Kenpo review...

After each belt passed there is a review session where you go back over the preceding belts.  As each belt gets harder and more belts are behind you the review sessions get longer and longer.  Since I passed my 3rd brown all we've been doing is reviewing and have only made it through 3 1/2 belts.

However, the worrisome part is tonight's review was of Blue belt and it feels like I am seeing some of the these techniques for the first time...  2 years since I tested off that belt and clearly I have not practiced it enough since then.

Damnation.

I should note that this review period is also taking much longer then the preceding ones because Chris isn't just teaching me the technique, now he is teaching me how to teach each of the techniques as well; variants, problems to watch for and ways of adapting to individual students are all covered.

However, for 3rd brown I started recording Chris doing the techniques properly, and then going back over and watching that belt over and over again and transcribing each of the steps.  I also film myself doing the same techniques, and watch the film of myself making corrections as I go along (this was really helpful for 3rd brown katas.)  I have started to do so for these belt reviews as well.  So far I have recorded Gold, Orange and tonight I got Purple, but have only transcribed Gold.

Here's an example from my 3rd Brown notes, with my abbreviations unabbreviated :

Bending the Limb

Aggression: Cross Wrist Grab (Right Hand described, works for either side)

Right Hand makes a small circle to the inside and up, lifting attackers arm to shoulder Level and you re-grab. Step in Left Foot to forward stance and strike attacker’s ribs with horizontal elbow while rotating into horse stance perpendicular to attacker, Left Hand rises up and clears attacker’s arm with a downward hooking back-fist, pivot into a forward stance and Right Hand shoots forward to palm-strike face.

Perils of online dating - Craigslist Edition

On a lark I posted an ad on craigslist.

Time to first spammer: 2 Minutes
Time to first offer to see "sexy pictures": 4 minutes
Time to first broken English attempt to get me to click a suspicious link: 7 minutes

It's been up for 45 minutes and I have received 7 e-mails, none legitimate.

Why Dating sucks... (A numbers game)

This is semi-cross posted on facebook, and a couple of you have already heard me sound off on this, but bear with me because I have refined the number a bit.

Recently I watched an interesting BBC documentary on science of attraction, where they brought together a bunch of psychologists, anthropologist, etc to design a program for predicting what people find attractive. The factored in compatibility of interest, similarity of features, and each researcher had their pet theories of what was going on in the study participants head. They were all wrong.

Overwhelmingly they found that initial impression was set by one thing only and it was different for the sexes.

For men: Waist to hip ratio.

For Women: Height.

The other factors had a contribution to the long rating of their opposites, but generally an initial opinion was set, and didn't vary by more then 10%+/- after that.

The part that is relevant for me is generally women are looking for men that are ~5" taller than them and 3-4 years older.   Sadly... statistices does not back up the point in having hope.

You see, Bozeman has ~30,000 people according to the city manager. Using the last last census 23% are between 25-44. With an average martial rate of 44.9% (we'll call it 45%) leaving 3795 single people, of whom ~52.6% are men, leaving 1838 possible single women, cut out the 15% smokers and the 10% of the population with serious pet allergies 1405 is starting to look pretty bleak.

If we also rule out those that the NIMH classifies as having a "serious" mental health issue which is apparently 5% of the female population

That leave 1335 potential ladies to meet.
If we are generous and include the women who are an inch shorter then I am (52.4%) of thee population then there are 699 single women meeting the very *minimum* standards, not factoring for common interests or anything similar.

That is a 2.5% chance.  That is the optimistic number.   

I'm not going to calculate the what the "optimal" height and age match is because I would probably make me want to crawl under the covers and never leave again.

Comments back to normal (ish)

So last night an obnoxious twit was spamming the comments.

Turns out there is no real tools to blacklist commentators or IP ranges.

So comment moderation is turned on now.

Please continue about your snarky posting.

Spammer Begone.

Comments Disabled for the foreseeable future.

Saturday non-post.

Didn't weight myself.  Didn't do my exercises.  Spent the morning at work doing an upgrade to our server that did not fix the problem the engineers promised me it would.  I am drinking rum, not enjoying my newly minted single status and being propositioned by cowgirls online.

Some days I wonder why I get our of bed.

Oh that's right, because the dog will go out at 8am or bad things happen to the carpet.

Saturday Goal Reached (mostly)

I have have confession to make.  I didn't quit hit my goal.  I missed it by .2 lbs.  Now, if you guys really want to see a picture of me in my swimming trunks in all my hairy glory I'll post is but .2  pounds is close enough for me to call this part of the plan a success.

So I have lost 29.8 lbs over 95 days, which is a loss of 10.5 of my body-weight and an average of .31 lbs a day.

And although I nearly stalled completely the last couple of weeks, thanks to illness, I suspect those numbers will start getting much better as the HIIT starts to happen every other day.  (Right now it's two days a week.)

That's about all my news.  I'm off for apple filled crepes to celebrate.

On Cheating death (or at least serious injury)

So it is my belief that is it far better to be smart, then to be lucky.  However... when you fail to be smart and luck saves you... be thankful.

Today I was doing a simple household chore, that many of do every day.  Dishes.

I'm a little OCD about dishes, having been cut several times by broken glasses or carelessly dumped in knives. So I no longer have fragile glasses, and my OMG sharp knives I carefully stack off to the side separate from the other dishes.  They are OMG sharp, because sharp knives seemingly paradoxically cause fewer kitchen accidents as they do their job better then dull knives.  This means less chance of using to much force... and therefore less chance of injury.  Unless you do something stupid like gesture with them and then they will open your finger to the bone before you will even notice.  I've done that.  It was stupid and painful.

So I am merrily washing dishes having just a few, and have done all the big stuff and am rooting around for the silverware and I'm swishing my hands back and forth when I slide my wrist, at speed across something inexplicably cold in the scalding hot water.

I freeze.

Count to 5.

Carefully lift my hands out of the water and see a faint red indentation on my wrist almost exactly paralleled to all the lovely ligaments and blood carrying tubes in my arm.

I very gingerly reach back into the water and promptly cut my finger on my OMG sharp Santuko chef knife which has magically transported itself in the water.  I carefully fish it out and realize that I had managed to slam my wrist at speed on the dull side of the knife.  Hard enough to dent my skin.  If by chance the blade had been facing the other way...  many many stitches at the minimum.

So I got lucky.

And boy am I thankful

Saturday... schamturday.

Let's see...

So after a rough week my weight basically back where I started from last week.  No I don't know why, but not particularly worried about it.

In other news, as I mentioned earlier I passed my 3rd Brown Kenpo test.  And I inexplicably found myself with a Saturday when I have no plans, no practice scheduled, nothing but an entire weekend of vacuuming dog hair.

So I had pizza and daiquiris.  First pizza since December or so.  First daiquiri since ...oh last summer maybe?

But it' 60+ degrees out (well it was) and clear blue skies, surely that's good enough excuse for consumption of large amounts of rum and fruit juice yes?  I probably should have waited for them to wear off before writing this...

hmm...

No matter.

Other micro-updates.

HIIT train sucks.  But at least it's over quick.

What sucks worse the HIIT is going into work and getting locked in an elevator when the building manager goes around and turns off the elevators in anticipation for the bar crowd.

Fortunately I have his number in my phone and I was only locked in the damn thing for about 30 minutes.

90 degrees at 30 minutes... because there is no AC when the elevator is turned off...

But that effectively ended any urge of mine to continue to work this weekend.  Hence the daiquiris.

Now, if you will excuse me... there is more chilled fruit beverage calling my name....

That's Mr. Instructor to you.

So I officially am a Brown Belt in Kenpo now.

I also learned a deep dark Kenpo secret which I will share with you now...

Are you ready?

To bad you don't get to know it.

:P