physical work out at the start of class, I'm sweating and puffing, then we learn how to defend against different kinds of attacks and there's lots of repitition so that eventually the moves will be automatic.

I'm so glad I found Krav Maga. It fits into my life, I don't have to fit into someone else's sub-culture.

Not Quitting, Changing Course

Are the injuries worth it?

I finally decided to quit Kyokushin Karate.

The weekly debilitating injuries made me question the point of learning the art.

Why was I getting injured so frequently? It usually happened during sparring, not during the cardio workouts or self-defence parts of the class.

Is sparring something I want to learn? Well, sparring, or more accurately, sport-sparring, is not a sport that drew me to martial arts. It always came back to fitness and self-defence. While sport-sparring would certainly help toughen me up, it doesn't particularly help with self-defence, and the constant injuries were becoming a concern.

The final straw was observing the injuries of the more advanced students, which were worse than mine! That was my future, and I didn't like it.

My son wants to stay with Kyokushin Karate and I support him 100%. For kids, they learn through non-contact and I can see the benefits he's gained already. He's no longer physically intimidated by other kids. So Kyokushin is working well for him. It's like having a defacto big-brother to wrestle with.

I'm still keen to learn martial arts, but in a manner that better suits my goals.

I've found a possible replacement and I'll post the outcome of the introductory classes of a 'style' that I just learned about.

You know I do Karate - because of all that limping

A weapon of mass destruction

A number of students at the Kyokushin dojo I go to are preparing for an upcoming full-contact tournament, and I had the privilege of being their bare-knuckled punching bag.

One woman kept apologizing to me after giving me numerous punching combinations to my solar-plexus.

'Sorry' - Bam.

'Oh, sorry about this' - Bam Bam.

'Does it hurt?' BAM BAM BAM.

Our instructor asked me to keep my arms raised so that she could get used to punching somebody with force, and it would be good conditioning for me. I have the bruises across my rib-cage to prove the beating.

The funny thing is, the most painful injury I had while limping around at work the next day was my right foot. I couldn't bend my toes because of the bruising across the top of my foot.

Hmmm.

'Conditioning.'

Is that what they call it?

A Pain in the Neck

That's it, RIGHT THERE

While training at the Kyokushin dojo, I strained my neck at some point during the class, but not badly enough to stop.

I kept on the with the class and felt OK, but the next day, MY NECK! I could barely move it.

It was so bad that on the second day after I sustained the injury, I had to work from home because it was just too painful to move about.

I'm really starting to wonder if I can get fit through martial arts if I can't even move after a class.

They call me Bruise

What a whopper - my first karate bruise

My ankle looks worse than it feels.

I didn't even realize it was bruised until the next day and I had no idea how it happened. I think my ankle was kicked while sparring.

This bruise however I'll never forget:

I went to kick someone's thigh, and was checked by his shin. CRACK!

The lump on my shin was there for nearly a month.

It doesn't look bad in the photo, but it prompted me to invest in some shin pads for future sparring.

Kyokushin Karate prides itself on being a pad-free full contact style, but these early bruises make me question how long I'll last.

I'm committed to staying at the dojo for at least a year to improve my fitness, but I'll augment my primary goal: get fit WHILE AVOIDING HOSPITALIZATION.

Slowly losing weight

Getting in tune with my love-handles

Before I started my fitness program for this year, I stood on the scales and it read 105.8 kilograms.

Now I know I've seen it higher than that. In fact, last year, I remember it saying exactly 106.3, which is the same FM band as a popular radio station here in Canberra.

But I after I started my martial arts, it didn't take long for me to reach another popular radio station, 104.7.

Then it was ABC Classic FM at 102.3.

I lingered around JJJ for ages, 101.5, but I got real sick of that and right now I'm swiftly tuning down to QBN FM at 98.9.

I'm not quite there, but nearly. That means, as of this writing, I've lost about 6 kilograms.

I joke with friends that my aim is to reach my favorite radio station, a community station that plays lots of jazz, Artsound FM 92.7.

That would be fantastic.

When I grabbed their banner (above) I discovered to my distress that they also broadcast at a slightly lower frequency too.

I'll save that goal for another time.