Hungover… Thanks to NOT Drinking

Here’s something I’ve learned about karate class:  If I don’t hydrate myself that day, the next morning is going to suck.

On Monday I spent the day drinking lots of water, then went to sparring class, sweat my ass off and felt great the next day.  (I also felt great about the class itself, some things, especially defensively, are starting to feel a little more natural…)

On Wednesday, I was lazy, drank a Diet Pepsi at lunch (instead of my normal vitamin water) and then spent my class feeling tight and gassed.  Now Thursday morning, ugh.  It really feels like a hangover.   My head is hazy, my muscles ache… Bleh.

Back to the Grind

We spent a long weekend in the Twin Cities, during which time I did absolutely no exercising of any kind.  None, nada, zilch.  I think it’s the first time this calendar year I’ve gone four days without doing anything.

And honestly it felt pretty good.  Some persistent muscle aches melted away and I felt great returning to sparring last night.

Unlike last week, I was back to working with a black belt (Ms. Wiora again with some help from Ms. Pacis) and did some drills with a fellow green belt, Mike.  I still feel pretty lost when it comes to sparring, just feel like I’m flailing around a lot without much focus.

So I think I have to find some things to focus on and get comfortable step-by-step, starting with shoring up my defense.  I let my top hand drop too much, leaving my head open, which is a real problem when you’re sparring against someone like Mike who is noticeably taller.

The Good, the Bad and the Ouch

Okay, some good fitness news first.  I’m now down about 11 pounds since January 1, 2010.  A combination of morning workouts, biking, running and of course, karate… as well as some attempts to eat a little healthier (I think I’ve just come to grips with the fact that I’m never going to completely give up certain foods, but I am trying to make better food decisions as they come.)

I’m probably in the best shape I’ve been in in awhile although I still have a lot of work to do cardio-wise, an offshoot of less morning workouts in lieu of karate.

Oh, speaking of karate.

So a few weeks ago I had my first sparring class, which was really just a one-on-one session with Mr. Van Cuyk and Ms. Wiora working on various sparring techniques, basic stuff.   After that class, I went on vacation then there was no sparring class due to the 4th of July weekend, so last night was my first sparring class since that initial one.

When the class started I realized I was the only green belt there.  I also realized that Mr. Rosas and Mr. Mazzola seemed to be the only instructors there.  In other words, there didn’t appear to be anyone for me to work with.   I had just assumed I would have at least one more class of “sparring basics” before getting thrown into the fray.

I assumed wrong. 

After warming up and stretching, we chose partners and off we went.  Two minute free-sparring sessions, followed by two minute breaks, followed by another free-sparring session, etc…

So there I am standing there, facing one of my classmates (a purple belt, one level above me) and thinking “I have absolutely no f–cking clue what I’m doing here.”

And I didn’t.

But, for the most part, that first two minute session wasn’t that bad.  I bounced and moved, tried to counter, tried to block.  When the two minutes finished two things struck me:

1. That is a lot harder to do than I thought
2. I have no idea what I’m doing

It took a good 30 seconds to catch my breath when it was over… but after that I recovered quickly and actually felt pretty good about my first attempt at sparring.

But my next session took whatever confidence I had and blew it up.  I sparred again with a purple belt but this guy was lightning quick and had a little more intensity than the first guy.  He rang my bell several times with hard rights and also seemed to score at will with hooks to my body.  The only good part of that session was a hook kick that I scored with that elicited a “nice!  Good!” from my opponent (who may have been humoring me a bit at this point.)

To his credit, afterward he helped walk me through what I was doing wrong defensively… you know, after I caught my breath from the asskicking I took.  He reiterated a lot of what I had learned with Mr. Van Cuyk three weeks ago (and apparently had subsequently completely forgot) and it was a good refresher course on my stance and blocking.

So… another session with a purple belt, felt much better, especially defensively.  And then things got a little scary.

As part of the drill, everytime we went out we were supposed to choose a new partner to spar with.  Well, as I mentioned I was the only green belt there.  And I had now sparred with the three purple belts.  And… there were no blue belts there.  Um, and there were no red belts either.  Oh oh.

So my next partner was one of the black belts.  “You need a partner?” he asked.

“Please don’t kill me,” I responded.  (Okay, I actually said “Sure, if you don’t mind”, but I hope my tone said the don’t-kill-me part)

I really didn’t have much of a shot against this guy at all.  So quick and so controlled.  I’m fairly certain any scoring I may have done was out of the goodness of his heart.  And then about midway through I felt for the first time how badly someone could punish me for being lazy with my defense. 

I was bouncing and bobbing a bit in and out… I threw a half-assed punch and let my right hand (guarding my midsection) fall.  The next thing I knew his foot was crashing into my stomach, a perfectly executed sidekick that took the breath right out of me.  I have absolutely no idea how badly it would’ve hurt if I didn’t have sparring gear on… but given that I needed a few seconds to regain my breath as it was, I don’t like to think about it.

“You okay?” he nodded, still bouncing from side to side.

“adkladj;fka;;dj;ajsdj;aaaaaaaaaaa” I responded, nodding my head.

Anyway, the rest of the class was relatively uneventful.  I sparred a bit with Mr. Rosas who is an awesome teacher and helped me get focused a bit on the basics… and then one of the brown belts who took it easy on me.

At the end of class, I was absolutely drenched.  You know how sometimes you get done running in the heat and the top of your shirt will be dark from sweat?  My entire shirt looked that way.  It was like it had been dyed dark gray. 

But it felt great.  I think I learned a lot last night.  One of the purple belts, who is only a month or two ahead of me told me the difference between his first sparring class and now was like night and day.  I hope that’s true.  As much as I enjoyed it, getting your ass kicked for an hour straight can be a little humbling 😉

Going Green

Time to catch up on the karate front!  (and hopefully rededicate myself to keeping up here!)

This past Saturday I took my first belt test in order to gain my green belt!  It’s a pretty big milestone because you can begin sparring.

I go through kickboxing at the Green Belt test

I felt mostly comfortable during the test, even volunteering to hold papers and shields for black belt Lonnie Van Cuyk during his test.  My marching basics were a bit of a mess, but otherwise things went well.

Now of course, just when I started to feel comfortable, everything gets turned on its head.  My first sparring class was Monday night and it’s very much one of those “You know all of the stuff you’ve learned so far?  Yeah, forget it…” moments. 

While the rest of the class was ongoing, Glenn (a fellow newbie green belt) and I spent the class with Mr. Van Cuyk and Ms. Wiora learning some basic things like blitzing, defensive sidekicks (which is one of those things where we had to ‘unlearn’ our sidekick technique) and a defense/counter I’ve slugged the “triangle defense.”   It’s a very humbling experience to realize how much you have to learn… and how even once you’ve learned it, it has to become second nature.  

Finally, late last night, my back kind of seized up on me.  Very muscular… and I’m not sure at all what caused it.  I”ve wracked my brain and can’t come up with anything I did at sparring that would’ve stressed my back to this degree.  I’m hoping a steady diet of advil will get it down enough to go to class Wednesday!

Finally Doubled Up

On Thursday nights, there’s a kick boxing class that immediately follows my regular karate class.  I’ve always been interested in “doubling up” and doing both, but, you know, Survivor on Thursday nights and all.

So last night I finally got a chance to do it and it was great.  Loved it.  Exhausting but great work out and very social, I got to meet a lot of people I’ve been seeing over the past couple of years. 

There’s also an 8:00am kickboxing class on Saturday mornings that maybe I’ll start doing once soccer is over!

Losing a Little Weakness

Mr. Mazzola (National Karate Instructor) is fond of saying “Pain is just weakness leaving the body!”

He’s mostly fond of saying that as he’s punishing us with figure eights or some other torturous drill.

Well after three straight nights of karate, I still have a bit of “weakness leaving my body” this a.m. but I must say, I’m not in as much pain as I thought I would be.

Yesterday right before class I scooped Zalen up and felt a muscle in my chest go “Uh, no, don’t do that…” so I went to karate a little fearful that I might be limited.   I was early on, I couldn’t really snap punches off and push-ups were ~impossible but as the class went on it actually got better.  I still felt it but it got looser and I finished up doing push-ups when I was supposed to be.

Today, I’m sore, but good sore (I expected a bit of bad sore) so I’m excited that the muscles I’m using in karate (which quite frankly I wasn’t using so much pre-karate) are coming around.

Well now, that was different…

Okay then.

Wednesday night I attended my first gold/green belt class (as opposed to the beginner class I take on Tuesdays/Thursdays w/white/gold belts) and that’s a whole new ballgame.

Mr. Rosas instructed the class and that almost always means a much more technique-based class and this was no different.  He also throws some interesting outside-the-routine stuff that keeps you on your toes… and tonight we did some stretching and warm-ups I’ve never done before.

But probably the most jarring experience was partnering up with Jimmy, a power-house of a green belt who damn near knocked me back into the mirror during jab-punch drills.  I’m used to working with guys significantly older or significantly younger than me (that’s just who my classmates are in the beginner class) so it was seriously different to hold pads for someone who can flat out bring it.

But it was fun to be there… it felt nice to be with group of people my age who were having fun.

Pure Gold

Okay, a quick karate update… I earned my gold belt a couple of weeks ago, which opens up a wednesday class for me (which I plan to attend for the first time tonight) and really makes me feel more like an official member of the program.  From here on out I actually have to test for each new belt and the progression will be much slower (Mr. Mazzola told me he basically thought of me as a gold belt the first class I attended) so I look forward to the challenge.

(I really need to get pictures posted)

As for the rest of the family, Sidra and Zalen both won their sparring tournaments over the weekend… hilarious video of Zalen winning his 1st place match in 27 seconds total, I’ll try and get that posted.  Sidra added first places in form and self-defense for a rare triple.

Stepping Up my Game?

I’m kind of starting over with my poker game, playing for fun a bit at the microlevels.  I just don’t feel like I’ve had “fun” playing poker in ages… so let’s get that back first.  So let’s see…

Full Tilt has finally added “Step tournaments”which I love… it was really the only thing about PokerStars that I really liked.  Basically they’re SnGs/MTTs in which you try and step up higher and higher in buy-in. 

They actually start with “Step 0” mtts… 99-runner $1 MTTs, top 30 players get Step 1 tickets

The first one I played, I didn’t get dealt anything the entire time, didn’t win a single hand… and finished 37th.

The next one, doubled up once w/QQ and cruised into a ticket. Basically, if you can double once, you’re probably good… if you win two hands, you’re in for sure.

Yesterday played three of them and couldn’t get to the top half in any one of them:

QQ < A7
AK < AQ
A10 < K10

Ugh.  Nevertheless, I’ve got a couple of Step 1 tickets already and I’m going to hoard more while continuing to play the Step 1 SnGs… let’s see what we can do here.

Meanwhile I’m also playing a bunch of 10PLO cash in April during my drive for the one-a-day ironman freeroll in early May.  Actually had a 4-buy-in in 98 hands rush the other day which was fun… pretty funny graph:

"RUSH" poker indeed!

Yea Pokerz for fun!

Finally, I’m jumping into a stake for 67 buddy Michael Madden (a.k.a. Parsifals) who is cashing out his account to pay for his upcoming bar exam.  Dude is a pretty consistent cash grinder and the stake is probably the difference between him continuing to play and not playing so it was kind of a no-brainer.  Low-risk/low reward probably.  Good luck Pars!

Concentrating on Form

Thursday night’s karate class was very form based.  Ms. Pacsis and Mr. Rosas taught the majority of the class, which included sidekick vertical figure eights (I think they’re slightly easier than horizontal figure eights… slightly) and then some form-stressing punches and kicks. 

I really enjoy that because I think the most important part of these beginner classes are figuring out how to do things correctly… speed and power will come later as execution becomes second nature.

Then, of course, Mr. Mazzola finished off the class with jab-punch-hook-h0ok-uppercut-uppercut-knee-knee-kick-kick-pushup-pushup-jjack-jjack drills.  Fun.

Oh and apparently Sky asked Mr. Mazzola about me being on the “accelerated program.”  Ha!