Thursday 29 July 2010

Thursday

Getting back into it, slow but sure.  Just spoke to James who is up at ridiculous o'clock because of the heavy rain.  Poor guy.

Anyway...

Wednesday did the following:

Mobility warm up + stretching
Pull ups: 6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 4 = 30
Up/Downs: 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5
Footwork between sets

Deadlift: 60k x 10, 90k x 8, 110k x 5, 130k x 6

Lying Pull up 6

Bicep: 20k M-bar x 30, 15, 9
10 sec iso hold then 21, 9, 6,then 15 sec iso hold

Thursday:
5.77miles Cassio Park run in 1.02

Evening was stick work, sai work and kicking practice.  Seem to be getting the hang of the power generation in the sai kata, only my right knee started to act up weirdly.  Good session working through strikes and playing with kicking footwork.

What else, what else...

Well, blog wise I'm slowed all down, clearly. But all those little updates I was going to do for my historic investigation will happen in Ireland.  And I'll get back into things there, as there'll be nothing else to do :P

Wednesday 28 July 2010

Back in the groove

Hey gang,
sorry about the hiatus.  Been drunk in Spain and Portugal.  Hell of a holiday and an event, fitted some training in, but not a great deal, probably good to let my body rest a little bit, although I have managed to catch some kind of cold thing, probably from the bloody air-con.  Anyway, got back and did some training, here's the list:

Monday:
Shadow boxing warm up
Stretch
Up/Downs - 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 = 30
Pull ups -  4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 3 = 25

Press ups - 25, 10, 10, 12
Bench - 50k x 10 e, 50k x 8 s, 60k x 8 e, 60k x 8 s, 70k x 5 e, 70k x 5 s

Tuesday:
Jujitsu in morning for 1.5 hours

Evening was going to be jujitsu again, but RL got in the way so went for a run, did 2 miles, got back and stretched out.  Kept on the balls of my feet for the whole run, which is good.  Feeling it in my body a bit today, calves and shoulders.  I'm back to sleeping on a bed and that niggly nerve thing is back.  Damn.  Going to grab some food now and then lift some weights.  Tomorrow will be a run day.

Tuesday 13 July 2010

Transit

I'm currently sitting at a terminal in Narita airport. 

It's cold.

Well, I say it's cold here, I'm wearing my Gant cardy because it feels cold to me, now that I'm all aclimatised to Okinawa.  Looking at the thermometer, it's 22 degrees.  Humm. 

Anyway, yesterday, for my last day, I did the unthinkable and visited a cos-play restaurant!  I know, I know.  Terrible.  But it had to be done.  They sang at me and kept calling me, James and Steve "lord and master". 

And they drew little happy sayings on the food and giggled repeatedly in their costumes.  When I get time, I'll upload the pictures I took (I had to use my iphone as there was a no photo rule in the cafe).  As a side note, I learnt that it is against the law for any digital camera in Japan (including phone cameras) to not make a camera noise!  There's a reason for it...

Anyway, must dash. 

Catch you in the UK. 

Sunday 11 July 2010

Coming to the end of the road

So last night I sat my Karate brown belt grading.  Matabashi Ryu has green belt, brown belt I, brown belt II, then black belt.  Normally you need to wait 6 months between gradings, but Arakaki Sensei bent the rules for me somewhat and, well, I sat the brown belt grading a little early.

As ever there were mark sheets and everyone explained their opinion and gave helpful comments.  I do like this system, having been in gradings where the system was unclear to say the least, this system is designed to show you who thinks what and why.  I even got to keep the mark sheets!

I passed, by the way, and we celebrated with a meal in Sensei's house.  We drank, ate, chatted and generally had fun.

This morning was up early and out the door for beach training time.  James had a selection of bodyweight exercises for us to do in the warm, warm sun and we went at them.

10 exercises, some I'd seen before like sit ups where you wrap your legs around your partner or partner push ups, others were new to me.  It was a hell of a core work out, tricky too as you were generally moving another person around.  Good exercises for grapplers.  Invigorating in a strange way.  Warm up was the standard 1500m with 30 clapping push ups and 30 burpees (I only managed 15 as I am literally half the speed of everyone else)

Afterwards we went into the sea and floated around for a bit; there were some waves in the distance so the life guards had the safety markers in super close and were being all militant.  James was told off for having a snorkel with him for Angelina!  But there you go.

We got back, go the house ready for the BBQ and generally pottered around.  I packed my bags, struggling slightly, but managing in the end.  I'll be over weight for my journey from Okinawa, but there you go.

I then got it into my head to do another work out, as I still had some gas in the tank and I probably wouldn't get another chance before flying out, so..

Upside downers: 7, 5, 4
That's this, by the way:



Slosh pipe squats: 20 front, 20 back, 20 front bicep hold, 20 back (pipe not put down)
Pull ups: 5, 5, 5
Push ups: 25, 10, 10, 10
Bench press: 45k x 8 (explo), 45k x 6 (slow), 45k x 8 (explo), 45k x 5 (slow)
Clean and shoulder press: 45k x 3, 45k x 3
Bent over rows: 45k x 10, 55k x 10, 55k x 10, 70k x 5
Bicep: 30k x 8
Pull ups: 5
Push ups: 20
(that's over a hundred push ups today!)

Then it was BBQ time!  We had so much meat and so much alcohol.  And we had UFC on down load, coupled with sun and a great breeze.  Why can't every day be BBQ day?  So good, so very, very good.  A good send off complete with the final closing hours spent on campchairs out on the decking sipping beer and chilling.  Good, good times.  Rodney did well with his steaks, Cody produced his epic chicken wings (secret recipe) and Mike made fajitas.  I just ate.

Loads of food it left over, so it'll be steak for a few days yet :)

Right, that's it.  Tomorrow is my last Monday and then Tuesday I depart and... and who knows?  I wonder how this blog will end up.  I want to keep it alive and ticking, although with no where near as many posts as currently.  It's kind of sad, when you trawl the internet and you find those un-updated blogs and you think, "what happened to this person? Why did they stop?"  Sometimes life gets in the way, I guess, or circumstances change, or they change or who knows.

Anyway, this blog will not die.  Dunno what it'll become, but we'll see.

Over and out.

Friday 9 July 2010

Discussions with masters and general shenanigans

Sitting here with the fan on, looking out over the view and drinking tea.

Yesterday was a good day:

Got up, went to Kobudo and sweated going through the kata and working on my power generation.  The kata is now fully in my head and the power generation is getting there.  A lot of it is to do with sinking into the stance and transitioning correctly, as the power comes from the transition.  Sensei Yogi also showed me a kata from his style of karate, Uechi-ryu; the kata was literally a series of grabs and punches/elbows/kicks.   Very straight forward, very effective looking techniques.

From there it was a trip into town to buy lots of tea and then return for shower and nap!

The night was... fairly interesting.  The original plan was to go to Kadena, buy meat for the BBQ, then hit an all you can eat place, then hit Gate 2 Street.  By the time we actually got to Kadena, though, the commissary was closed, so James, Shun and Rodney had a look around the BX.  Rodney could only sign in 2 people so I elected to wander the book store at the bottom of the mall.

You can tell a lot about a place by it's book store and a lot of the books were geared towards middle aged women who were looking for vampire adventure and romance (seriously, lots of vampire romance books, lots of romance books and general escapism).  A bit of sci fi, a strangely organised fiction section, a fair bit of military history stuff and a small political section that had the typical American extremes of the political spectrum, although there was one centrist book.

From there we headed out to an all you can eat place and ate lots.  I could have kept eating but the night was wearing on so we headed on out.  Alas, Paddy Mack's was closed so we ended up in a karaoke bar and, once 12am came round, all the military guys cleared out and we were left to ourselves.  This involved general drinking and merriment with the bar staff and the bouncer and a round on the house.  I was trying to stick purely to whiskey, which was making me mellow, but Rodney went and brought some God awful mixture bucket thing which was.... urgh.  I drank a lot of it though and it did not agree with me.

This morning I didn't feel too bad, but was still a bit drunk and managed to help James and his neighbour to clear away a large chunk of jungle from the land James wants to use for growing bananas.

I may work out later, but tonight is my next Karate grading!  Eeep!

Thursday 8 July 2010

210kg!

So, woke up this morning sore and stiff, last night having hit hard and my body feeling it today.  That and the cutting down trees and pulling stumps out of the ground bit.

Anyway, got myself all set to head off to lift weights and... and no house keys.  I'd left them locked in James' car. Doh!  He did have a spare key, however, so I managed to get my house keys out and then head on down to the Budokan.

Cycled, as Betsy is totally dead now and will not start.  Cycled in high gear all the way and felt easy, which is good.

Got there to be confronted by some sort of organised tour or something.  Dunno what they were there for, but they had booklets and diagrams and all sorts.  The nice weight lifter girl who normally serves me looked all nervous.

So, there I was having dragged my tired body to the gym and I could feel that I wasn't feeling it.  But what the hell, huh?  I had intended to hit the deadlift hard and try and break through my earlier 205k.

Did 15 minutes of stretching, covering the floor of the stretching area in sweat.

Then did the benchmark:

20 Push ups (told you I was tired), 6 Pull ups, Chin ups 4, HLR Failed (Yesterday hit that hard), Dips 6.

So, dismal numbers, and still I was in a "hell with this, I'm going for it" type of mood.

Deadlift: 70k x 5, 100k x 5, 120k x 3, 150k x 1, 170k x 1 (belt on), 180k x 1, 190k x 1, 200k x 1, 210k x MISS, 210k x 1!

Totally exhausted, though, with the 210k being a hard lift.  If I'd been less tired, maybe I could have hit 215, maybe 220.  But, still, 210 is good.  30k higher than anything I'd lifted back in the UK.

I then finished off with biceps: 20k x 20 full reps, 10 half reps, 5 full reps.

I was dead and that bike ride home was sloooow.

Shower, nap, food and more food and then Karate.  More informal Bunkai, which is interesting.  Also, my sensei is becoming the Deputy Director of the Okinawan Karate Organisation, which is pretty cool.

Right, sleep is calling.  More adventures tomorrow!

Wednesday 7 July 2010

Wednesday

Up early, ran with Shun.  Then did reps on the rings: chin up, then bring body up and legs above head.  Hard to describe, I'll get a photo.
Did 6, 3, 3

Then 100 combos on the pads each.

Sort of chilled today, did some writing and helped James in the garden.  Chainsawed down trees and pulled one out of the ground.  Hard, hot work.

Training we played with hammer fist blocks, the half shoulder (how it should be done), sparring and movement.  Lots of getting off centre and destroying the opponent's equilibrium. Fun stuff.

Tomorrow: Dead lifting!

Tuesday 6 July 2010

Random coincidences

Weird one today.

Got up, little stiff from yesterday, and the plan was to meet with Rodney and head on over to Kokusai dori for some souvenir shopping; he rings up sick, however.  Okay, fine.  I ring Mike to confirm for Friday night's big bash and he tells me about these summer kimonos for sale in San-A (which is sort of like Tesco's).  Okay, I think, sounds good, will check that when I get back from Kokusai Dori.  So I get myself ready, after doing my usual dilly-dallying and get on ol' Betsy and-

-and chuga-chuga-chuk!  No start!

Arrgh.

Okay, fine, no worries.  I'll just go to San-A down the way, pick up some sake and maybe have a look for a kimono.  So off I trot, walking.

I get there, I buy a can of coffee, I drink it slow and wander.  I go to the top floor to look for a kimono, but there's none so I decide to head on down to the food court.  And at the point I see two Americans looking lost with a map out trying to get directions from the Japanese shop assistants who speak no English.  The man (they're a middle aged couple) asks me if I speak English and I end up finding out that they want to go to a pottery museum off Kokusai Dori.

Now, Kokusai Dori is a fair way from the San-A and a bitch for directions though Tomishiro's winding streets.  They'd been staying up in the middle of Okinawa visiting their son on base and had come down for a day trip, taking the motor way down, getting lost and pulling off and asking for directions in a place that looked like people maybe spoke English.

So, randomly, through a series of coincidences and chance occurrences, there I was in the right place at the right time.  The map they had was useless so I said that I'd ride with them and off we went.

I ended up hanging with them for an hour and a half after I'd gotten them to Kokusai Dori, they bought me lunch as a thank you and I showed them some of the sights.  They were impressed that I knew my way round and could get by in Japanese.  I guess I have picked up some of the damn stuff.

It was...

It was a good experience.  It felt like closing the circle, if you know what I mean?  I showed them stuff that I'd been shown when I first got here.  I helped them like I'd been helped.  It felt good and, I dunno, has made me feel better about going.

S' funny how things work out?  You'd almost think there was a plan to it all or something.

Anyway, I spent the next 5 hours wandering up and down Kokusai Dori and the streets around it, exploring and getting into things.  I found a sort of funky mall for hip young things (Hisano later told me that she hung out there all the time when she was younger); I had a massage (super cheap and good); I played in arcades; I checked out pachinko (still no idea what to do); I bought things for people in the UK and I generally trundled along looking at stuff and taking pictures, being touristy and thinking about my time here.

I then walked home.  So all in all I had about 6 and a 1/2 hours walking, save a massage and a sit down to play Street Fighter 4.  My legs were stiff by the time I got back home and ate curry.  Mmm, curry.

Went to Karate tonight and did kata practice.  My Nihanshi Shodan is getting fairly okay and I'm finding it easier to generate power in the karate way.  Sensei also showed us two more informal bunkai, which looked short, brutal and effective, as opposed to the formal bunkai that we do for gradings.  It's an interesting thing, the formal bunkai, they are just a watered down dance, clearly created when the Japanese took Karate, took out all the nasty bits and put it into their school system as a callisthenics exercise programme.  The informal bunkai is clearly all the nasty secret stuff the Okinawans held close to their hearts.

Anyway, bed is calling so night night.

Monday 5 July 2010

Great training!

So today I went to register my alien status at the Tomishiro City Office.  It was, I have to say, like stepping into Terry Gilliam's Brazil; desk after desk after desk of bureaucrats, all lined up and waiting to drain your soul.

James was with me and he had to sort some things out to do with his family's stay and he got the worst of it.  I was lucky finding myself with two young bureaucrats who "bent the rules" for me and told me that I didn't need to register as I only had 9 days left.  Not what they'd said at the Immigration Office, but there you go.  Bit of a shame though as I would have liked the card.

Hot day today, went for a run about 2ish in 34 degree heat.  Did 2 miles including Widow Maker I and III and then did 50 burpees, which are getting easier and easier.  When I was training for my Shodan Ho, 50 burpees wasn't that big a thing and it's getting back to that now.  So hot though, I got in the shower right afterwards and ended up sticking it on it's coldest setting.  Still too hot.

Spent 2 hours training in the Budokan with James.  Me and him for an hour and a half with Shun for the last half hour.  Agi sensei also dropped in for a chat.  It was hot in there, up into 36 degrees maybe, and muggy, and so many other people training.  Me and James soaked through our gis and then soaked the floor too.

We worked on throwing, but throwing from a different type of block: real close in, swamping the attacker from inside their guard.  Works very well for hip throw, body drop, shoulder throw, major outer reap and rice bale.  Doesn't work at all for half shoulder, but then half shoulder is in fact a Catch wrestling throw that was brought into the WJJF syllabus; it shouldn't be done from a block to a punch, it should be done from a clinch.  Me and James learnt a lot tonight experimenting with ranges and blocking.  Great session but boy did we sweat!

Sunday 4 July 2010

Tired with sore knuckles

I'm real tried and my knuckles hurt.  Am literally staying awake purely to post this and then go to bed.

My knuckles hurt as last night I spent half an hour on the heavy bag, working: one, twos; one, two, hook; snap kick into elbow; power slaps; knees; one, two, hook, hook; and other combinations that I can't remember.  Wearing MMA gloves and they are now fully worn in, though in the process of which I've taken the skin of a few knuckles.  Ah well.

Today we got up early and headed down to the beach.  Idea was simple: do the 300 work out, then follow it with the Bear.  Man, what were we thinking?

Warm up was 1500m jog interspersed with 20 clapping push ups and 15 twisting push ups.
Did the 300 work out in 10:46, which is fast.
James did 11:02, Shun and Cody managed 11:22.
We forgot the bands so did partner rows.  We didn't have bars for the raises so did leg out dips.

Then the Bear with 30kg.
First set was 7 reps, then some silly mug (me) said, "7 reps is too easy, let's do 10."
Urrgh.
Times:
 
JP        00:59:91, 01:37:33, 01:04:05, 00:58:56
EMF    00:40:14, 01:16:38, 01:03:50, 00:55.77
CMC   01:08:55, 01:39:33, 02:33:95, N/A
OS       01:08:45, 02:03:58, 02:14:91, N/A

Then me and James repped out with a further un timed set.  He did 7 reps, I managed 8.

Then home, shower, prepare food and off to Odo beach for BBQ fun!

Great day, Rodney and his family came down, Shun and his friends and Shun's daughter.  Even some of Rodney's wife's friends turned up.

We ate, we drank, we ate and we snorkelled.  Great, great day.

Tried to get some colour on my pasty torso to match my tanned arms and legs.  Sort of had some vague success.

Sad though, probably be the last time I snorkel on the island, which is sad.  I know my adventure has to end and all, but it still hurts me.  Had so much fun out here, learnt so much from the culture, hell, learnt a lot about myself too.  Sad it's got to come to an end.  But, hey, you gotta' grow up some time, huh?

Anyway, sleep is calling me.  Going to sleep well tonight.

Friday 2 July 2010

What have I been doing?

Okay, so Friday was meant to be a day of fishing.  It didn't happen though; the rain came in hard from Thursday mid morning and then became a brutal lightening storm that last from about 9pm through to 8am the next day.

I woke up at 2 to get ready to go fishing, noting the lightening, then fell asleep till Rodney woke me at 3 to say he was here.  I got myself together and we headed over to the port, noting the rain and the lightening flash every two minutes or so.  Getting to the port we found no one around and rang the guy who informed us that he'd had to cancel the trip because of the lightening and the fact that the storm's main body was now directly over the place we were going to fish.

Annoying, but we headed back and I went to sleep and woke up totally grouchy and cranky.  Spent the day monging before eventually dragging myself outside for a work out:

Stretch + Shadow boxing
White belt phys (10 press ups, 10 sit ups, 10 leg raises, 10 burpess*)
Pull ups: 6, 6, 5, 4, 4, 3
Yellow belt phys (15 press ups, 15 sit ups, 15 leg raises, 15 burpees*)
Hanging leg raises: 6, 6, 4
Press ups: 20, 10, 10, 10
Bench: 40k x 10 (explosive), 40k x 6 (slow), 50k x 8 (explosive), 50k x 5 (slow)
High cleans from ground 50k x 1, 1, 1
Maki Wara
*Burpees was Ross Burpees, so down, press up, jump up

Then Rodney came round with Cody at 4pm and we headed off to America!  Or Camp Kadena.  Maaaaan was it busy: 4th of July weekend and everyone was shopping for stuff to eat and use.  I picked up some ridiculously cheap Nike training stuff for myself, Cody picked up a car stereo and Rodney bought a BBQ.  This is all at the BX, which is that sort of mall/department store monster.  The one on Kadena is the biggest in the Pacific, and damn it is big, bigger than Tescos Extra in Watford. I also learnt that only Air-force bases have BX's; army and Navy bases have PX's, or Post Exchanges, on account of how they have posts, not bases.  Although I thought that the Navy had bases, but I guess I was wrong.

Then it was off to the commissary to buy meat, fight it out with Americans looking to buy food and generally wonder at all the fat people.

From there we headed back to Tomishiro, dropped our stuff off and headed off to this place:



Yeah, Beer'z. Belongs to a guy called Beer, I guess.

Anyway, it's a sports bar, or was a sports bar when Rodney was last there 5 years ago, now it's more musicy isikia, one of those all you can eat and drink places.  Good food and good selection of alcohol.  Now, and here's the thing, for 3000 Yen (about £25), you can eat as much as you want and drink as much as you want for 3 hours.  Rodney wondered if we would actually eat as much food as the money would pay for, to which I laughed.  I also learnt that the all you can drink menu included whiskey and in that menu was Johnny Walker Black.  Mmmm.  8 glasses later and I'd had my money's worth.

Food wise we had sashimi, including sashimi beef, steak, shrimp, deep fried cheese, steak, chicken, steak, more deep fried cheese, octopus, salmon, steak and steak.



Now, you may be wondering why I mentioned all the steak, well, get this, we ate ALL their steak.  All of it.  In our bellies.  All of it.  They just didn't see us coming.  Well, me coming with my two eating amateurs, but we all made a very valiant attempt at bankrupting the place.

Woke up this morning feeling proud of myself and went for a run.  Did about a mile and a half, all hills and then got back and did 50 burpees.  A lot easier than the last time I've done 50 burpees, so that's good.  It is a hot, hot day now, so I reckon I'll take a nap before exercising again.

Thursday 1 July 2010

Revelations and camping

So...

So I started writing this in my head yesterday.  Camping was great, had loads of fun and did some amazing things but... but before I get into that there's something else.

See, Japan is a country that has a lot of it's stuff together.  I mean that: low crime rate, long life expectancy, successful schooling, a general middle class feel to the place.

And then there's things where I think: Damn, Japan is way more messed up than the UK.  I saw it yesterday.

But first, some background information.

Now, everyone's heard of the military-industrial-complex, the fact that in America there's so much money to be made from war and such close links between the government and the companies that make weapons that, hell, there's got to be a conspiracy, right?  Well, I don't believe in the conspiracy, but I do believe that people will look after themselves first and than can lead them to making some pretty bad decisions that have global impacts, but that's another story.

Japan doesn't have a military-industrial-complex; it has an industrial-industrial-complex.  People in the UK moan about out budget debt, but that's nothing on Japan: Japan 's debt is 120 odd percent of its GDP a year; it used to be 150%, so it's gotten better, but the numbers can be hazy at times.  I don't even know when Japan last had a balanced budget.  Putting it in perspective, the UK owes 68% of it's GDP in debt, so we're ahead of Japan.  But the big money lenders out there view Japan as a serial borrower: Japan's always got money it always makes the minimum payments... let's keep giving them money!

Where's all the money go?  Well, Japan being the stable country that it is, it has a huge bureaucracy.  Massive, with the two biggest players being the Finance Ministry, who control what government departments get the money and the Construction Ministry, which builds stuff.  Now, every government department has got to spend all its money every year as that way it won't get less money next year, which is a sort of inflation which can cause a country to get badly into debt, just like Japan.  Lots of lots of departments (and there's loads of civil servants in Japan, and they all have pensions and great perks and it's a job for life) that are designed to spend money, and you've got to be successful at the spending money bit, or you're just not doing your job properly, are you?

Anyway, one of the main ways that Japan spends money is in building stuff.  Building stuff is great because it creates jobs, which means happy workers who pay tax and spend their money on things and vote for the correct ruling party in elections; so the Construction ministry is well engaged in spending money and they do love to spend it: bridges to nowhere, artificial islands, the whole works.

Just such a shame that their royally destroying their environment.  They love to cement in the sides of mountains, they love to cement in the seas.  They love to build stuff that just isn't needed.

When we were out walking yesterday we came across this place:



Nice, huh?  We thought so.  A little hotel/cafe thing by a beach.    Struck me as a little odd that the path down to the beach was so over grown.

And then we walked down to the beach and we saw it:



Yeah, devastation.  From the pictures in the brochure it was a hell of a nice beach too, but all gone.  What are they building?  Well, it's a fishing port. Even though there's at least two within 5 miles of this spot, the government's building another one, tearing up a beautiful beach in the process.

Criminal isn't the word.

And that poor girl running that hotel has just lost her unique selling point.  The beach itself is gone for a mile, getting turned into road out of the fishing port, there's a man made island that's been built for some reason too, with a  bridge across to it.  Dunno why.

This part we were walking on is a sort of a natural causeway that creates an inland sea, real beautiful and, further up on the other side of the cause way... more building works.  This is the side facing the inland sea, by the way.  And what are they making?  Flood defences.  Flood and tidal waves defences.

On an inland sea.

Let's not point out that those things already exist naturally, humm?

So depressing.

Hum, haven't actually spoken about the camping.  Just so pissed about the casual destruction of the environment, a destruction that a lot of people just ignore and which is bound up in the way the government runs the country.  Money has got to be spent, it's good to spend it on building stuff, so let's cut the top of a mountain and dump it in the sea!

So depressing.

Anyway, fishing tomorrow.