DoctorDeath

I’ve enjoyed shooting airguns from time to time all my life, mainly pistols such as Webley Juniors and Tempests, though these have the accuracy of well, a thing that doesn’t have much accuracy.

I watched the psitol shooting in the London Olympics last year (on TV!), and found it quite compelling. Having looked into the guns they use, and why they wear those blinders over their ‘non-aiming’ eye instead of just shuttting it, and I’ve learned a lot about it, and just why they do so many of those strange things, and now I fancy a bash.

A quick email search turned up a nearby rifle club that also has a 10-metre indoor range for rifles and pistols, and I’ve emailed them to find out just how one would go about ‘having a go’!

Of course, this has to be worked in around my Kendo classes and my cycling training (for the next few months at least!), but it’s better than sitting on my backside at home just vegging in front of the TV!

Been out a few times on the bike now, starting to make it more regular. Weekday evenings it’s a case of putting the bike in the turbo trainer and spinning away, but getting out at weekends is becoming a habit. The training program is still only calling for 1-2 hrs at a pop at the moment. Got thoroughly rained on today, but was quite happy until I got a puncture at around mile 22 or 23. As I was near home, I turned the bike round and tried to get back before it went flat (couldn’t be arsed with changing the tube in the rain…).

As it turned out, it went flat before I got home so I had to pump it up twice, and it was all but flat again when I finally got back.

I’m already finding it a little easier though, so I’m optimistic on achieving this goal, as long as I keep up with my training and don’t get idle!

The entries for next June’s ride opened on Wednesday 19th September at midday with an early bird offer. Sadly I couldn’t get to a computer at the time, what with being at work and all that, but today I’ve been to the website, filled in my application, paid my money, and dropped myself in it.

I believe it’s actually John O’Groats to Land’s End next year, rather than the other way round, but it’s still just shy of a thousand mile in nine days – truly the challenge of my life! Need to get the bit in between my teeeth now, no slacking off.

Oh blimey, what have I let myself in for?

I’ve been to the tip today, or rather, ‘the recycling centre’. Had some stuff that needed getting rid of, some in mixed bags. Therein lay a problem – rather than just letting stuff go into the ‘cannot be recycled’ bin (or as it used to be known, ‘mixed waste’), they want it all sererated now. Quite a bunch of little Hitlers working there at the moment, and it means that it takes a whole lot longer to get in and out (it takes me a good hour or so in travelling time to make the round trip as it is, don’t want to be there for ages when I get there!). I’ll know next time, won’t I? Being a bank holiday monday (that’s a public holiday to you folks elsewhere), it was already chaos, farting about didn’t help.

Now to the second part of my post, change. Now change as in metamorphosis, but coins. LOTS of coins. I tend to throw my loose change on the dresser, and eventually sweep it up and dump it into a big jar. I used to take it to the coinstar sorting machine in my local supermarket, though it took something like a 9% fee, it was worth it for time saved. Now the machine has gone, so I’m going to get stuck into coin sorting, then bagging. It’s smething I can do in front of the TV, so not too much of a bind. I’ll get rid of it by taking it into the bank/post office a bit at a time. I’m guessing there’s a lot of money in that change, and there’s a couple of things I need to buy – yeah, I know I said I need to stop buying stuff, but one of these is something I need, and the other will help reduce clutter.

The first is a really good quality winter motorcycle jacket – one that will keep me warm and dry, no matter what. The second is an iPod and dock – that way I can get rid of most of my CD’s and save some space! It all works out, ya see? Oh, I need some warmer trousers for winter cycle rides too – maybe I’ll get those instead – I’ll be needing those when I start training for my LeJoG ride! I’ll see when I’ve got a total – may take me a couple of months to get it all done and totalled.

Right, I’m off to eat my dinner, do some exercise, then start counting!

Sorting my inbox took longer, much longer, than doing the physical stuff.

Nearly 10,000 emails in my inbox. This is due to a large volume of spam – in the end you just fed up of doing anything with it and leave it instead. Filters are better now, and I’ve added a few sorting rules for my real email. Now my ibox is empty other than a few dozen flagged items which I’m hanging on to.

Must try to keep on top of it from now on!

I know there’s more paperwork to deal with, too – receipts from Amazon and the like that I’ve been hanging on to and no longer need. Haven’t needed most of it for some time, in fact, but as ever I’ve been too idle to tackle it! (If I didn’t keep on buying stuff, this would be less of a problem, I realise…)

As the title says, I’ve been shredding a pile of stuff that’s been accumulating, plus working through some other stuff too, and finding more stuff to shred as well.

Some of the pure paper has gone into the compost, the glossy stuff is going to recycling.

I’ve now started work on organising my email inbox too – that’s a right mess. Dewlete key may yet break from overuse!

Yet another goal on my list that ties in with others. Stop buying stuff I don’t need, stop spending willy nilly. Foolish.

Yeah, I ummed and arred over joining this year’s ride, and in the end, as time go shorter and shorter, I decided to wait until next year.

I’ve already registered my interest, and on September 19th (as soon as this year’s trip is over, in fact), registration opens for next year’s ride. Really hoping I can put my money where my mouth is and actually sign up for this – the ride is in June next year (it is most years, but was moved to avoid Olympic clashes!), so that’s around nine months of training time.

The thing that puts me off more than anything – and this is typical me, I must admit – is personal logistics. Getting the bike up to the start and back from the finish shouldn’t be a problem as they organise transport for all of that, but getting myself to and from the start and finish worries me more than it should. Train? Plane? Day of start/finish? Day before/after? If the latter, where do I stay? etc. etc. The list goes on, and I know it’s my self-confidence failing me in its usual insane manner.

I also know all that cycling can only help improve my fitness for Kendo, and help strengthen my legs, to boot!

Just do it, I reckon.

It’s not that I’m overdrawn, or in debt or anything, more that I’m not sure where my money is going. I’ve got direct debits left right and centre, and I no longer know what thy’re all for. I really need to get a grip on this!

I’ve got too much stuff. Not in an “I’m rich, look at me and all the great stuff I’ve got” kind of way, but in an “I’ve bought far too much crap and now it’s overwhelming me, I’ve got too much clutter and it’s taking up too much space, and leaving no room for the things that are really important in my life” kind of way.

In short, I need to declutter my physical living space in order to declutter my life in general. I’m disorganised and untidy, and I need to correct that by changing my way of thinking. I associate emotional ties with stuff, even though it’s shite. I need to just bin a load of stuff – sure, it cost me money once, but the price I paid for it in the first place doesn’t make it worth hanging on to if it’s just lying in a draw, cupboard or a pile on the floor, hardly seen, and never loved or used.

Now, I’m not some weird hermit who lives in a house piled floor to ceiling with crap – yet. However, I suspect those poor deluded sods must have started somewhere, and their failure to do it led them to their own miserable fate. I’ve started more than once, then got disallusioned as the mountain seemed to big to climb, and any space I made was soon filled up again, with more crap.

This leads me to the conclusion that I need a complete change of mindset; stopping buying stuff I don’t really need would be a start, and stop impulse buying. I’ve been told of the ’30-day rule’; anything you like the look of and think “hey! I’ll buy that!”, DON’T. put it on a list with the date, and check the list regularly. After an item has been on the list for thirty days, decide if you still want it – the chances are, you won’t. This shouldn’t apply to your day to day essentials, obviously – there’s no need to put bog roll on the list; there seems to be little doubt you still be wanting that after thiry days…

Stuff to do:

Get rid of more books – I’ve got far too many, many of which I’ll never read again. Those I do want to read again, I can always get them on Kindle (or many of them, at least…). Charity shops and eBay, as appropriate.

Sort my clothes out. I’m not an example of sartorial elegance, and never will be, but I own so many clothes I don’t wear, and I’ve run out of space. Time to get rid, again to charity shops if in good condition, to the textile recycling at the local tip if not.

Bin my model motorbikes. I have no idea why I collected them in the first place. It was one of those magazine partworks, and each issue came with a model motorbike. They are all sitting in a bloody draw now. Why, I wonder. They’re not even great models. Off to the tip with them!

Get shot of old playstation 2 games. I reckon I can get rid of these via Music magpie. They don’t pay as much as selling everything individually on eBay perhaps, but it’ll make a big dent in one hit. Best get rid, they’re not doing me any good sitting in a box!

These are just a few examples. The mountain is big, but is neither unclimbable or immovable. I’ll get to the top yet, wait and see.

The worst thing about all of this is, and I’m being quite serious here, that I feel I’m not materialistic in any way. So why the hanging on to stuff? Perhaps it’s because when I was growing up, as a family, we didn’t have much, so we hung on to it. Yes, it’s still a shame to waste that money by chucking stuff out, and it’s not great for the environment to create so much waste, but once I’ve got this under control, then by buying and consuming less, I’ll pay that back tenfold!

Still going, despite my ups and downs. The tennis elbow still affects me from time to time, though I’ve learnt ways of minimising the problem now. My left calf (the one I have to push off when making a stike) likes to give me grief too, though I suspect this is either my bad veins (varicose, from years of working standing up!), or a muscle knot – if it’s the latter then by regular use of a foam roller I’m hoping to free it up somewhat. Anyone else ever tried foam rolling? I opted for a ‘rumble roller’ with lots of knobbles on, they supposed help work out the knots like a masseusse’s knuckles – painful, but seems to work to some degree!

Anyway, I digress. As I said, there have been ups and downs, some physical, some mental. I’m quite prone to mild depression, and when things don’t go my way, I can find myself thinking about quitting. I’ve learnt to never do anything rash when this happens – just recognise it for what it is, ride it out, and soon the status quo will be restored. I’ve had some fairly naster foot blisters too – I seem to be very prone to them (when I’ve done hiking, I’ve also suffered from the on the soles of my feet, despite the most careful foot, sock and boot preparations…). I’ve got better at taping now, though, and can usually keep them from getting too serious.

In terms of my Kendo – for some months, since first getting into armour, I’ve struggled in spotting openings in my opponent’s stance (or Kamae, as we Kendoka say!), and as a result have found myself ‘standing off’, and countering, rather than being an offensive fighter. Over the past couple of weeks, however, something seems to have ‘clicked’, and I’ve found myself suddenly able to find cracks in their defences, and I’ve become suddenly more aggresive as a fighter. Whether this is the training sinking in more, or whether it’s a growth in my confidence (or a combination of both), I don’t know, but I’m liking it! I’m still far from being a good fighter, but after a year, that can hardly be expected. I’ll progress at my own rate, and I’m happy with that.

Fitness wise, the sessions are certainly becoming more intense for those of us in armour, and by the time we get to sparring towards the end of the session I’m often blowing hard, but I can feel my ‘Kendo fitness’ getting better. I’m also changing shape a bit – not much in the way of weight change, but I’ve lost some lard and toned up here and there, so that’s a bonus.

There are a couple of team tournaments which the dojo is trying to get teams together for, and I’m umming and arring on that. Not sure if I’m ready – can my anxiety cope with it, I wonder? The first one is next month, but that’s just as my car goes in for it’s yearly MOT test, so I’ll be transport-less for that one, unless someone wants to take me, but that means driving out several miles in the direction opposite to the way we’ll need to be going, not sure if anyone will appreciate that, but I’ll discuss it with my Sensei after class I think, and see what he thinks. I certainly tneed to dip a toe into the world of Shiai (competition) at some point…

Confidence back UP again!

...I wrote about weird loners who die in a house full of junk and nobody notices until there’s three months’ milk on the doorstep. I recently watched a channel 4 (uk) programme about a guy who was an obsessive compulsive hoarder. Bloody hell, and to think I feel I have a problem!

His house (and a second one!) is full of newspapers, bottles, packaging- basically everything he’s ever owned. Floor to almost the ceiling, to a degree where he sleeps in a chair (bed long since buried), and it takes him forty minutes to get to the door.

A neighbour and some of the local community have been helping him as he slowly comes to grips with it. The oddest thing is that he barely sees it as a problem. He had a broken umbrella he was reluctant to have thrown out, and claimed he wanted it ‘for spares’. The facts that a) he probably didn’t have an umbrella of that size or type (if he did it would be likely be buried), and b) fixing umbrellas is almost impossible, I’d imagine, as they aren’t really constructed in a way that makes repair a real proposition, didn’t really enter into it.In his mind he had justification for hanging on to it. We all do that, I’m sure.

Combine this justification with a bit of laziness, and that’s how it happens to the rest of us, even those without quite such a problem as his.

Seeing him, makes me realise I don’t want to go down any road that even goes close to that sort of madness – act now, I’m telling myself, before it’s too late.

...is not just physical junk. I still keep going at this like a bull at a gate, then stop for a bit. I need to keep at this, get some momentum going. If I don’t, the futility of the whole thing begins to weigh heavily and eventually apathy sets in, and I even start to undo what I’ve done.

As for the mountain being more than physical, of that there is little doubt. I have to stop atttaching importance and undeserved sentimental value to stuff which is worthless. Hoarding is a type of mental disorder, that’s undeniable, but I’m convinced I can win the battle!

Well, unusually for me, I acted upon my thoughts, saw an airhead Beemer I liked, and bid for it and won it on eBay. I’ve still got to get a couple of trains out to the seller in Kent so I can ride it back, but I have one – a nice matt black one, too, though one with a lot of receipts showing it’s mechanically sound, or at least as sound as a thirty-odd year old bike that costs a grand can be.

Picking it up this week may prove tricky, but the seller is happy enough to keep it in his garage for a week or two now I’ve put a deposit on it (I’d checked beforehand!).

Looking forward to the ride home, but fairly sure I’ll got lost on the way before I get myself onto my M25/M1 route back! Kent is very unfamiliar, and I’ll be riding sans sat nav.

If all goes to plan, I might be able to join some other bike riding friends (two of them being the previously mentioned BMW owners who inspired this purchase) on a trip to Scotland in a couple of months time. Let’s hope, eh?

When I was a wee lad and fascinated by motorbikes, I really loved these. By the time I got to my teens, they were ‘an old man’s bike’. A couple of friends own these (one is mint, one is a survival/rat-type affair), and once again these bikes are attractive. Whilst every Tom, Dick and Harry is buying a new GS Adventure and using it to ride to the shops, I want a proper, old-school tourer, though it’s like to end up somewhat of a rat, just to shake off the salopettes, Deri boots, and pipe smoking image of the early Beemers…

Been looking at a few, and now is the time to get one before the prices start to go silly. These things look like cheap, reliable mile-eaters to me – perfect for that trip to the continent that I keep promising myself, trips around Britain, plus good for winter stuff like the Drago Rally in Wales.

Though I’ve enjoyed the novelty of doing long-distances on the Honda 90 for shits and giggles, I now fancy the idea a doing those same miles faster, and in more comfort, yet still reasonably cheaply. And all on a bike that’s relatively basic (though built with that Teutonic precision we all know and love).

I’ve been getting back into this with some gusto. I’ve been reading about the reasons that people collect clutter, and why they can’t let go of stuff, despite it being worthless. Lots of things echo with me, and I’m getting to grips with this a little at a time.

That said, I’ve been on a major purge over the last couple of days, now I’m just about to load up the car and go to the tip/recycling centre.

Just need to stay motivated here. I’ve said before that the mountain seems impossible to climb at times, and that it’s easier to leave it than get started. Now I have, it’s important to keep it up, a bit at a time. It’s shocked me just how many old vhs tapes I’ve got about the place, and why the hell do I keep magazines for so long after I’ve read them? So, so, so much crap.

So, after my last entry, where I was really down and beating myself up more than a little, events have taken a turn.

I’ve had a dodgy elbow for the past couple of months, and looking up my symptoms, I thought I’d probably got a touch of tennis elbow. It’s been affecting me more and more, both at work and at home, not just in Kendo, and as my work was quiet on Monday morning, I decided to haul my arse down to the doctor’s and get it looked at.

The result? Tennis elbow confirmed. The treatment? Anti-inflammatories and rest for several weeks. Whilst stopping work isn’t an option, I can modify the way I do things there to favour my left arm. Kendo, however, is right out.

I went to Kendo and watched last night – I still learnt a surprising amount, though naturally not being able to go with ‘monkey see, monkey do’ is a bit of a handicap.

In short, giving my elbow, along with my other niggling injuries, time to heal, means that when I do pick up a shinai again, I should be pain-free, and able to focus on performing good Kendo (or at least attempting to!), rather than being focused more on enduring the pain, and simply trying to make it to the end.

If this period of rest and anti inflammatories and rest doesn’t work, then it’s steroid injections in the elbow for me, which frankly isn’t too appealing a prospect!

Watching the class last night did remind me of my initial enthusiasm, before I started getting all my aches and pains, and has helped renew my ‘Kendo Spirit’. I’ll be going in at least once a week to watch – this way I’m still learning, and I’m staying in the habit of going to class – it’s all too easy to get into a habit of sitting on one’s arse instead! I’m also going to be asking my Sensei if he’d okay with me bringing my camera in and taking some shots – I think it will be fine as we’ve had photographers in before, and the gallery on our website could do with a few new pictures. Of course, this is highly dependant on any of my shots actually being worth using.

Despite everything, confidence is back on the way UP.

...very much as a ‘maybe’.

Look at my entry for ‘Learn Kendo’ as of today (31st March 2012) and see why.

Gah. I don’t know where the bloody hell I’m at at the moment.

It’s now getting to a point where my dodgy feet are beginning to really get me down, and I keep rueing the decision to do Kendo and not Judo. I have a job where I’m on my feet all day, and bad feet are not conducive to that at all. Not at all. On the plus side, I enjoy the physicality of it – it gives me a damn good workout, and the fact it is a ‘proper’ art and not a Mickey Mouse McDojo-spawning one is a bonus (like Judo, Kendo clubs are non-profit, in the Uk at least, run by enthusiasts for enthusiasts as it were). Our dojo, being very new, is also very much a social thing, and I would forever have the feeling of letting everyone else down if I were to ‘defect’.

Will I stick with Kendo? To be honest, I’m not so sure any more. It’s not going to be an overnight decision and much soul-searching will take place before I decide anything. Perhaps it’s just a crisis in confidence and a month from now this will all be a distant memory, but at the moment it’s causing me some worries.

Some time ago (before Kendo came along)I was looking at choosing between TKD and Judo, and dismissed TKD as I suspected I would always feel ‘this just isn’t as good as Judo’.

I’m beginning to think the same thing about Kendo, and this has genuinely surprised me as Kendo was always that one art that I always wanted to do. Perhaps it doesn’t suit me quite as well as I thought it would. There is also a cost thing to be taken into consideration here – whist Kendo is cheap to do (monthly costs are very reasonable!), as already stated in recent posts I’ve not long got into armour, and that wasn’t exactly cheap. I’m at what is known as the ‘Kendo hump’. Lots of folks come up against it as they reach the stage where they get into armour. Mostly people freak out when they put it on – it’s hot, heavy, claustrophobic, and you can’t see or hear properly. That I got over fairly quickly, but armour has also meant a total shift in gear, training-wise, and that shift in gear has brought with it a raft of minor injuries, and those damn blisters. The injuries I can cope with – that magic ibuprofen again! – but the blisters are becoming a bit much.

Anyway, just thought an update might be polite, maybe someone out there is interested!

I hate it when I’m soul searching like this (and believe me, soul searching is EXACTLY what I’m doing), without a clue which is the right way to go.

As a final thought, it’s not that I feel I’m making no progress in Kendo – I know I am, and at a similar rate to those who began at the same time I did. I can see the progress I’ve made when I look at the latest raft of beginners struggling with the same things I did. Much like Judo, Kendo is HARD, damn hard. It’s easy to hit someone with a stick, but that alone isn’t Kendo. There’s that same learning curve.

In short – I have a good Sensei, great classmates, yet there’s something about Kendo that just isn’t clicking.

Confidence is back DOWN. Quo vadis?

On March 4th, without planning, I didn’t go out to the local quiz, and hence I didn’t drink. Somehow, it seems that now is my non-drinking bit. I didn’t plan it, it just happened. I’m going to aim to last for a month, after that, we’ll see how it goes. I’ve not been tempted much so far, though admittedly I didn’t go out last weekend and avoided temptation altogether. It’s a sad and shocking testament to me that I’m proud I’ve managed a mere 13 days (today is day 14). Still, judging by what the news media reports of the nation’s drinking habits, perhaps it’s pretty good after all!

I’ve a birthday do on tomorrow night, but I think I can get round that one by being a designated driver!

On the downside, at some point between giving up caffeine and now, I’ve started on the coffee again. No Red Bull (okay, maybe one or two), just mainly coffee. Tuesdays and Friday mornings after Kendo nights mean an early start after too few hours sleep, and what started off as a sly pick me up has no become a full-on hold me up instead. Something else to give up, I suppose. How I’m looking forward to those headaches – I even have the makings of one now; too much coffee earlier and now my head is complaining about it.

Talking of complaints, here’s mine: I’m missing a second session of Kendo in a row due to one of my knees suddenly deciding to give me hell whilst walking down some stairs.

Yes, walking down some stairs. If this is getting old, it can piss off for a couple more decades