CaptainAwesomeLA

It’s going to be extremely hard to swing this in 2009. Mainly because I’m not in school anymore, and I dunno when my temp jobs end or begin. I signed up for a mission trip to Japan in June/July with my church, hopefully I can follow through with that, but that’s all up to Big Guns Upstairs.

I used to be quite the world traveler in my college years. China, Philippines, Malta, Lebanon, Syria and all over Europe. I went on these trips to spread the gospel, and every one was successful. In fact, I can’t imagine going to another country anymore and not turning it into some kind of missions trip.

It’s amazing how fast you lose weight when you take soda out of the equation. And I mean ALL soda, including diet ones. I went a whole summer without drinking soda and it really does make a difference. What also helped was that I drank about a gallon of water every day. It gives you tons more energy and just has you feeling great.

I’ve beocome very soda-dependent since then, and now I also drink alcoholic beverages more recently as well. So, this year, I’m gonna put a stop to the soda, and cut down the alcohol signifficantly. I may just cut out anything with carbonation all together and become reacquainted with water.

The day I broke my wrist I had signed up for Kendo classes. Breaking my wrist kind of put a damper on that adventure. I still have my Bogen and my Shinai (somewhere…) though!

I don’t have many skills outside of movies and writing, and martial arts can be a great way to get exercise and get one’s self in tune with their body. Earlier last summer I took Muy-Thai lessons in some dude’s garage but I put an end to that because he was kind of weird. I mean, he knew what he was talking about and he was great at what he did, I just didn’t want that kind of influence to be such a psycho.

So, right now I’m really interested in learning the Japanese sport of Kendo and it’s cousin, the art of Iaido. I love swords, and I’m fascinated by Samurai (moreso than Ninjas), so this seems like the perfect art for me when it comes to weapons training.

As far as hand-to-hand combat goes, I’d really like to get my hands dirty with Krav Maga. It’s the same fighting style used by Matt Damon when he played Jason Bourne in the Bourne films. I took a free class once and got the snot beat out of me by a 5’1” bald Hungarian. He round-housed me into a wall…not pretty.

The downside is that martial arts is EXPENSIVE to learn, especially on the West Coast. I may not be able to accomplish all of this until later in the year, but we’ll see how it goes, right?