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.