re: Christmas

Okay, so I've been gone a while.

What can I say? Work, life, etc.  It gets in the way and changes your routines and, well, changes everything.  I had a lot of fun in Japan and learnt an awful lot about myself, but that time is now gone and I've got to take stock and move on. 

And I have, don't get me wrong, I have. 

Training wise, I'm progressing, developing.  I'm stronger than when I left Japan, not as fit in a cardiovascular manner, though I can still run and sprint (I'm faster at sprinting) , but my lifts have gotten better and I've maintained most of the flexibility I developed.  Technique wise I'm more thoughtful and my throws have become better as have my entries and my ways of doing things. I am a better martial artist, whatever that means, and more comfortable in my body. 

Far more com0fortable, and the better for that.  That's Fraser, he's been banging on that I'm a big guy and I fight against it and I should embrace it, so I have and... and, yeah, I move well.  Not gracefully, but powerfully, and with a certain amount of unstoppable inertia. 

Why do martial arts?  Do learn to defend yourself.

What's the best self defence?  Looking bigger than the other guy. 

It works and I'm happy and my techniques are developing with that in mind.

Oddly, my hand speed hasn't diminished, and I can deliver stopping force with my left hand (god bless being south paw) and with my right leg.  The lessons Yogi taught me are still bedded in too, that sinking of everything into the strike.  He knows a lot, that man. 

Anyway, why this post?  Yeah, I've been looking, drunkenly, at pictures of myself from a few years ago, back when I was getting poor training advice from a fat man.  Run loads, drop weight, he told me.  Why did I listen?  I do not look healthy in those pictures, and it does not suit me being below 15 stone. I am a big guy, I may as well revel in it.  He gave me the training advice for a marathon runner, not for someone who was learning a martial art (hah, but we have moved on).  I am far more efficient and capable at my current weight, and strong.  Very strong.  Stronger than him, I know.  Strong and coupled with superior technique. 

I do wonder why he gave me such poor training advice.  Was it just him being misguided?  Or was it because he wanted to do me harm?  I'm going to be charitable and go with the former (although he was so fat I wonder why he didn't take the advice he gave me and put the damn spoon down). 

Don't get me wrong, there are certain... personalities in the old club that I miss (and miss talking to, training with, hanging with), but the new club is so much better, so much... more relevant?  I don't have the words currently.  This year will be a good year for us, a year of change as we fully grow out of the shadows of the past (even as the old club attempts to change its ways and becomes more sport orientated, or so I hear along the grapevine).

It will be an interesting year, whatever comes along.

And I'll be ready :)

Things

Okay, my posting of late has been poor, but my dad is getting better and better, so that's all good.  His eyes are still yellow but he's back to putting away 5 hours a day tending the garden/farm and is walking the dogs again, not quite the old 2 hours in the morning and 2 in the evening, but an hour each way, which is good too.  I suspect that I get my tenacity from him.  I certainly get my cool head from him, which is good as I also have my mum's temper. 

It ain't nice when your parents get sick, is it?

I'm back to the UK tomorrow for the Reading Festival, where I shall eat, drink and be merry, so this last week I've run my body into the ground by training every day, no matter how I feel and generally pushing myself.  I've also been thinking about my training goals for the next year (I'm a teacher, our year goes September to August).  Basically I'm going to slowly trim down to 16 stone for Pete's Shodan (watch out Pete, I'll be fast and strong), then bulk back up to 17 stone and cut it down again to 16.5 for my Shodan, so I'll be heavy for my Shodan, but I want to do it my way, which will be controlled power through each technique.  Watch out every body.

So, this last week, what have I been doing?

Well...

Wednesday 18th
Ran to the Church and back, then 12 pull ups

Thursday 19th
Shadow boxing for 20 minutes
Tried out different combos and different ways of stepping into things and generating force as you move into and through your target.  Got a few nice ideas there I need to try on Fraz and Pete. 
Stretched
13 Pull ups

Friday 20th
Feeling sore and stiff
Did stretching, isometrics and Ki

Saturday 21st
Gym work
Mobility warm up
120 deep bounces
Press ups 40
Independent snatch: 22.5k x 5 per side
Isometric hold 3 x 3 sec
(later figured that I'd done this in the wrong order, whoops)
Deadlift: 70k x 6, 70k x 6, 110k x 5, 140k x 3, 160k x 3, 170k x 1, grip going, damn finger, 170k to knees.  Leave
140k x 1

Bent over row: 70k x 10, 75k x 6, 80k x 5, 85k x 5

Clean: 70k x 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 (+press)

Military press (one dumb bell each hand):  2 x10k x 15, 2x12.5k x 10, 2x15k x 8, 2 x 17.5k x 6, 2x20k x 4

Tricep extension: 20k x 4 per side, Tricep pull down: 25k x 5, 5 (independent)
Bicep cable curl, independent: 15k x 5, 5
Bicep curl: 20k x 30+15

Had no grip for the deadlift, but having not gone to town on it, found my back very strong for the bent over rows. 

Sunday 22nd
Boot run from parent's house to Atlantic drive and back.  Tough old run, 3.62 miles, about 1/2 hour. Got back and did 55 burpees


Monday 23rd
8 pull ups followed by 6, later still another 6 pull ups.  good form on all

Jogged down the hill at gran's house and sprinted back up.  A nasty windy hill, 160 metres or so and steep and rough terrain. Managed it 3 times before felt nauseous. 

Got back to mine and did the 350 work out: 9.25.2, nice time.  I seem to be able to maintain that out of breath feeling for a long time with little detriment to my activity. 

Tuesday 24th

Mobility warm up
Press ups 25, 10, 5

Bench: Bar x 20, 70k x 5 explosive, 5 slow, 80k x 5 explo, 5 slow, 90k x 5 explo, 4 slow, 100k x 1, 100k x 1, 110k x 1, 110k x 1, 115k x 1
Well, with the leap in strength, this slow and explosive mix is working

Squats: 1 legged squats 5 per side
Front squats: bar x 5, 40k x 5, 50k x 5, 60k x 5, 60k x 4
Back squat: 60k x 10, 80k x 5, 80k x 5, 80k x 5
Squat circuit: 25 body weight squats, 25 prison, 25 on balls of feet, 25 holding 20k plate
10 squat jumps

Snatch: 10 per side @22.5k
Bicep: 20k x 40

Wednesday 25th
Boot run to Atlantic Drive and back, 25 minutes
Ki and isometrics in evening

Thursday:
5 minute bike ride
mobility warm up
Press ups: 20 (was thinking, oh, I've clearly quite tired, maybe deadlift isn't a good idea...)

Deadlift:
Indy clean 22.5k@ 5 per side, then 3 x  sec 3 isometric holds, then 3 per side for indy clean

Deadlift proper: 70k x 5 (flew up), 110k x 3, 140k x 3 (over/under grip), 160k x 3, 170k x 2, 177k x 1 (grip really failing), 177.5k x 1, 140k x 6

Bent over rows: 70k x 10, 70k x 8, 75k x 6 (tired)

Clean with barbell: 70k x 5, 3

Clean and press: 22.5 k x 5 per side
Lateral raises: 10k x 12, 12, 10
Over head press (indy): 2x10k x 10, 2x12.5k x 8, 2x15k x 5
Bicep: 20k x 30, 15
Tricep pull down: 15k x 12, 20k x 7, 25k x 5

All in all a good week, good progress, good gains.  And cardio is maintained, so we shall see how next week goes when I get back on the mat. 

Doo doo doo

Part of me does wish that I wasn't in Ireland.  I'm missing the Crossing the Pond Seminar and it looks so damn good.  Ah well, such is life.  Another part of me is very glad that I'm here, chilling with my folks and watching as Dad gets better and better. 

Well, after Sunday's amazing weather, yesterday was terrible!  Wind and rain and more rain and then some more rain.  No let up at all.  I sat around the house and watched Sons of Anarchy, which is an incredible show. 

I waited till the evening, then stretched a little and did the 350 work out, which is the same as the 300 work out, only you do 35 reps as opposed to 30.  Clever, huh?  I changed some things around too, swapping Hindu press ups for dips and then dips for step ups.  Time was 11:53.7, not too bad, but my oh my did I feel all those press ups.

Today I gardened for a bit, collecting in all the onions Dad planted.  There's loads, enough to keep the entire village in onions for the rest of the year.  And shallots, and red onions and, well, some other things.  He's also experimenting with the best type of potato to grow at different times of the year; I never even knew that there were different types for different parts of the year.

Training wise I got myself to the gym and did the following:

Pull ups (at gran's) 11

Mobility warm up

Press ups: 40

Bench press: bar x 15, 70k x 5 fast, 70k x 5 slow, 80k x 5 f, 80k x 4 s, 90k x 4 f, 90k x 3 s, 100k x 2,
110k x 1, 110k x 1, 110k x 1

 Front Squat: Bar x 8, 70k x 3, 70k x 3 70k x 3 wrists sore
[20 normal body weight squats, 20 prison squats, 20 squats hugging 25k weight] x 3, minimal rest between sets

Independent clean and press: 22.5k x 5per side
Independent snatch: 22.5k x 8 per side

Bicep curl: 20k, 21 protocol, 60 reps.

I dunno what it is about my biceps but I just can't get any DOMS in them these days.  Tomorrow I reckon I'll go for a jog, maybe 5 mile or so, we'll see.  My calves are still tender from that beach run. 

Sunday

My calves are aching again, but there you go.

Right, what have I been up to?

Well, Friday I took the dogs for another rambling walk across the moors and later went to grannys and did 10 pull ups and then 8

Saturday I went for a long walk with the dogs and came back and went to the gym.  I do love the Mulranny gym, hardly anyone uses it so I get to do pretty much whatever I want.

Isn't it great?

Anyway....

Warm up was mobility

Press up: 30

Deadlift:
Warm up: Isometric lift 3 x 3sec
22.5k One arm snatch x 3
Main lift:
70k x 5, 110k x 3, 130k x 3, isometric lift, 140k x 2 (grip was going on right hand because of little finger), 160k x 1, 170k x 1, 170k x 1, 177.5k x 1, 177.5k miss (damn right hand), 177.5k x 1 (to knees), damn right hand's little finger just wasn't working, 140k x 5

Bent over row - 70k x 8, 70k x 8, 70k x 8

Tricep extension: 20k x 4per side, 17.5k x 5 per side

Lat pull down: 45k x 10, 75k x 4, 75k x 4

Bicep curl- 20k x 45, 30, 21 (21 protocol)

Sunday:

Back a little stiff.  No bicep pain at all.  In fact, getting any pain in my biceps is pretty damn hard.  

Today went to the beach and ran 3.75 miles according to mapmyrun.com.  Bless it.  Did some fartlek training and went from jog to middle speed to sprint over the course of the, uh, course.  Calves sore now as tried to stay on them all the way.  They've done up the kid's play area and have put in a nice basketball court.  I used the hoop's support for pull ups and did 8, then 6 Up/downs, then 6 pull ups.  Not bad. Forearms sore from yesterday.  All in all a good weekend.  

Tomorrow I'll probably do the 300 workout, only shift it up to 350!  

Thursday

My calves have ached today, and it's an ache that has slowly increased.  Which is good, in its way, as my calves can take a hell of a pounding and recover quickly, so my run yesterday was clearly hard on them, and I managed to keep myself on the balls of my feet the whole way, which is good.

Today I decided to take myself to the gym in Mulranny for some weights and some sauna time.  Now, last time I was there, the gym was a bunch of cardio equipment, some free weights (but not too many, and dumbbells only), some bands and a bunch of machines.  I walked in there today and to my shock there were no free weights, just machines.  Oh, I thought to myself, a variation of the 300 work out it was to be...

I warmed up by doing 5 minutes on the cross trainer, then wanted a drink and went looking for the drink fountain.  And then I found it: the pool/snooker room.  They'd converted it.  Converted it into a weights room!  Bench, squat rack, 170k of weight... Oh yeah.  I was so happy. Here's what I did:

Press up: 35

Bench: Bar x 15, 60k (explosive) x 6, 60k (slow) x 5, 70k (e) x 5, 70k (s) x 5, 80k (e) x 4, 80k (s) x 3

Press ups: 6

Front squat
Deep squat held for over a minute (easy too)
Bar x 5, 40k x 5, 50k x 5, 60k x 3, 70k x 3  My wrists were going so I backed off.

Press ups: 25

Independent overhead press from floor: 22.5k x 5, 5, 5 each arm
Independent snatch from floor: 22.5k x 6, 6, 6 each arm

Press ups: 15

Bicep curl, 22.5k each arm: 8 reps, then 100 band curls.  Then 5 reps and 100 band curls

Press ups: 15

Later in the day I did 9 Pull ups and walked the dogs for a bit with some jogging.  All in all a damn good day. Was hoping to watch the meteorite showers tonight but the weather being the way it is, all I can see it cloud :(

Wednesday

My dad's out of hospital! whoop!

Didn't actually realise how worried I was till he got the all clear.

Training wise...

Visited gran in the morning and did 8 pull ups

Picked up dad

Did 4.62 miles cross country in the afternoon with some nice hill climbs.  Popped into gran on the way back, did another 8 pull ups and then got back to my parent's house.  All within an hour. Not sure on an accurate time... but it seemed fairly fast and I was in the zone.  A few more like that and 10 miles won't seem so bad.

Tuesday

Today is Tuesday, isn't it?  I'm losing track of days here, but that's the nature of the beast.  Spent another day sitting around the house looking after my sister and visiting gran, mum was off at the hospital.  I'll drive tomorrow as it gets me away and we'll have a wander around Castlebar, grab a bite to eat somewhere, which'll help mum's mind too.

Anyway, training.

Whilst visiting granny I found that the old cow shed has a strong wooden second floor that I can hang off and do pull ups on.  So I did a few sets:
6, 2, 7

Later in the day took the dogs for a walk/jog which got a sweat on me.

Then got back and:

Same squat protocol as before (so that's 210 squats) with only one set of isometric holds as various angles.

Then did kicking practice:

20 rear push kicks each leg
15 snap kicks each leg
20 side kicks each leg
10 double side kicks each leg
20 set ups each leg

Finished off with 50 burpees, which were scarily easy.  Even did them 1-50 in my head as opposed to playing my usual mind games.

Humm...

Otherwise shoulder, pecs and lower back are all a little tender from yesterday.  We shall see how we feel tomorrow.

Training

So my dad is still sick and the hospital visits are crappy.  They've made a few mistakes with forgetting to scan him and feeding him at the wrong times and all sorts of stuff that does make you wonder about the Irish health care system.

Grr, wouldn't get this in super efficient Japan!

Anyway, today I stayed at home with my sister as the constant travelling just isn't fair on her.  Managed to have a look at the gym potentials:

This is an 80 litre bin half filled with rain water.

These are sacks filled with turf and that is an ancient rusty cast iron bathtub!  Fun, fun fun!

Short walk in the morning.

Mid afternoon was

Shadow boxing warm up

300 work out in 08:09:00!

Then outside to the gym!

Bin dead lift: 10 reps

Bin pick up to chest: 10, 10 (sort of a clean type motion with different angles, weird hand holds and instability)

Bath lift up (like a tyre flip, only no flip): 5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Bags of turf bicep curl: 5, 5, then change to hammer grip: 8, 8, 8

Farmers walk with two bags of turf: 39 sec and 45 sec

Over head clean and press with two bags of turf: 1, 1, 1

Press ups: 20, 15, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Got a good all round pump, especially in the lower back.  The awkward angles and general instability were good and those cleans and presses were real tough.

Went for 40 minute jog/walk/sprint with dogs cross country.  Erratic interval training, sort of. 

Saturday

So my dad's sick; probably Hepatitis.  He's in hospital currently and I'm running around doing stuff, but you do what you got to do.  He should be fine and I'm not really worried, but everyone's sort of on edge until we know for sure and he's definitely out of the woods.

My legs are currently killing me, but that shows what that squat work out was like.

I'm walking the dogs a fair bit, and trying to get Rusty to run with me, which he's sort of doing in a doggy way.  Very stop/starty, but it's good for me, running across the sort of moors.

Yesterday I did a variation on the 300 work out:

Press ups, Prison Squats, Alternate press ups, Scissor jumps, Burpees, Leg raises, Dips, Explosive press ups, V ups, Step ups.

30 of each, making 300 reps in 9:29:2

Then did 10 press ups, rested, 9, rested, 8... and so on down to 1.

Arms and chest sore today.  Also walked the dogs yesterday for a quick hour and a bit and walked them twice today.  My legs are still sore so if I get a chance tomorrow I'll sort something out with the massive copper bathtub that's lying around outside and those 80 litre bins half filled with water.  Hummm...

Bookwise the new John Connolly is very good, a few twists there I didn't see coming.  Am currently working my way though "The Secret History of the World".  Weird but interesting.

Ireland

It's cold here and wet, but there you go.  I've been on two long walks today, taking the dogs each time across the... well, if they were in the UK, you'd call them moors, but it isn't quite as grand.  An hour and a half for the first walk and about 45 minutes for the second.

It's good to be back in Ireland, seeing the family.  My Dad's sick, which is a downer, and it's probably hepatitis A, which is better than the things we were thinking it could be.

Training wise, what have I been doing?  Well, are we sitting comfortably?

Last Friday-
Shadow boxing warm up
Then
Chin ups
Clapping press ups
Kettle bell swings
Done in the following sets: 10, 9, 8, 7... you get the idea, down to 1.  No rest.  Total time: 8.14.62

Single leg squats: 2 sets of 10 per leg

Step up farmer's carry with 2 x 17.5kg: 2 sets of 10 per leg

KB cleans x 3 per side

Sat - off

Sun - Long walk + Jujitsu

Monday:
Jujitsu throwing with Mark Bloom

In the afternoon:

1000m row in 4 minutes

Pull ups: 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5: 35 in total

Up/downs: 8, 7, 6, 5 (3, 1, 1), 4, 3, 2, 1: 36 in total

Press ups: 10, 9, 8 (rest), 7, 6 (rest), 5, 4 (rest), 3, 2, 1

Independent bench press: (2x20k) x 8 (slow), 8 (explosive)
(2x28k) x 3 (slow), (2x20k) x 10 (explosive)

Shoulder press (20k x 1), 6 per side, 28k x 2 per side

Kettle bell snatch 5 per side

Tuesday: Jujitsu twice

Wednesday was travelling to Ireland, always more tiring than any other type of travelling

Thursday: the two long walks, obviously, then

Squat work out:
20 x Regular
20 x Heels off floor
20 x Regular
20 x Prison squats
20 x Lunges
20 x Heels off floor
20 x Prison Squats
20 x Lunges
20 x Prison Squats
20 x Heels off floor

Isometric contractions at 3 angles for ten secs each x 3

10 x squat jumps

Legs currently killing me.

Have been checking out my parent's place for equipment I cane use for training.  Watch this space.

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

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.

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. 

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.

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!

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

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Two days of exploring

So yesterday I went to America!

Well, not the continent, just the United States bit, the bit that sits in Okinawa and calls itself Kadena Airbase.  It's a big bit of America, Kadena Airbase, not as big as the continental US, but big in a "I can see it's really big" way.  This base is huge, about the size of Watford and inside it is a mini US, even down to fast food joints, a cinema, extra wide roads, fat people, suburban homes and a massive mall.

Yeah, see?

The British armed forces have nothing like this.

Basically Rodney rang me up on Saturday morning and asked if I had any plans.  I had none so we decided to go to Kadena, pick up supplies and then head on out to a beach he knew.

So that's what we did, stopping by in Kadena to try out US life.

Ate at Popeye's, which is a sort of Cajun chicken restaurant and chowed down on their breakfast biscuit (which is a dumpling, I found out) and also some deep fried chicken breast.  Fortified with that feast we braved the BX, which is the big supermarket above and also the commissary, which is the base food store.  The BX is like a giant Tesco's Express, only cheaper and with more stuff.  Electronics, clothes, weights, protein powder, knives, camping stuff, fishing stuff, cosmetics... EVERYTHING.  The commissary is like a food paradise, if you like big portions.  Here's half the meat isle:

Wow, huh?

All red meat, not too much fish really.  Not big on fish are Americans, it seems.

From here we then went on our beach finding adventure!

Basically, Rodney had been to this beach rave on this amazing beach 5 it was a great beach and he wanted to find it again.  Unfortunately, once you get away from the main roads of Okinawa, it's a maze at best, and the beach was on one of the local islands connected by a giant causeway, so we're talking waaaaay out there.  I won't go into the amazing tie we had tracking down the correct beach and the other beaches we found on the way, but it was well worth it when we did find it:

Look at that, amazing, huh?  And the water was so warm, it was like stepping into a warm bath.  Had a good BBQ on the beach, had a good snork too, and then it was time to return home.

Now, the original idea was to get back, dump the stuff we'd bought and head on over to the gym for some weights, but the time in water and the heat had gotten to us, so we opted instead for dumping the stuff, chatting to James and going out for a bite to eat and a drink.  So we headed out to a local isikia, drank beer at 100 Yen a pop and ate some good food, then home for sleep!

This morning was wake up at 7 and out the door by 8ish after a breakfast of bacon, eggs and organic wholemeal rolls (God Bless America). We were off on an adventure to the northern part of the island, to a place called Taira Bay.

I learnt a lot today.  I learnt that the soil in the northern part of the island is different to the soil in the southern part: northern soil is iron rich and therefore red and acidic, whereas southern soil is limestone and alkaline; different plants grow in the different parts with the plants in the northern part looking European.  The guy we wet to visit was a fellow called Yoda and he spoke very good English, being that he studied in Hawaii.  Now, he woke up one morning and decided to become a farmer, as you do, and he's doing a real good job.  His main plant is the pineapple and my god are his pineapples tasty.  I think the thing I'll miss most about the island is going to be the pineapples.  They're good, pineapples in the UK being bitter and crap in comparison.  And Yoda's pineapples are the best I've ever had.

He also rears Okinawan pigs, called Agu, which are a breed introduced from China about 2000 years ago.  Big black things covered in course hair.  Well, some of them are covered in course hair, Okinawa being Okinawa with all it's micro climates and strange little bits of land, there's a few sub breeds.  Anyway, agu are what he breeds.

Isn't he cute?  He's a boar, about 200kg and a strong breeder.  Getting a bit old now, but still loyal and friendly.  Yoda's gone down the organic natural way for his farm and he puts no chemicals on his plants: his pigs have loads of room and a high quality of life, he even lets them live for at least a year before he slaughters them.  He really impressed me and knew his stuff.

From Yoda's farm we headed off to have lunch at a little place he knew, I had the crab soba, which was excellent.  We met a fellow Yoda knew who invited us to his house.

Now this guy is an architect and owns a big company in Okinawa, his house up in Taira is a weekend retreat for him and his wife.  Well, I say retreat, it's massive and has an attached stable and horse track, as you do.  Nice guy and very connected.  There we were treated to agu meat, which goes very well with togan.... and pineapple... and mango.  It's a great meat, almost gamey, and very flavoursome.

Healthy too, the kind of thing thing that would go down a storm in Borough Market.

Alas, time came to an end and we had to head back down to Naha, stuffed with pineapple and agu meat.  Once back James fired up the BBQ and we all tucked into some of the steaks I bought yesterday.  Good steaks but I do wonder how they were raised, what with American farming practices being what they are and so different to Yoda and his techniques.  For the first time ever I actually wondered what it would be like to have a farm, which is strange as I've never had that thought before.  I spent a lot of time on farms as a kid, about 3 months a year or so, so the romance was never there for me, but seeing what Yoda's doing and is trying to accomplish, I've gotten a little inspired, which is weird.  But there you go.

Anyway, got back, ate and then trained.  Haven't properly training for two days (my god!) and looking in the mirror my body was looking big, not fat, but the muscles have clearly liked their rest.  Training wise I went for a standard whole body work out:

Stretch
1.30 Deep squat
Shadow boxing

Pull ups: 5,5,5,5,3,2
Squats with water pipe: Front-20, Back 20
Front squats: 40k 5,5,5
Press ups: 20, 10, 10, 10
Bench: 40k x10, 40k x 10, 40k x 7 (dead stop at base so no elastic return, harder)
Row: 40k x 10, 70k x 5, 70k x 5
Bicep: 40k x 3 (quic up slow as possible decline)

Now I'm sitting here all washed and relaxed and about to pack my bag: next four days I shall be MIA!  shock, horror!  Yeah, no posting.  I'm going hiking and camping with James so that'll be me gone, expect updates on Thursday.

Friday I'm going deep sea fishing!  Woohoo!

Anyway, peace out.

PS
Shaved my goatee

Adventures and brick walls

So, what have I been up to?

Well, yesterday, I came face to face with Japanese bureaucracy.  Quite an experience; the Japanese have truly perfected bureaucracy: it takes a loooong time to sort things in Japan.

Basically, I needed to renew y visa for 9 extra days to take it to the magic 99 days number.  Cool, fine.  I had an address of where to go so I went.

I had the wrong address, but they pointed me in the right direction with a bad map and, thanks to a random old man who recognised one of the land marks on the map, I eventually made it to the correct place: The Immigration bureau, 7th floor of the Law Offices.

I got there, I spoke to someone at the main desk who directed me to a guy at another desk.  The two of us then sat down and discussed me getting a visa extension.  We filled in forms.

We filled in more forms and we ummed and ahhed over some of the things we wrote down.

It may take two weeks for the approval, he told me.  Never mind that I'd be gone in two weeks, but there you go.

I then took my forms to another desk where another fellow went through them with a red pen.  He ticked some things, he re wrote my writing in others, he asked me some questions and he ummed and ahhed.  He checked my passport, looking at me suddenly and saying that I looked nothing like the picture.  I pointed out that it was my old passport and the Visa was in there and, look, here was my new passport.

I didn't look much like that photo either.

We made slow progress.  I showed him flight times, I discussed my cultural reasons for being in Japan, he gave little red ticks on boxes.

He then checked with his supervisor and came back.

I needed to pay, but I would get my extension: 4000 Yen.  I couldn't pay there though, I had to go back down to the 2nd floor and queue up and pay there and get a special stamp which I then took back up to the 7th floor and affixed to a sheet of paper and signed to show I'd paid.

Some more forms, some signing and... and I had it, my extension.  15 days, not 9, but there you go, they can only do 15 days plus, it seems.  And, as I was staying over 90 days I needed to register with the local government office.  No matter that I'd be gone in 9 days after the 90 days, I still needed to register.

But there you go.  It's done.

Tomorrow I shall post about today's American adventures and tomorrow's beach adventures!

Breaking barriers

A good day today.

Woke up after a deep sleep, tottered around the house for a bit and then moped it down to the Budokan.  Got caught in a little rain, but nothing major.

Warm up:
Deep squat held for 1.15
20 minutes of stretching

Bench mark:
Press up 40, Pull up 10, Chin up 2, HLR 10, Dip 10, HLATR 10, Wide pull up 1/2

Body weight: 101.4kg

Deadlift: 70k x 5, 100k x 5, 120k x 3, 150k x 1, 160k x 1, 170k x 1, 180k x 1
Back felt a little unhappy so put on a weight belt
190k x 1, 200k x 1, 205k x 1!

Oh yeah, more than double body weight lift!  Could possibly have gone higher, but thought it best to quit whilst I was ahead.

Bicep (21 protocol): 20k x 36, 15

Indy bench, 2x 20k: 8, 10, 10
Military press, 2 x 20k: 6, 6, 6

Finished with deserved time on the vibro machine

Then lunch at Kamefuku with James.  Then we concreted in some of the holes in his drive.  Bit of a bitch mixing cement with a very tired back, but there we go.

Then nap, dinner and of to Karate.  Now know my kata for my next grading, which is good.  Practised that and then practised bunkai, which are attacks from other people and you use the kata to deal with it.  Afterwards, Arakaki Sensei had a chat to me about it: there's "Formal Bunkai" and "Informal Bunkai". The formal stuff is the stuff for schols, for kids.  Blocks and return strikes, stuff where you are unlikely to damage your opponent severely.  This is stuff developed when Karate was brought into the school system; watered down karate.  The informal stuff is the old stuff, the ichi geki stuff, ichi geki meaning "One strike, finish".  One punch win stuff.  He showed me two of the bunkai and, yeah, far more deadly, far more effective.  Very interesting, like being shown into a hidden garden.

Anyway, bed now, tomorrow more training!

So I met this guy who knows his stuff

Up early today and went for a run with James and Shun. Somewhere between 3 miles and 4.  A new route James had found with one of those killer Okinawa hills right in the middle...

Okay, went to Map My Run and spent half an hour sorting out Google's inability to deal with Okinawan infrastructure and it was only 2.51 miles.  Did climb 200 ft during it though, so there!

http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/jp/okinawa%2c%20tomigusku/270127729503159106

Anyway, back from that and attempted the Bear with 40k.  Only managed 2 reps, James managed 2 sets, Shun managed a set and a half.  I just wasn't feeling it.  Finished off with
2 sets of 40k clean above head at 5 reps each

2 sets of 6 pull ups

Shower, food, nap.

So today I was going to go with Hisano to the Bikram Yoga.  She rang up to book us a place and... and, yeah, women only.  Outrageous!

Did manage to get to the Karate museum, though.

Colourful, huh?  Full of bits of history and weapons and books and articles.  Guy in who runs it is Tetsuhiro Hokama Hanshi (PhD, 10th Dan, 4th generation teacher with lineage); happy, relaxed and knowledgeable. The kind of guy so many of the fake masters in the West want to be.  Hell, I want a museum of martial arts in my house!

Anyway, we get to talking and it turns out that he was in the UK in 1998 at a course and Mr Kevin Pell was there, truly a small world.  He also had a copy of Ground Control and Restraint, as you do.  This means nothing to most of the people who read this blog and have no interest in the martial arts world I float in, but it's a book I've been meaning to get my grubby little mitts on for a while and, sure enough, he had a copy.  An interesting read, especially some of the claims the people in the book make.  Not very good if you actually want to learn techniques though, it just sort of shows the finished product, not how to get people down, which is the hardest bit.

Anyway, Hokama Hanshi knows my Kobudo sensei (same Kobudo school, same generation), which shows how small a world it is, and we had a good old chat about Kobudo and Karate and where things come from (all the while I'm eyeing the arsenal of weapons that are lying around)

A damn good experience, and something to aspire to, clearly.  Anyway, feeling a little rested so tomorrow I'm deadlifting!

Monorail adventure part II: son of the bride of the monorail

So today was the day for the monorail and what a long tiring day it has been.  Good, mind, and fun, but draining in a "I walked miles in the heat and now my sensitive inner thighs are chaffed" way.  Shower has now been had, feet are up, fan is on and cup of green tea is at ready, so that's all good.

Are we sitting comfortably?

Then I'll begin.

Yup, I started at Tsubogawa Station again and then made my way up to

Which is the place with the massive posh mall complex and the Prefectural Office.  What I didn't realise, as I was rushing last time, is that it's right next to Kokusai Dori Street, the Oxford Street of Okinawa.  This clearly merited further investigation, so I did.

This is the Prefectural Office, which is their government building.  I went in and asked if I could get my visa renewed, which caused some issue as the security guards had to go and find someone who could translate my broken Japanese.  Turns out that, no, I couldn't get it renewed there, but they told me where I could, which was nice.  I think they were nervous about the protest outside, which seemed to be about the American Bases  or maybe just that everyone should wear white gloves.  

From here I wandered up Kokusai Dori Street, as it's helpfully named in English.  Or unhelpfully as "dori" means street, so they've named it Kokusai Street Street.  But there you go.  It's an interesting street, a sort of a mix of Covent Garden, Camden and Oxford Street with restaurants, night clubs, bars, trinket shops, high end shops and touristy places.  It's some kind of student say or something today as, just as I crossed the road a bunch of guys dressed in togas chased a guy dressed like a fish and jumped on him and tea bagged him a la Halo.  Humm.  I think they were students anyway.  

There's lots of Shisas on sale here and I took loads of pictures which I'll stick on Facebook to bore you all with.  Also this guy:

 I wandered up one side and then popped up to where the Jahanna-Kippan shop is, just off the main road.  Where Hisano fed me some fresh togan (it had been an hour and a half since my last feeding and I was growing hungry).  James also struck a pose in his chef's outfit

From here I wandered back down and walked down the other side of the street back to the monorail station. No more toga terrorists tackling people (my alliteration has failed me!), but there you go. Although I did see this:

Yeah, uh... penis shaped chocolates with a half naked baby on the front, naked from the waist down too.  Uh.... Japan has some aspects that I will never get.  

Anyway,  I was on the hunt for a baseball cap for myself as my hair is short and the sun is strong so I popped into here:

The Habu Box! The ultimate cool shirt place.  Baseball caps are a little expensive, so I skipped out on one but I did pick up another cool T-shirt (last one, last one).  

From here it was back on the monorail and over to

Now, last time I was here I popped into that big book shop and picked up a book on BJJ... this time I popped in with the knowledge that is had an English language section!  Top floor!  All right!  You can only read so many non fiction books on martial arts before you start craving fiction, so I picked up three nice little books and am quite happy.  I also found the Manga section, which is bigger than some libraries back in the UK!  

James turned up and we ate lunch across the road at a Japanese cafe.  There's a word for these places, but I always forget it.  Anyway, lunch was pork, rice, a fried egg, miso soup and some deep fried prawns.  God it's hard to eat a fried egg with chop sticks.  From there it was off to

Which is the far end of Kokusai Dori.  From here I wandered back up the street to the indoor market, seeing some street violence along the way!  It was too store clerks arguing and got a little heated.  Interesting to watch, a pretty standard monkey dance of posturing, arms out, chest up, but then the taller one pushed the shorter one of the head, not the chest, which is different to what happens in the UK.  Some other guy came and broke it up then and that was that.  Interesting though.  I managed to find a cheap hat in the end too, only a thousand yen.  It made me look well American though, but there you go, at least I wouldn't be adding to the sun burn on my scalp and neck.  On the way back I found an arcade and popped in.  Man was it interesting; an arcade for the more serious gamer as opposed to the more kid friendly ones I'd been in before, I gave Tekkan 5 a blast and had fun.  It had a slot for your Tekkan play card so you could record how well you'd done.  Ditto for most of the other games, including Street Fighter.  And they had playstation controllers attached to some of the machines.  I then wandered up to the Eager Beaver, which was closed but the owner was there.  Will probably watch the England game there tomorrow.   

Next up was

Which is a residential area so there was pretty much nothing to see.  About the only interesting thing was a Cocol I wandered into.  It's sort of like a Family Mart.  The magazine weren't sealed and I had a look through some of them.  Interesting, even the normal looking ones had some strange pictures...

Anyway, next was

Which is where that big shopping mall is.  On the map it had "Galleria", which I thought meant an art gallery.  No, it was a high end mall filled with high end stores like Tag and such.  I had a nice wander and popped into the Food Colliseum on the 3rd floor.  Basically a series of joined restaurants.  Had some good coffee and a doughnut and made my way off to

Which is the station near that high end gym.  Nothing else really here so I headed off to

Now this place is basically a part of Naha City hospital, which is a damn good idea, and on the other side is a massive park.  Hell of a place, had a big old walk through it, basically a massive valley so hell on the legs getting through it but well worth it.  So glad I had that cap though.

Next station was 

This is the second last station, sort of near Shuri castle, but not as near as the final station.  It's on the other side of that massive park too.  Some interesting historical sites but nothing compared to the castle itself, which was at

The end of the line!  Nice sign, amazing place.  The castle is huge and somewhere between really old and quite new as the damn thing has had a history of getting burnt down and bombed and blown up and deconstructed.  They've done a damn good job of the reconstruction though:

Hell of a place.  The actual grounds are a kilometre across and a good walk, the castle itself is a two tiered affair with outer and inner walls and a central castle structure where the king lived and ruled.  That's it up there; 800Y to get in, but well worth it, and I had a traditional cup of tea and some traditional biscuits too.  

And that's it really.  I did more than I've written but I've condensed it down or this page would be a few thousand words as opposed to about a thousand.  Hell of a day, recommend it to anyone.  

Well, hell of a two days.  Doing it in one day is pretty much impossible, you just don't get to see everything.  

Hmm, beer is now calling me.