Andy's Blog

I don’t often leave my mobile on when I go to bed, but I’m glad I did.

I don’t often get calls at 3am, but I’m grateful for my friends insomnia and good sense to make that call.

I don’t often knock on strangers doors in the wee small hours of the morning, but desperation is a compelling motivator.

I don’t often drive around Northampton as the sun slowly starts to uncover its landmarks, but I couldn’t just sit and hope for the best.

I don’t often ask my sister to do something that I wouldn’t do, but somebody had to stay at home and  man the phones – even if it meant at times all she could do was sit and hope.

I don’t often cry, but all the fear, tension and tiredness couldn’t be contained as I saw you moving on the stretcher in the back of the ambulance.

I don’t think I’ve ever told, but life would be so much less without you.  Don’t do that again!

I’ve been away in sunnier climes these past three weeks, and that will be my standing excuse for the lack of any postings on this site recently – you may find that I’m able to make these excuses on an as-required basis throughout this blog; the only constant being my inability to get the wordsmithing juices flowing at a constant rate… that or a mind numbingly boring life!

…actually I fear it’s a combination of the two!

Anyhoo, beginning of a new week and my first senior karate class has just been completed and I’ve received my first black mark on my belt.  Of course ‘completed’ is a subjective term; survived is another one that could be used just as well.

Karate is something that you need to keep plugging away at every week, so even a small time away and you feel horribly uncoordinated. Arms, legs and various other appendages were waggled during the class, sometimes even when they were supposed to!

..oh and the black mark?  Just an indication of some progress in my karate – so a good thing!  Quite how I got it, given the unwieldy state of my moves yesterday, is somewhat beyond me; there’s a *lot* of things that need improving, kicks being chief among them.  I think I may need to impart some of my hard earned cash (‘hard earned’ also being another of those subjective terms) into purchasing one of those mechanical devices for improving ones flexibility.

Onwards and upwards as I keep saying… and outwards, possibly, as well.

Life, as the old 80′s song insists, is what you make it.. which is a somewhat sobering thought as I look out over a rain drenched Abington Park.

There are many things that both friends and family will quote at you, in wordishly wise ways, and sometimes with a zen-like look on their face and voice; but however much you shake a stick at it, and this is probably age related (another year, another candle to burn), sometimes you just need to drop back, find your own space, crank up the music that defines your here-and-now and…..

…and?  Well you’ll know what works for you, as for me, I am still mid “and…’ing”.

The large yellow glowing object, so very foreign to these shores, has made an appearance in the large blue expanse above our heads.  The birds are out, feathered variety I hasten to add, flowers are blooming and all around are more pale skinny legs than you could shake a proverbial stick at – yes, summer has arrived!  In an uncomfortably sticky way.

I like Summer, I really do, however anything above 18c and I really *REALLY* begin to suffer.  Unfortunately, for some of my colleagues, adding Karate to this “uncomfort” has the frankly undesirable effect of me producing copious amounts of sweat.

This past week has been full on with Karate; a Seminar weekend, teaching classes and attending senior training.  I think I may have lost twice my body weight in delicate perspiration.. or at least that’s what I tell myself.

Ah well, as a great philosopher once intoned, “The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the devils own satanic herd”… although he probably never had to wrestle with a fragrantly soaked 16oz heavyweight Gi whilst trying to air it.

..and it is this sweatiness that I shall use as an excuse for the black eye I received at the seminar, that or ninjas!  Lots and lots of Ninjas!  That’ll keep my students quiet and not asking why I didn’t “block” the offending punch.

I think this Summer is gonna be a long and steamy one from a karate perspective.  Which’ll be fun, especially at grading time – running around trying to catch wilting students before they face-plant the dojo floor.  I also have the slightly uncomfortable feeling that this coming July grading shares the same  space as one’s day of birth.

*sigh*… ok, time to go and practise my kicks (which are woeful at the moment) and think of some more excuses as to why I’ve gotten the shiner before my students asks any hard questions.

Oh, and a *HUGE* Big Up and best wishes to Libby, Darren, Jackie, Paul and Roy who are off to the Black Belt Grading on Sunday.. You’ll storm it guys!

Is there a difference between Insomnia and just not wanting to go to bed until the wee small hours of the morning?

It’s not that I *can’t* go to sleep, if I was to put head to pillow I would more than probably drop off pretty quickly.  It’s that I don’t feel like putting the head on the pillow in the first place!

I’ve been a ‘Night Owl’ my whole life, ever since the first time I was able to stay up late.  Of course the flip side to this is the morning after… As has been admitted to in previous posts, dragging my carcass from the horizontal to the vertical is nigh on impossible REGARDLESS of the actual numbers of hours slept.

Not sure if this is just a latent psychotic streak on my part or just some sad loner lifestyle.  There is something to be said for seeing the ‘virtual ship in the night’ when you notice others are also up; the sudden appearance of a facebook update and then silence afterwards, the ping of an email, the flickering of someone coming onto MSN (and then off again just as quickly).

More than anything tis just a time to reflect, chill out to some music, update a website, do some coding… and watch others wander darkly through the internet landscape.. See you all tonight?

Human powered flight is difficult enough as it is.  Trying to look dangerous and lethal at the same time only compounds that difficulty.  Combining both elements whilst two of your colleagues look on, sniggering and making tinkerbell-like-fluttering motions make the task nigh on impossible!

I think I may have talked myself into a slight corner with, and I’m not entirely sure how, the aforementioned ninja based human flight having an unholy alliance with a kilt.  I believe it may have coincided with a dare.. and very possibly a double-dare.

Time to think of something, sharpish!

..and for those of you wondering, this is how you take flight karate stylee;

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The problem with blogging, apart from the obvious lack of skills in the subtle art of stringing words into a semi-cohesive sentence, is… is… well this!  I know what I want to write about, I have a pithy title, a keyboard on which to make nice tapping noises with, favourite music playing in the background and a blank screen looking back at a blank mind.

I must have spent the best part of 4 hours+, with keyboard at the ready, looking at a conceptual “blank piece of paper” wondering how the hell I was going to start the brain splurge off.

Once the first sentence is down it’s pretty easy to follow up with the rest of the drivel.  However last nights post was sitting on my screen looking back at me sullenly with its nice new title, but conspicuously light in the word count.  A couple of cool pictures, yes… words, no.  How to statrt?

• Call me Ishmael…
• Eh bien, mon Prince…
• It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
• It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen…

Unfortunately all a little “un-unique” and not really suitable as an opener for the post I had in mind.

Ah well the post did finally manage to find its legs and limp onto the screen, in a fashion, although the hour of its final re-appearance (2.05am) did make trying to shift my carcass to work this morning somewhat harder than it usually is.

Oh how an arteeest is made to suffer for his art!

I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination.  Your imagination would have to be somewhat cosmic in its magnitude and more perverse than I would generally give you credit for; and yet me + morning would still not figure… I may want to talk to you about other things if the previous magnitude/perverseness *is* to be credited to you, but I wander somewhat from the main thrust of this little postette…

..I hate mornings!

So to have to swing my body up from the horizontal to something that faintly resembled the vertical at an hour that my brain hasn’t even begun to register in its 40 odd years of registering, means that something is afoot.

Karate tournament day!

Quite why I keep on going is not entirely clear to me.  I inevitably come back with a myriad of injuries; broken fingers, thumbs, toes and more bruises than an upset apple cart.  Add to that the shockingly quick exit from any bout that I stumble into, and get carried out from, and you begin to understand why friends and family all ask, what I hinted to at the beginning of this paragraph;

“Why do you keep going?  You’re rubbish!”

To be honest it’s probably because I am SO bad at this tournament malarkey that makes me want to keep on going back, that and because it is such a huge amount of fun!  We all need to stretch ourselves, to get that knot of fear in your stomach as you realise that your names just been called and you are now expected to either complete a complex sequence of moves in front of a room full of critical eyes OR be faced against someone whose trouser-holding-up-device is several shades darker than yours and has a somewhat alarming glint in their eye as they stare back at you!

Tongue suddenly dries up and attaches to the roof of the mouth, vision tunnels, orifices pucker up and you step into the ring…

That said, what made this tournament all the more exciting was the number of my students, both past and present, who were also attending.  To be able to see them take those first nervous steps and be there to cheer them on as they go through the exact same emotions *and* do better than I was able to do was way WAY more rewarding!  Not all of them got medals, and that didn’t matter, but a large amount of them did… and some of them even managed faux precious metals that I haven’t achieved as yet!

Proud much? Oh yeah!

..Of course, as the title kinda suggests, one thing does tend to follow the other.  Fortunately the “fall” was rather more literal than philosophical, and even more fortunate wasn’t captured on any photographic device for later evidence.  Team Kumite is a roller-coaster of a ride and doesn’t tend to allow you to blink let alone prepare yourself for the onslaught, and this particular team kumite was producing more injuries than the rest of the tournament put together!

I don’t think I have to dwell on my literal downfall;  suffice to say my opponents sweep was excellent, the crunching of my already broken toe was a nice touch, and the kick to the chest allows those colleagues who didn’t attend to ask; “how the f**k did you get a bruise THERE?!”… I think I’d feel cheated if I didn’t come away from these events without some form of injury that didn’t persist for at least a week… or four!

Oh, and of course I couldn’t let it slide that number one son managed to get his first medal too!  Proud parent and all that

Somewhat reminded of that scene from Blazing Saddles where Lilly Von Shtup is singing “I’m Tired”, not so much in the sense of being a “Goddess of Desire”, etc, but just the sheer sense of not being able to get the energy up to do anything of much use.

These past few weeks have been a manic blur of competing priorities, unrealistic expectations of what one person can achieve in a relatively short space of time, and this week just gone is something that just doesn’t want repeating.  Headless chicken mode is a thing of wonder and highly amusing… when it ain’t you that’s the nogginless avian!

Won’t go too much into detail, cos… well… I’m too tired to string the relevant words together properly, and in my case that level of in-eloquence isn’t pretty – suffice to say; kids, injuries and a little measure of work.  ’nuff said.

All of which is a rather round-about way of apologising for a lack of posts on my narcissistic little corner of the Internet.  I will try better, honest… just let me chug a few cans of Red Bull whilst chewing coffee beans and Zolpidem!

..Should make the next post an interesting one (at last)!

It doesn’t matter how many karate lessons you take, the grade of your belt, the years of practise, blood, sweat n tears invested, extracted and demanded by your Sensei.. or even the years of accumulated experience gained through 40 years of what life has thrown at you.  Nothing really quite prepares you for being attacked by a stationary pillar!

There was no attempted block, or retaliatory strike, as the aforementioned stationary pillar maliciously jumped out at me whilst I was looking elsewhere… the “KYAI” was also absent, although it was replaced with a kind of muffled “Gnnfff!” noise.

I now have a slightly sore head, a bruised arse (whence I landed), a cheezy look on my face and I’m thinking about taking my pride to A&E.

A reconstruction follows…

Also, if I do get a facial bruise, and Sensei asks anyone; I was attacked by 10 or 20 ninjas… or Sarah and her phantom belly button! (in joke, but once she reads this the outcome will be the same as 10-20 ninjas).

*sigh*