I thought I’d throw out my list of questions to help anyone that is trying to figure out what sort of questions they should ask when looking at any martial arts school.  I hope they help someone:

1. How would you describe the attitude of the students at this dojo?.  What are the expectations on student interaction?  
2. How are classes structured?
3. Does the school have any open mat times?
4. What is the average age of your adult students if you don’t mind my asking?
5. how do instructors divide time between students?  How do they keep in contact?  What teaching styles are used?  How do drills work here?  Sparring?  Testing?
6. why do they teach?  what are the objectives?  What are their backgrounds?  
7. How much focus do you put on training for competition vs self-defense vs fitness?
8. How is safety addressed here? What are your thoughts on sparring in relation to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE, see link: http://www.grapplearts.com/does-mma-make-you-stupid-impact-concussions-and-brain-damage-in-mixed-martial-arts/)
9. How is gym hygiene dealt with? 
10. What is involved with warmup and/or cooldown sessions? Is anything else done to help reduce injuries?
11. How does the school keep in touch with students?  Are there any additional resources provided to learn?
12. What are the guiding philosophies of this school?  
13. What are your thoughts on incorporating bits and pieces of other martial art disciplines?
14. Why the name of the school?  Tell me more about the history.
15. How many classes per week can a student attend? Costs?
16. What are the cancellation policies?  If moving away?

Hello again.

I’m giving this writing thing another go.  Perhaps not just for me, or the anonymous internet audience at large, but for whoever follows behind me.  I wonder how this will be archived if I’m no longer around.  I hope to have kids, and leave them with the process of my thoughts.  I didn’t get that with my father.

He passed away 2 months and a day ago.  Rhabadomyosarcoma.  If you’re googling this now, you’ll note how it primarily mentions this is a childhood disease.  On top of that, I recall at least a couple of articles mentioning how rare it is…something along the lines of 250 or less cases a year.  My father was 74.  It took him out in a little over a month.  That’s how rare this was.  For this, among several other reasons that I’m not going into right now, makes me think that there has to be something more to this existence.  I’m an agnostic guy who watches science videos for fun.

I had a discussion with my Aunt the other day that has shaken up my mind a bit.  In an almost matter-of-fact way she mentioned having talked to my mom the other day.  It took me a minute to actually register what she had said.  She went on to describe the dream.  She has dreams where she talks to her brothers and sister periodically, but this one was different in that it happened twice in a row.  I don’t remember the details of what was said quite as much now, but I recall hearing the descriptions of my mom’s mannerisms and attitude, and sure enough they felt on target.  Oh right, I should mention my mother has been gone since I was 18.  Also cancer, but with a side of complications from a stroke.

I’ve seen my mother in dreams before, but I don’t recall ever having discussions.  I did see my father and grandmother maybe a month ago in a dream as well.  I remember being in the backyard in the house I grew up in.  I remember seeing red objects being packed into a version of the shed that was much larger than I remember.  I was helping with picking up the yard (maybe a link to when I was a kid helping clean up the debris in our yard after hurricane Andrew in ’92?).  I can remember my father and grandmother discussing something (they were buried in the same plot)…I just can’t remember what was said.  I remember my grandmother grabbing my shoulder for a minute…and then I woke up.

Was there a point to all of this?  I’m not sure.  I just know I miss my father.

I think I’m going to take a break from the dojo.  The last few classes have felt particularly inefficient.  Also still getting the whole disrespect vibe still.  Part of it may be me being a little nice.  I know a larger part of it is my deteriorating body.  I’ve been involved in martial arts for about 5 years now, yet if you went entirely by my experience in the Dojo you’d think I was some run of the mill scrub newbie.  Yeah occasionally J will talk up my game but I don’t believe I’ve earned it.  Talk is weak.  The only thing that means anything is being put under the gun and coming out alive, decidedly so.  A belt color is not enough of a test, or goal.  Being able to effectively perform a dance doesn’t mean anything.

Being able to go toe to toe with a giant for 3 minutes and come out respected, now that is a test.  Being able to spar random guys and get that “Nice technique!” or even the deer in headlights look as I pull off my counters also counts.  Being told that it doesn’t matter that I’m dead last, that my putting myself out there is more than most people are willing to do.  Being told by a coach that they could of sworn I would of gassed out after that 5th sprint, but they were glad to see me push beyond that limit.   Being able to see guys twice my size tap out because they were gassed out.  Being given my run time everytime we did our warmup mile or 2, and being able to see my time improve (best I ever got to was 7:30). Being able to  Pass all the other students on those runs.  Those are objective measuring sticks.

I’m going to focus on the workouts I know.   I went from 250lb to 180 on my own.  That only happened because I knew I was on my own.  I could set and reach my own goals.  I could pace myself.  I didn’t have to worry about being out of the game because I was listening to someone else who truly didn’t give a shit about me.

Also, something my GF said the other day made me feel kinda bad.  It wasn’t about me.  It was about her.  She doesn’t deserve to feel that way.  She’s coming on this trip too.

I’ve only recently gotten over a sickness that lasted a little over a month.  A bad case of sinusitis that came from what should of been a routine cold but became something more.  I picked up some weight unfortunately during that month, so I’m a little off.  That said, and I’m not trying to use this as an excuse, my coordination in the dojo has been a bit off now that I’ve finally started coming back.  So while that has been off, I feel like I’ve been getting ragged on more by the higher ranks than normal, and to some degree disrespected.

In that realm, and to a great degree in all dealings with people, respect isn’t something you really logic people into.  Either you’ve earned it, by whatever criteria those people use (conscious or not), or you don’t.  So I won’t blame anyone or get angry at anyone directly if I haven’t earned it.  I admit it isn’t easy to do that…but I get it.

Let’s take some examples that come to mind, and I’ll refrain from using names as this is the internet…possibly one of the lonelier parts of the internet but still!  Lets put down a few examples.  We have one younger student, I guess overall a nice kid that gets put under a lot of pressure from what I can see (he had one break down as I recall, but he’s a teen, that stuff happens).  I recall we were working various extensions of the katas that  we work on, and the guy called me out on my tendency to use a somewhat upward angled parry for hooks.  He saw it as a straight up I suppose (double factor) but it is not.  Also he claimed that no one will ever do a haymaker (he didn’t call it that, but that was the punch direction)…which I know is bullshit from experience.  I think they may be forgetting (or never knew) that I had nearly 3 years of experience in MMA (muay-thai kickboxing, BJJ, Wrestling) from a school that I still use as my bar so any evaluation of schools and fighting arts.  I’m not some newbie.  I’m not in the shape that I should be but that doesn’t negate what I know.

I’m being respectful and listening to their stuff even when it directly clashes with what I’ve learned before (both through instruction and actual full contact sparring), because it is their dojo and their art.  I have a lot of respect for that.  That said, I don’t think its entirely fair that anything I know potentially gets snubbed.

Another example, same student and another recent BB (congrats to him, I still need to say that to him directly now that I remember…I was too busy getting beat up [being ukei, and apparently verbally/morally too] to remember.  Specifically we were going over extensions again, with the specific instruction on trying to emulate natural reactions and experimenting with responses to that.  Younger student has me dropped to the floor, going for a standing arm bar, but he doesn’t control the rest of my body so every time he tries to pull on my arm the rest of my body naturally turns forward.  So the BB comes in on this, and light heartedly (I think, can never tell with him) acuses me of “cheating” and then abruptly takes over, puts his other foot in front of me as I slide forward and yanks hard.  Definitely felt a lot of pain in my shoulder but I just shut up and dealt with.  The technique was good but just no warning, and could of easily gone real bad.  That is a bit of marked difference for me when it came to my previous school…I always felt like the instructors there were always very respectful that we were there and not just things to beat up on or show off on.

And then we have the older instructor.  I get that he’s old school, and by the sounds of it he did a lot of competitive fighting and actual fighting in his younger days. He’s definitely got a his way or the high-way approach.  Also seems to use me as an ukei a lot…possibly because I’m a larger guy so I should be able to take more punishment maybe?  Anyway last time he really held on long with that goose neck, and using that to drop and pick me up, in theory, reality is I had to pick myself up otherwise my wrist would definitely be broken (and I know the hard way how fragile the wrist bones are…).  I can understand wanting to make a point and have something stick through pain, but at a certain point are you really teaching anything?  Especially when the student is willingly putting himself in that situation for everyone’s learning?  Seems like it went a bit far to me.  Either I try to defend myself, and get beat up more for it…or I don’t, and get chopped in the neck or smashed in the jaw hinge and risk serious injury…for what?

Maybe I need to challenge corrections more often.  At least with students.  I feel like with the older instructor, all that would earn me is a beating that I’d just have to sit in there for possibly (which now that I think of it, I shouldn’t have to worry about that in the first place…maybe that is a big source of my feeling disrespected).

This will be a little bit of a vent/rant.  Dealing with a co-worker on some laptop issue having bizarre issues installing a couple routine programs.  That laptop is owned by a different department and my understanding is that we are to provide limited support on machine level issues.  Which makes sense since if they handle those laptop images then god knows what they have installed on it, let alone the maintenance thoroughness level on it.

I comb through the event log briefly and notice faults with some %windir% executables like oh say MSIEXEC.  Anyone that has been at this for a bit like me can already tell there is something OS level fubar about this machine.  Sure I can ultimately fix it but it can be a huge time sink.  Due to the setup we have, I recommend no longer touching this machine, using the event viewer info + my experience + the errors involved with the failed installation attempts.  Seems to go well enough.

Support person I was assisting comes back later and asks where to find that info again (STRIKE 1).  This person has been in this role for a little over a year now, plus some retail IT support previous to that for another year…so finding this lack of caring a little annoying but you know what fine lets claim temporary amnesia.  I give the steps and include what I remember of the error, and recommend to copy/paste the event log info for documentation purposes.  Support person comes back with “but I’ve already written 2 paragraphs”…(STRIKE 2).  and “besides [other senior support person] has the laptop now”(STRIKE 3).

I get that this person ultimately doesn’t seem to want to get anywhere with IT in favor of a medical career.  The thing the person doesn’t get is that document is key.  You can be damn fucking sure that document is even MORE important in the medical field, unless one likes being sued for medical malpractice.  Why do I try to help again?  Seems to be a waste of my time and honestly disrespectful.  Rant done.

An assault on life took place in France on the evening of 11/13/15.  I’m sure I could go on about the monsters, political ramifications and whatnot,  but that is not what is primarily running around in my brain.

The way I’m seeing it is that “Life” seems to have a goal.  Spread as much as possible.  We humans seem to be hard-wired for it, and we are pretty good at it for the most part.  That is assuming we don’t completely botch it up via bad management, nukes, bio weapons, global warming, destruction of our environmental infrastructure, and general insanity (as evidenced in France).  Even if we somehow manage to keep a relative frail peace going long enough to not kill ourselves, there are external factors that will take us out eventually (meteors, super volcanoes, new epic diseases, even a changing sun if we haven’t found a way off this planet by then).  To reach that goal, we need more brains (BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS /zombie).  Moreover, they need to be *quality* brains.  Just popping out a bunch of kids with no regards to good education will only work against that progress, as all those brains will do is destroy other brains that had the potential to move humanity one more step forward.  For me, that is the real tragedy of France.  My bias is France is a place of art and beauty, so while that alone might not be what finds out how to get around road blocks like the speed limit of light or all the very many things that will kill us out in space, it might just inspire the one guy/gal that does figure it out.  It is a cumulative game.

Both the problem and the good thing about brains is that they are quite malleable early on in development.  Folks like ISIS know this.  They were already damaged by this, but they had *just* enough logic left over to kidnap then brainwash new monsters that are an anti-thesis to the ultimate goal of life.  I hate to sound cliche’ but they really are a cancer to life, that if left unchecked, will retard any progress humanity has made towards that life goal.  More like a kind of brain cancer come to think of it, since they are a corruption of ideology rather than a more traditional nation-state ala WW2.  They need to be excised, but it’ll cause some damage one way or another.  Hopefully the net effect for life remains positive.

Scary times.

I had a crappy week last week in so far as my physical fitness goals are concerned. The 2 weeks prior to that were great, so it is a bit more upsetting knowing I’ve likely ruined the progress I had made. It’s my own fault really. I have to be stronger. I can’t let being social be the excuse to eat and drink what I know is wrong. I can’t let being nice (or wanting to avoid conflict…that is what got me here in the first place) be an excuse either. I can’t allow that sort of behavior around me either, which will probably lead to conflict…but if I am the sum of the people I spend the most time around then it is imperative that I surpress that behavior whenever possible. It won’t make me very popular I’m certain.

Standing in at the funeral this weekend I think may have been a bit of a catalyst. I’ve got at least one person that pretty much is relying on me right now. That makes it even more important to not be weak.

It may be a bit insane and hard to sustain but I have to make it happen. I did it before, granted I was more of a loner then. I’ll do it again and hopefully raise up those around me. That or they better find a lifeboat of their own. The plan is put in at minimum 30 minutes (up to 60) everyday. Regardless of what I have happening that day, especially social things, it has to happen. I have a collection of short and long workouts I can do, so nothing should stop me. Even if I find myself super sore at some point, I still have to go through it. The only change will be the intensity level. As it turns out, based on my reading, doing a light workout is perhaps even more important when my body feels destroyed. The increased blood flow will actually help with recovery.

Rant over.

Sorry about breaking through the other series stuff.  Work got busy and I just could not stay focused long enough.  So that isn’t going to happen, which is fine.

Today’s thought train is all about my biometrics results.  Overall not horrible but I was not happy with my HDL numbers.  My TG numbers were still good but higher than before (last time it was in the 40s, which is unreal low and I was kinda stoked by it).  I know that with the ren faire and traveling as of late that probably had a negative impact.  Also with daylight being much shorter now I haven’t been doing those 4 mile runs I was doing before my August tests, so I’m pretty sure that is a significant variable.

So what I need to do, and I’ve said this before and failed to follow through, is do those morning runs.  That also means I won’t get coffee until after the run (maybe I can use the caffeine addiction in a positive way this time?).  Typically those runs take me about an hour (usually a little more).

To make this happen, I need several things.

1. An iron will.
2. Get up earlier, maybe 5:45 AM (Yeah I know).
3. Make sure I have my running clothes somewhere ready to throw on (Gotta play the part!).
4. An audio book ready (I need to bring that back, worked well the year I lost 80 lbs)
5. Drink a small cup of water
6. Get out the door by 6:15 AM
7. Throw in those sprint intervals
8. Get home, stretch
9. Shower (need to put stuff in 2nd bathroom in case primary is in use)
10. Coffee, water, food

All the definitions!

The endocrine system explanation was pretty good.  On the pituitary gland, I find that Oxycontin being released from its rather core location in the brain rather interesting from I guess a poetic standpoint.  It sort of suggests this whole love thing is a rather core part of humans.  Pretty in a way.

The scare thing still got me the 2nd time damnit lol.