By Grapthars Hammer, were alive!

So the test was very good. First off all the people testing did a great job. There was the Housman Family. A father his 2 daughters and one of his sons(the other is getting ready to test for his red belt), another father and son pair, a collage age guy and one little girl. We had a huge panel of judges. Some of them old friends i haven't got to see very much over the years. As for me and my performance, well, to put it modestly, i was awesome. i am quite sore, but that was from their self defence section. When partnered with a tester you are what is referred to as a fall guy. and it can be as bad as it sounds, especially when you have a lot of big people testing. the idea is that you grab or otherwise attack them and then pretty much let them beat the crap out of you. at one point i was moving from ring to ring partnering with 5 of the 7 people. Luke(21 years old, 6'4", 210)threw me with a hip toss. when i hit the floor the whole room shook and every one looked over and said OOOOWW! it didn't hert.....then. so basically for about 2 hours i had 5 people taking turns hitting, grabbing, throwing, and holding me. Sounds like fun right? well then we got to the fighting portion of the test and i took my turn. you see now i get to fight back. we did 3 different types of sparing. Tae Kwon Do(like kick boxing only now punching to the head, you can kick to the head). Karate(its lighter contact, you can kick and use hands, you stop between each point, first to 5 wins, kicks worth 2 points). and grappling(basically wrestling but your are trying to get your opponent to "tap out" or say uncle). i was able to dominate the two(two minuets each) Tae Kwon Do fights i did. My combined Karate score for matches was 11(me) to 0(them)(i scored 6 on one guy because i had him at 4 and then scored with a kick). then the grappling round. 5 mins with the 21 year old i talked about earlier who also happened to have wrestled 4 years in high school. i tapped him out with a leg scissors to his neck. so if you haven't figured it out yet, yes i am bragging. its nice to have old friends that will bring you back down though, one of the other black belts said "hey, you looked good out there. Very light on your feet.....for a fat guy!" i am paying the price now for all of this. i am very sore. pretty much every thing hurts. my ribs from me being slammed into the ground repeatedly. my legs from doing so much high kicking. my neck arms and every thing else from all the holds and general tweaking i went through. and my bad knee is still stiff and swollen from...well being a bad knee and going through all this. all in all it was great and i will have fond memories from this for a long time.

sure i can do that, no problem

next week friday the martial arts school i go to will be haveing a huge test. 8 people will be testing for their black belt. i will be one of the judges at the test. that is not the problem. the problem is is that there are 3 really big guys testing. one of them is about 6'5" and 325lbs. he is a mountain. the other 2 are father and son and both are about 6'4". the reason this is a problem is that as the only black belt on the panel who is over 200lbs i will be expected to fight all of them and do a lot of their self defence. i will have to do 3 different types of fighting. Tae Kwon Do(which is the style we study), karate, and grappling. they(the fighting styles) all very greatly from each other. if it was just one i would not be worried, but im not in the best of shape(yes round is a perfectly good shape) right now and by the time i get done with all 3 i anticipate being a bit wore out. my instructor noticed me stretching last night and asked me "trying to get it back?" i said some thing about being ready for the test and he said after a moments thought, "oh, yes. well i guess ill leave you to it." and he just turned and walked a way. i hope that means he is confident in my ability and not "your out of luck sucker! you should have started sooner." i am quite sore from the added work outs and hard kicking i have been doing. do you think its possible to loose 30lbs by next Friday?

here we go again.....again

So I've started to try to lose weight again. i am up and down so much it drives me crazy. what is really dumb, it that i know what to do to get and keep the weight off. i just don't do it. all i have changed so far is that i have restricted my soda intake and i have lost 2.5 pounds in 3 day. haven't changed what i eat at all, and haven't started working out yet, just stopped drinking soda. i hate starting from scratch again....again. oh well, its my own fault so i should just shut up(not likely) and get to work. i did tell trent that i was committed to being under 215 before he leaves on his mission later this year. i started at 255.5 on Sunday. so about 41 total. sounds like fun right? Well maybe not fun exactly. Its going to suck. but i guess it like i told some one the other day, training isn't always fun(although some times it is), wining is fun. So i have to find some thing to win.