Hmm been a while since I updated, oops!
Lots of things going round and round my head at the moment, I seem to be juggling a few too many things all at once. I finally know what it feels like for one of those stress balls – pressure coming in from every flipping direction. Okay so…here’s a list of the stuff:
1. Tang Soo Do – training four times a week plus trips to Bedford for 4 hours training and a 700 mile round trip every 4 weeks.
2. Boyfriend – wonderful happy happy times 
don’t get me wrong here, having a proper working relationship isn’t a bad thing, its just the pressure it puts on other things e.g. my friendships, that I never thought would happen. Shows what I know about serious relationships!
3. Uni – degree work really really takes a hit when I’m exhausted from so much training which usually leads on to illness – according to my journal I’ve been ill once every two weeks for the past couple of months, wtf?! Unfortunately lecturers have started to notice my absences so will have to step it up a bit. Or just not get sick. Obviously its possible to tell your immune system not to fail, mine has a bit of a temperamental nature though so I doubt it’ll listen.
I’m pretty sure there was a no. 4 but I’ve totally forgotten…I think I’m getting old. In fact I’m pretty sure I’m getting old – clubbing is no more and I only occasionally get drunk. Having said that our recent trip to Bedford resulted in a good old party with the EMTF during which I had an unfortunate incident with the drinking game Buffalo. Just how hard can only drinking using your left hand be?! Very…apparently.
On a more positive note, training is going pretty well I think. I’m deep into preparing for the World Championships which are in Florida this year with squad training sessions once or twice a month plus normal training. We’re having issues adapting to the rules coming out of the USA and the fact that we can only now do one Hyung rather than both Chil Sung and Traditional is a bit of a sting, particularly as you have to pay a set entry fee rather than the cost based on however many categories you enter. However, its fun training for such a massive event, though to be perfectly honest I’m more looking forward to going out to America with all my friends and spending a good couple of weeks in the sun with Boyfriend I’ve been picked to possibly represent Great Britain in the women’s team sparring – I’ll know for sure soon hopefully though I believe I have to fight it out with anyone else who wishes to be in the team. I’m in two minds about it really. On the one hand it would be a real honour to represent GB and I think it would help boost my confidence in sparring a lot, but on the other its a big responsibility that I really don’t believe I could live up to. Sparring in front of so many of my seniors in a foreign country would be a pretty huge thing to screw up! So I’m going along to Viper Squad every Sunday to try and improve my fighting technique.
The next Gup grading is this Sunday when I’ll be going for my 4th Gup (10th Gup is white belt, 1st Gup is the step below Dan grade/Black belt). I’m pretty confident as I do know the stuff though there are quite a few butterflies appearing, hopefully they won’t paralyse me on the day though I’m sure that as always, as soon as the physical starts all nerves and awareness of anything but the pain will vanish. I’ve been feeling pretty run down recently and am still recovering from yet another fluey type thing but hopefully that won’t impact too much on my grading performance. One of the guys going for his 3rd Gup is doing it with two cracked ribs so I don’t know what I have to complain about!
After this grading it’ll be just one more in June till the British Nationals and then on to the Worlds, so lots of martial artsy things to prepare for!
One last thing before Music – I’ve just received season 4 of 24 in the post so will be starting that asap, can’t wait!!
So hmm…listen to Black, Last Kiss and Even Flow by Pearl Jam, Feeling a Moment, Forget about Tomorrow and Love Pollution by Feeder and Numb/Encore remix by Jay-Z and Linkin Park.
