THE GOOD BUCK

Tag: Martial Arts

  • The week that was.

    Hi, it’s been another weird week.

    At Kung Fu I had some seasoned veteran of the style doing blocking drills with me. I think he had an agenda, be it bullying the newbies or showing off how ‘well ‘ard’ he was I don’t know. Either way, what should have been a quite painful training exercise turned into a really painful test of endurance. I stuck it for as long as I could, but I was getting worried that I was going to sustain a serious injury.

    The next day at work, as I got changed to go into the freezer (again!) one of the lads pointed out that I was bruising on my arms. I was OK with it until after my breakfast, then when I returned to work it was suddenly really sore. My right arm had swollen and hurt every time I moved it.

    The photo’ doesn’t show the swelling very well, and makes the bruising look like slap marks, but believe me it really did smart!

    That was less than fun to work through.

    Also at work they’ve started sending me back into the freezer as I mentioned above. My five day reprieve, whilst welcome, was all too temporary. Ho hum. They are processing all the sick note people, still waiting to see if they have the commitment to follow through on the sacking of the unfit. The other event of the week at work was today when I got ready, had an early dinner and all that, made my grub for break, went in, then got told by the lads ‘it’s your day off today’.

    And it was. Gutted. Came home pretty damn pronto but it ruined my day off.

    Almost forgot, there was another incident of note at work; some geezer came up to me asking was going to sign a grievance, saying there were too many foreigners at our works!

    ME!

    Bloody hell, he’s someone I’ve know and worked with for 18 months, and he assumed I’d sign!

    I was a bit miffed.

    Someone coming up to you and saying, ‘seeing as you’re a moronic racist you’ll sign this knee-jerk whine, won’t you?’ Not flattered, me. 

    Nearly parked the mighty Micra into a lamppost two doors down from our house today. That was briefly focusing. We’d only had a half inch of snow and it didn’t seem to be affecting the driving conditions. Until I tried to turn into our close. That would have been a whole world of embarrassment, crashing in front of all the neighbours!

    To make this brief (Wendy’s gone to bed, so I have to hurry with the typing!) I watched Ip Man today, (the story of the guy who taught Bruce Lee Kung Fu)  it’s comically overacted in parts, (in the English subtitles, at least) the dialogue is dire, and the propaganda is rife, but the fight sequences! Wow! I really can’t wait to get back to class. I don’t care if it buggers my arms up, they must toughen up eventually, I’ve got to get good at Wing Chun Kung Fu!

    There’s more, but you can’t master a martial art if you’ve been beaten to death by a sleep deprived spouse.

    Later,

    Buck.

  • Just musing.

    Hi! I’ve just noticed that I’ve had 1,000 views of my blog! I’m a celebrity!

    However, this will be my 103rd post, so I’m an unknown. 🙁

    If you don’t follow me on Twitter let me tell you I’m loving my Kung Fu class. I’ve got my kit and I’m not afraid to pose in it!

    It’s a pity the Beth couldn’t keep it up, it’s really spiffy. Don’t know that she’d have loved the last class though, swapping punches so your arm collides in defence/attack with your partner’s. It soon starts hurting and doesn’t stop!

    Grin and bear it, it’s good for practice and it toughens you up.

    I’m aching still though. And I’ve got bloody friction burns on my arse from all the sit ups! Again! All good though.

    My sax lesson has had a positive turn around as well. When I went this week I had a few of the things that I have been struggling with come together. Then he turned the page to a new chapter and it was a checkpoint. Instead of learning something new it is three set pieces supposed to consolidate your learning to date.

    As usual sax-sensei Pete pointed me at the new stuff and told me to have a go. It was for a complete change, a lot easier than the previous exercises. I didn’t do it perfectly, but for a first time, sight reading as I went along, it wasn’t too shabby.

    I was quite pleased with myself, then he told me that the pieces were from a grade 4 exam! (Or level 4, I forget.)

    The point being, these are pieces on which the student would train for months before an exam and I did a reasonable attempt first time out of the bag!

    Not trying to blow my own trumpet here (if anything, my own sax) just saying how surprised and delighted I was.

    Then he said now we’re at chapter 17 you can move on to ‘100 best tunes book’ or some such. Learning by playing songs, some of which I will already know, rather than by bending my mind around hideous exercises. If you recall, that was what I said I was going to leave my lessons to do in my last blog. So that it going swimmingly.

    Here is something I found that seemed to be begging for the title ‘Ships Of The Desert’

    Also on the pictures front, here is that Sisters of Mercy/ Merciful Release logo that I want as a tattoo

    Groovy, or what?

    Perhaps you have to love the band.

    I’m currently enjoying a long weekend. I was off Thursday, in Friday, now off Saturday, Sunday and Monday! Bloody lovely.

    On the subject of work, I have been moaning lately about being sent into the freezer all of the time. The place at which I work has the contract picking and delivering to the Iceland stores, so it’s not too unexpected that I would work in the freezer now and then. In point of fact I’ve been in there that often that I don’t even mind it that much.

    However, what does piss me off is all the other pickers from grocery getting out of doing it by bringing in a sick note. This means the few of us who haven’t got a medical exclusion are always being sent in, whilst the others laugh at us. Everyone knows the job is for Iceland, that part of your job is working in the freezer and that most of the sick notes are bullshit, but nothing was being done about it.

    Apparently if you are not fit to do your job that is reasonable grounds for dismissal, yet the company let it slide.

    Anyway, because of it, I was in the freezer all but three days out of six weeks.

    In the end I’d had enough. I went storming into the office and had about four different managers, up and down the chain of command, over it. (When I said I’d been moaning about it above, I meant at home and on t’internet, I’d just gotten on with it at work.)

    They said that there was a review of the sick note situation coming up and the people who were laughing at me would be laughing on the other sides of their faces! And for once it looks like they may have been telling the truth!

    The union rep said yesterday that they were going to refer all the sickies to the company medical review people and if they were found to be medically incapable of working in the freezer they would be given four weeks notice! HAH!

    Yes, I am gloating.

    They’ve all been keen enough to take the piss out of me and let me do the dirty work for them. As I said to one of the managers, I don’t want special treatment, I just want fair treatment.

    There are an awful lot of sphincter’s twitching at work now. There is about to be the biggest incidence of miraculous recovery since the bible stories!

    On the down side to this week, I’ve tried to register with the driving agencies around town and they don’t want to know!

    Bugger.

    If I haven’t escaped before, I’ll risk taking a temporary job in August. That will give me a few months experience.

    Still, overall, it’s been a good week.

    Later

    Buck.

  • Quickie.

    Just to say the Beth lasted all of one Kung Fu lesson! She went, loved it, then cried off the next lesson citing lack of money. I’ve told her the offer is still open.

    I went to the second class and Sifu was having a self-defence lesson, specifically how to deal with knife attacks.

    You grab the attacking arm, grip the hand that is holding the knife, elbow them in the face, carry it through so the knife cuts their throat, reverse their hand then gut them.

    Ohhhhhh K.

    So that was fun.

    He explained that way you are never losing control of the hand holding the knife and, as an added bonus, never putting finger prints on the knife. If you’ve just cut someone’s throat then lent into them (to stab into their guts) you’re going to be covered in blood anyway, so the finger prints might be superfluous.

    Technicalities.

    If someone has just tried to attack you with lethal intent the first priority is stopping them. Legality comes a very distant second.

    So that was what Beth missed. Good, clean fun.

    Also, whilst I’m here I should mention an incident from last week. (I mentioned it on Twitter but omitted it from my last blog.)

    Wendy, her brother (Pete), his wife (Emma) and I(Buck!), went to see Avatar 3D at the local flicks. Which I should mention in passing was rather spiffy, first good 3D I’ve seen. Plot was massively predictable, but really well done.

    Anywho, it was still in the midst of the snow and ice. I gave  Pete and Emma a lift to the flicks. Apparently they really are gay about my driving! All the slipping and sliding, which I thought was fun, was a bit unsettling for them.

    After I’d dropped them off and they were self medicating with stiff drinks, Wendy and I came home. I was chugging up to the lights on Cromwell ave which were on green, so I put my foot down to make it, then, as I had to do a right turn through the lights, went to brake.

    Not a bloody sausage.

    Micra locked up, slithering all over the place. I said to Wendy "We’re going to crash, sorry." Then by some miracle of mighty Micra mastery, I managed to save it!

    That was a hell of a rush. More so for Wendy, I suspect.

    I returned to my sax lesson.

    Hate it.

    Wish I could just get the basics down so I can quit the lessons for a while and learn by practising all the songs I like. That will be more fun and less pressure.

    Damn these baby steps I am forced to take!

    I did a work out at home yesterday, my first for two months, and how it shows! My tendons were a foot shorter! I ended up totally done in, and today my legs are really sore.

    Then to add to my joy I had another headache. I woke up with a bit of pressure in my head,it got worse all day, (despite all the painkillers) so that by seven o’clock I had to go and lie down and that was me for the night. Not how I wanted to spend my day off.

    Fine and dandy, hale and hearty today.

    Wish it would go away though.  It’s every few days I have some form of headache, generally at least once a week it’s so grim I just want to lie down with a eye mask on in a dark room.

    Chin up.

    Not lying under a building in Haiti.

    So that’s it, just a quickie. It’s because of Twitter. It happens, I put it on there, then forget to put it here.

    Live long and prosper,

    Buck.

  • The resolutions are go!

    Finally I’m getting my resolutions going.

    I’ve bloated out in the two months I’ve not been working out at martial arts. I’ve only gone from ten stone six to eleven stone one, but I think I must have lost a lot of very heavy muscle and replaced it with acres of relatively light fat. I’m hanging over my trousers in a way that bears no resemblance to such a small increase in weight.

    It’s a distressing thought that I am going to have to spend the rest of my life sweating the flab off.

    Damn middle age!

    I used to be able to stay slim without trying when I was young.I had a bloater phase about five years age, but then I gave up drinking and dropped three stones so I thought I had it cracked. Apparently not. My work is no longer physically demanding enough and I have been on the road (now I’ve got a car license) for over three years. Previously, with the bikes, I either got banned or crashed them. The longest (by a long way) that I was on the road continuously was fifteen months. That was the only time I ever renewed an insurance policy on a bike! The upshot of that being that I spent most of my life on a push-bike.

    Long story slightly shorter than interminable, it turns out that it only the exercise of martial arts training that has stopped me looking like a space-hopper.

    Which is preamble to saying I have started my training again. I’ve given up on the Taekwondo as flash but impractical, and gone back to Wing Chun Kung Fu, famously the style of Bruce Lee.

    The lineage is impressive as well. The Sifu (Chinese for master) at the club was taught in Hong Kong by the sons of the legendary Yip Man (the guy who taught Bruce Lee, and about whom they made a film last year).

    I’ve got the money to do it this time and I have an abundance of desire.

    Also in the merits column, I am taking my niece who has been having a bit of trouble with her self confidence and has been avoiding going out of the house because of it. This will do her a power of good. Just getting out is a major step.

    She braved it last night and came with me.

    Kudos.

    She met a load of new people and found them all to be a laugh, encouraging and supportive.

    The exercise is it’s own reward (and punishment!) and, in time, she will be confident that she can handle herself if things should kick off. At the moment she seems to be in the worrying phase where she won’t go out because someone might see her, they then might make a comment, they then might give her abuse, they then might start a fight, they might, they might…

    It’s all worry feeding on itself. When you don’t feel threatened by people taking the piss out of you (because you don’t sport chav chic) the abuse is like water off a ducks back.

    This is the voice of experience here. See my pics. I wear that for everything, going to town, doing the shopping, it’s what I wear.

    Anyway, if she sticks to it there is no bad. She was buzzing off it when we finished our first lesson on Tuesday. When I dropped her off at her mam and dad’s, they (her sister included) burst into a song and dance rendition of ‘Kung Fu Fighting’. That was funny.

    That was one/ two items on my resolutions list. Exercise and back to martial arts.

    The other big thing is back to my saxophone lessons tomorrow.

    I can’t say I enjoy them. I want to know all the basics then I’m going to stop the lessons while I take my own time to practise everything. Get back at it though, that’s the main thing. I can’t run until I can walk.

    The same with the Kung Fu. I was really nervous about going back. I’ve already quit that club twice (once because I was drinking too much to keep at it, once because I just couldn’t afford it.) Now I’ve been once, got over that nervous hurdle, I can just get on with getting on. Paying for my years membership and uniform tomorrow, just to show I’m committing. Which has not impressed Wendy overly. ‘Are you collecting them?’ sort of comments. (In fairness I’ve only got two, the Karate one and the Taekwondo one.)

    The only thing I can’t seem to get moving is my driving career. That seems to be out of my hands. I keep applying, keep hearing nothing.

    Ho hum.

    Chin up, keep trying.

    Getting there,

    Buck.

  • Back sliding.

    Hi. I’ve come to a decision; if I’m giving up on Taekwondo, give up on it. I’m treating myself to a month and a bit off, then my new year’s resolution (and my xmas present) will be to go back to Wing Chun Kung Fu, joining with the full package. This is about £100, what with the uniform, membership and insurance. If I do it all in one hit though it will show this time (my third attempt at joining this particular club) that I am serious and committed.

    My first time my life revolved around getting wasted, so it was doomed from the start. The second time Wendy was unemployed so money was tight, and I wanted to do both Kung Fu and Taekwondo (so I would have the flashy head kicks and the up-close fighting excellence) but that was just too expensive. I chose the cheapest one, Taekwondo, at less than half the price per lesson.

    Now, as I have mentioned, I just want a fight-winning style. Any style is only going to be as good as the person who teaches it, and the Sifu (Chinese for the Japanese ‘Sensei’)of this club was taught in Hong Kong, as a kid, by the sons of the legendary Yip Man. The same chap of whom they have just made a film, and Sifu of Bruce Lee.

    That’s a pretty impressive lineage.

    With my current sax obsession I can only fit in one fighting style and Wing Chun is nuts and bolts fight winning. So I’m slobbing out now, but I’m equally excited and nervous at the prospect of going back.

    I wagged it/ had a days holiday yesterday. Find out which in a few hours when I go in to work. They are supposed to return your holiday request forms the same shift as you tender them. It was over a month since I put mine in, I asked my manager if I could have the form back (approved or denied) on about six different occasions. Nothing. So I kept quiet about it last week and just took the day off. Bollocks to ’em!

    I’m in today, off tomorrow. Got to try and get the mighty Micra MOT’d tomorrow. More money.

    Still no news about any driving jobs. I will have to sit down and concentrate on getting that TA application off tomorrow.

    One good thing at work, when I went in on Friday the place was abuzz with gossip. It turns out the GM and his assistant (the hit-men who were brought in to shake things up, turfing de-kit out of our jobs and bringing in agency workers, trying to make the cleaners all agency etc) have both been demoted!

    The Gm has been demoted to transport manager and his deputy (Ass Man -assistant manager- to borrow from Chuck)has been demoted to shift manager.

    Smell the schadenfreude!

    Karma really is a bastard.

    Talking of which, I guess the Buddhism didn’t take. I see and approve of the better way, I follow the worst. Trying to get a job killing people just so I can get on with making money. I don’t have a problem with killing people, in the general sense.

    But Buddha is pretty categorical in saying that it is not a good thing.

    I have been rationalising why I can’t follow the right path since I started to take an interest in it. This is pretty much crossing the Rubicon though. I don’t believe in an after life, but Buddha seems to have it cracked as to how to live this one.

    Guess I’ll just have to muddle through.

    Anywho, got to get on,

    later,

    Buck.