Learn a martial art

I was loving it for the first few weeks, and then I was like whoa..this is work! But I’m excited again to get back at it this week after two weeks off. I’m going to work on this for the rest of this year (about another month) and see if I want to continue doing this. The main thing I have to remember is that it is supposed to be FUN and that I am not trying to win any competitions!

wow. karate is hard and it is kicking my butt on the cardio front, but i love it after every class. last night the sensei said “you have raw talent, alot of people are looking forward to working with you”...wow. how cool is that! so of course now i’m like super motivated to go to class on saturday instead of the weight-training clinic! I think they work with weapons on saturday. i washed my gi last night and i need to sew the patch on it. i also looked up two of the recommended books for beginners (on philosophy of the art, not the application).

I officially joined the Dojo of the Okinawan Karate Academy. Last night was my first workout in full “gi” and it was intense! We sweated buckets though kicking, punching and sparring drills. It is a great workout and fantastic stress relief. My goal is to earn my first belt (orange), by Feb 2008 and take it from there. I need to attend 3x/week to get a good foundation on the basics.

I went to the dojo tonite and I really enjoyed it. I will go 2 more times before I formally join I think. I really like the atmosphere, I didn’t feel uncomfortable about my size/weight or anything. They are very welcoming and patient.

I definitely worked up a sweat, but I enjoyed it.

I took an intro class to the shorin-ryu style of karate last thursday. i like that there’s a shorin-ryu school near my parent’s in VA, and this style is close to Uechi Ryu, which I took in College for a semester.

i made the mistake of going to the gym before hand and wow…got my butt kicked. i am so out of shape (and i mean that on every level!). I’m not sure it was fun, but i want to give it a shot. I was comfortable with the people and dojo and felt very welcome and warm, but the hard floor hurt my feet in the stance we are to assume, it hurt my knees during push-ups (push-ups!) and sitting on the floor is a hot mess.

I am thinking of visiting a few more times, taking a yoga class to see if I like it better and maybe the spinning class and then I’ll make a decision.

Part of me wants to challenge myself, I could have my orange belt in February! You know I love a goal, but part of me doesn’t want to get into something I’m not, well…into. More later!

now as i head towards the u.s.a. and plans of summer, i need an outlet for physical fitness and energy that will both engage my mind and body. i’m starting to get excited about this.

this is something i want to undertake when i settle down. right now i’m traveling too much to get into a routine/class/dojo. however i did some google research and it takes between 3-6 years to get a black belt!