Fluffie Bunnie Blog

I am still alive ...

2010-06-10T09:36:00.002Z

... Just been injured, not exercising, and far too grumpy to blog :-)

Will be back to it next week hopefully!

ETK Week 4

2010-04-10T15:21:00.006Z

It's been a good week! Most important news first: Sarah's surgery was a complete success. I was so touched and honoured to be part of a great online community supporting her through the operation. Dave and I (and even the dogs!) wore pink all day and so did many, many others all over the world. Sarah came through the surgery well and got the most fantastic news that her lymph nodes are clear of cancer. Hopefully she will not need to undergo any chemo or radiation. For more details check out her blog: http://www.strongersarah.com/

Onto my training week .....

Monday: Ah, the joy of bank holidays. A lie in, followed by ETK light day and some bodyjam practice. Lovely stuff!

Tuesday: Dance lesson at lunchtime and then in the evening I taught jam.

Wednesday: Should have been ETK medium day, but I was very tired so decided to take it a rest day. I lived to regret this later in the week when I realised I had to do medium day and heavy day back to back. Doh!!

Thursday: Did my delayed ETK medium day workout at lunchtime. My first attempt at increasing the rungs on my ladders past 3 and I managed it! I was very happy with myself. The 4th rung was hard, but I ground them out. The 4 pull ups in a row was the hardest part. Pull ups kill me!! In the evening I taught jam.

Friday: ETK heavy day. I say again - doh!! I could have left it to Saturday, but we are climbing on Sunday so I wanted my upper body to have a day of recovery before then. So I manned up and got stuck in. I thought right at the start there was no way I would manage 5 x 5 as I found 5 x 4 hard enough and I was still fatigued from the previous day!! HOWEVER with some encouragement from my lovely other half - by encouragement, I mean him telling me to stop being such a wuss and get on with it - which was actually just what I needed! - I ground out 5 rungs. I couldn't manage all the reps though. This is what my rungs looked like:
12345
12344
12343
12343
12343
When you think about it, that's only 7 reps short of the full 5 x 5 routine, so I'm pretty happy with that for a first attempt! I plan to build up my heavy days over the next few weeks until I am doing the full 5 x 5. I finished off with my 8 minutes of swings in 30/30 - 20 per minute for a total of 160. That just about finished me off and I then went for a hot bath which I proceeded to fall asleep in!!

Saturday: Went to the studio and ran through the new combat and some of the new jam.

Sunday: Tomorrow as usual we are off climbing - yay!

This coming week is going to be mad. We have the studio launch for the new releases next Saturday and Sunday, and I really need to do some more practice on both jam and combat before I'm going to feel happy teaching the new stuff. So I'm going to put ETK on hold again, before moving onto week 5 the following week. This works out well, as my twitter buddies Julie and Lillian are both repeating week 4, so this would get us all back in sync. Without ETK, my week looks like this:

Monday: teach combat
Tuesday: 2 hours of early morning jam practice, teach jam in the evening
Wednesday: Rest day (MUST rest as won't get another day off for a week!)
Thursday: Need a final jam practice, then evening teach jam
Friday: Need a final combat practice, evening climbing
Saturday: Studio launch - teach jam and combat
Sunday: Studio launch - teach jam and combat.

I think that will be quite enough for me without trying to add in 3 hard ETK workouts! If I find myself with spare time and energy I will try to knock out a few ladders and some swings. Doesn't seem likely though :-)

ETK Week 3

2010-04-05T15:58:00.005Z

Week 3 got pushed back as we were on holiday last week! Which was fab. I did manage one kettlebell workout, but realised I wasn't going to stick to the programme properly so decided to call it a rest week and come back fresh this week.

The holiday week was very nice and relaxing. We went climbing a couple of times, went for some days out, and my favourite activity of all, went to the zoooooooooooooooooooooooo! We got ourselves season tickets for Marwell Zoo which is not far from us and we enjoy going there a lot. With the season tickets it means we can go whenever we want for the next year. There is a really nice new restaurant using all organic and local food, which overlooks the "African Valley" so you can eat your lunch while watching zebras, giraffes & ostriches. So I'm hoping we will make use of that as a good venue when we fancy going out for lunch, plus other visits when the mood takes us!

Anyway, I digress. Monday was the end of holiday and back to work ... sigh! And also back to ETK and usual training. This week the ladders went up to five in ETK. I thought this would be a challenge, and it was hard, but most definitely do-able, so I was encouraged :-)

This week's workouts looked like this:

Monday: ETK light day at lunchtime. The usual clean/press/pull ladders plus 7 minutes of swings in a 20secs/40secs work/rest cycle. 13 swings per minute for a total of 91. In the evening I taught combat.

Tuesday: I got up stupidly early to go into the studio to practice some (new) jam. I am loving the new release! In the evening I taught (old) jam.

Wednesday: ETK medium day. Clean/press/pull ladders plus 7 minutes of swings in 25/35 - 16 per minute for a total of 112.

Thursday: I taught jam in the evening and then afterwards was supposed to video my friend Kelly's combat class for her assessment. However her car broke down so after I finished jam I was asked to cover the class. I REALLY didn't want to! I love my combat, but I was exhausted! Usually if I'm teaching two classes back to back I pace myself, but as I hadn't expected to be doing both I had pushed myself in jam, teaching two very energetic blocks and going all out! However it was either chuck myself in to combat or tell everyone the class was cancelled and sent them home, which I would have felt very mean doing, so I stepped up. It didn't help that I had no change of clothes so had to teach in my leggings and dance top with no hand wraps! Still, it was a good fitness test! I got my second wind halfway through and ended up enjoying myself. But I was ready for my bed that night!

Friday: I took a well earned rest day.

Saturday: ETK heavy day. I did my 7 minutes of swings in 30/30 - 20 per minute for a total of 140. I'm happy to report it felt slightly easier than last week! Afterwards I spent an easy hour working on some of my jam technique.

Sunday: Climbing! We had a fantastic session this week! I did another 5+ which actually felt like a proper achievement this time - the one I climbed before seemed to me to be graded a little easy. I also climbed the overhang wall that I had spent about 4 weeks falling off, for the second time, almost making it feel easy! Yay! I'm really starting to notice some appreciable strength gains from the climbing and kettlebells. It's making me happy :-) Today on our dog walk I had a bash at the monkey bars on our local park. I've attempted these several times and always fallen off without managing to even move from one bar to another. Today I travelled 3 whole bars!!! It wasn't pretty or quick, but I did it! It's one of my (many) targets to travel the whole of these eventually!

OK, so I have more stuff to blog about, namely that I'm trying to change my diet and eat cleaner, and also that our awesome PT and friend Mike seems to have sorted out my hip flexor problem. But I'm running out of time so will save those wafflings for another day as I have something more important to finish this entry off with.

Our friend Sarah is having a double mastectomy tomorrow. Sarah is someone Dave and I have met through twitter and bonded with over kettlebells and training, progressing from twitter aquaintance, to email training buddies, to long distance friends. She has been an inspiration since she was diagnosed with breast cancer, sharing her fight against cancer on her blog and twitter, and voicing with humour and honesty many things that most people would be too reserved to discuss - such as worrying whether a vigorous kettlebell clean could damage an implant! (Answer: it won't!) Anyway, her operation is tomorrow and although she's an ocean away she will be at the forefront of our minds all day. I am going to wear something pink all day to show I'm thinking about her and will be checking facebook and twitter for updates from her husband once she is out of surgery. If you don't already follow her blog, check it out: http://www.strongersarah.com/

ETK Week 2

2010-03-19T14:30:00.013Z

It's been a busy week so a challenge to get my workouts in! However, I managed it. I can't stress enough how great it is doing it with the support of the twitter #ETKMar group. I think I would have struggled on my own this week!

So, this week the ladders went up to 4, still with 3 rungs each. So an extra 6 reps in total, which doesn't sound like much, but every day I struggled with the last rung of the fourth ladder. It goes up to 5 next week. Eek!

This week's random waffling - feel free to skip ahead if you just want the basic workout details! - who would have thought that dancing and kettlebells would go together so well. Other than The Tactical Ballerina, of course! I had a fantastic dance lesson this week. I have been trying to perfect a decent salmon jump for one of my bodyjam blocks. If you don't know what a salmon jump is, check this fantastic bodyjam demo video. The angle's not great but it's the jump you see at 16-17 seconds in. The guy in orange on the left (who incidentally is Phil Harrison, whom I trained with, and an awesome dancer) does it superbly well. Basically the idea is to arch your back, bring your hips forward and take your feet and arms back. I had not been grasping this at all and just doing a poor imitation where I kind of flicked up my heels to my butt. It looked really lame!! My dance teacher instructed me to forget about the feet - it's all in the hips. Thrust the hips forward, pull the shoulders back. Sound familiar? I thought I was listening to Pavel describing the perfect kettlebell swing. LOL. So I focussed on this movement, and lo and behold, a much nicer looking jump. Not as awesome as Phil's but certainly a vast improvement. When I started looking at my aims for this year fitness wise, I said I wanted to build strength with kettlebells, and also that I wanted to improve my dance technique, but it never occurred to me that the two would actually go hand in hand. But my dance teacher tells me the biggest single improvement to my dancing will be to pull back my shoulders more and get that hip thrust. So kettlebells will most definitely help. Yay for kettlebells!!

On to the training report:

Monday: ETK light day at lunchtime. 8 minutes of swings in a 20secs/40secs work/rest cycle. 13 swings per minute for a total of 104. In the evening I taught combat.

Tuesday: Lunchtime was the aforementioned fantastic dace lesson. In the evening I taught jam.

Wednesday: was feeling tired, run down and a little sniffly, so took a rest day.

Thursday: ETK medium day done at lunchtime. I did 8 minutes of swings in 25/35 - 16 per minute for a total of 128. In the evening I taught jam, including the block with the salmon jump, and was happy with my technique improvement. Yay!

Friday: ETK heavy day. I did my 8 minutes of swings in 30/30 - 20 per minute for a total of 160. That was VERY HARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was really huffing and puffing by the end. My lovely husband helped a lot by encouraging me and counting down my reps as I struggled through.

Tomorrow it is quarterly update time! Combat and jam workshops for the new releases. Awesome, I can't wait!! And Sunday will probably be climbing again.

Next week we are off work - YAAAAAAAAAAAY! but not going away, so will no doubt still get plenty of workouts in. I will have new releases to practice and we will try and get a couple of good climbing sessions in too.

ETK round two: week 1

2010-03-13T18:48:00.005Z

ETK has started again! I am going to try and blog my workouts once a week this time through .....

I'm not doing any snatches this time: I have an overactive trap on my left side and snatches seem to irritate it. I'm trying to remedy it with lots of stretching, and I think that ETK and climbing help too as they strengthen my lats and stop the trap doing more work than it should ... however in the meantime it gets sore after snatches so I am staying away from them. So I'm doing swings every day instead, in a light, medium, heavy pattern. I figure you can never do too many swings, right?! Also, I'm not following the AOS workbook as far as the swing volume goes; I'm doing 1 minute cycles every day with more work and less rest as we go from light to heavy. I'm also aiming to do the same length of time each day so I can make easier comparisons between how many swings I fit in on "medium" and how many on "heavy" in the same period. This is going to result in harder work, as each week I am taking the longest swing time from AOS and doing that time each day. I'm going to wonder why I thought that was a good idea when I hit a 12-minute week ......

For reference I'm using the 10kg for cleans & presses, 16kg for swings and a doorgym with a resistance band to assist for the pull ups.

Anyhow, onto this week's training:

Monday: ETK light day at lunchtime. 6 minutes of swings in a 20secs/40secs work/rest cycle. This gave me 13 swings per minute for a total of 78 swings. Followed by some core and bosu work - I am on a mission to improve my core and balance to help with my dancing :-) In the evening I taught combat - did a mix of oldies and had a rocking session!

Tuesday: My scheduled dance lesson at lunchtime got cancelled, so I just taught jam in the evening.

Wednesday: ETK medium day. I did 6 minutes of swings in 25/35 which was 15 per minute for a total of 90. Followed this with 10 minutes of yoga and some stretching.

Thursday: Taught jam, and then stayed for combat afterwards as a participant.

Friday: ETK heavy day. I did my 6 minutes of swings in 30/30 - 20 per minute for a total of 120. That was HARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then some yoga and stretching.

Saturday: Climbing!!!!!!!!!!! Great session today. I have been trying to do a grade 5 wall for weeks - it's a hard one as it slopes outwards so requires a fair amount of upper body strength, and also there are some big reaches/jumps for a couple of holds. I have tried it about 6 or 7 times and never got past halfway before falling off. Today I managed the whole thing - although it was in stages; i.e. I came off, Dave held me in place with the rope, I pulled myself back on to the wall and carried on. Did it like that twice, so I'm confident that next week I will manage to do it properly in one go. I also climbed my first ever 5+ graded route. YAY ME!!!!!

Sunday: Was planned as a rest day, but I may sneak into the studio for an hour for some jam practice. I rashly asked my class what old blocks they would like to have while we wait for the new releases and they picked two of the hardest ones. D'OH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So some practice is required before next Thursday.

On a side note, I am loving my iphone for fitness apps. I have got the Ultra Timer which is brilliant for swing intervals. You can save all the different cycles - 20/40, 25/35, etc etc - so there's no messing, you just tell it how many minutes and off it goes. It even gives you a round of applause at the end :-) I've also downloaded a couple of yoga apps which are really good; I don't do enough yoga/stretching so am trying to work this in to my training a few times a week, and these apps are great as they enable to me to do a 10 minute programme for flexibility/balance/etc.

All in all a good first week of ETK. I'm apprehensive about increasing the reps over the coming weeks, as I'm finding it hard work pressing the 10kg on my left side. I'm also finding the pull ups hard work. However I will stick with it even if I have to repeat a week or so. I want those strength gains to help with my climbing!!! It's great doing it with my twitter buddies too; very motivating seeing what they are all doing.

A very belated New Year post!

2010-02-06T16:30:00.004Z

I was clearly destined to be an accountant from birth, seeing as how my birthday falls on February 1st. For my non-UK readers, 31 January is the tax return deadline here in the UK, which means that January is always a nightmare for us poor accountants. It doesn't matter how many times I ask my clients to get their stuff to us early, there are always some who leave it until January and so we are running around like mad things to meet the deadline. So New Year's resolutions are never good for me. I did aim to lose the 5 pounds I put on over Christmas in January, but in between running around with work and fighting through several colds, I just haven't exercised or eaten as well as I should.

What I did do, though, was sit down and work out some goals for the year. For the first year that I can remember, my goals are not all about weight loss. Shock! Horror! What is up with that??!! It's fascinating how my focus has shifted in the last year, since I took up kettlebells and climbing. I'm much more interested in what my body can do now, instead of what it looks like. I realised this the other day as I was watching The Biggest Loser US (love that show!) and admiring Jillian Michaels. Whatever you may say about her shocking kettlebell technique, she has an amazing physique and great strength - check her one handed push ups! Anyway, the thought that occurred to me was this: a year ago, if you had offered me the choice of looking like Jillian, or having her strength, I would have gone for the looks. Oh yeah, I wanted that six pack and fabulous upper body definition. And I still do, to an extent - but now ..... now, I'd take the strength and stick to looking how I do now. I don't want to *look* athletic any more, I want to *be* athletic. And if I get a six pack along the way that will be a nice bonus, but if not ... well, that's ok.

So, back to the subject at hand ..... here are my goals for 2010 - yeah I know its late, but its in time for Chinese New Year!!

1) Do two full tactical pull ups.
2) Get my bodyfat below 22% (I know! I said it wasn't about weight loss! and its not really - I'll be happy to put some muscle on, or lose some fat, either way!)
3) Do 10 full, on the toes, push ups (don't ask me why I can't do this already. I should be able to but for some reason I am hopeless at push ups).
4) Press the 12kg kettlebell.
5) Improve my jam and combat technique.

Lots of goals, no? I realised I was in danger of trying to do too many things and achieving none of them, so am breaking it down throughout the year. January was supposed to be about fat loss (!). Didn't get as far as I wanted, but that's ok, it's time to move on and concentrate on strength and some jam technique. So for 8 weeks from February 15th I will be having a weekly one-to-one dance lesson (exciting!) and also joining some of my twitter buddies in another repetition of Enter The Kettlebell. This time through, I will be pressing the 10kg and swinging the 16kg. I will continue to use the resistance band for pull ups, but will change to a wider grip to make them a little harder. I am really happy with the strength gains I got from going through ETK with the lighter bell and am hoping for more of the same. This time through, I am planning on dedicating a whole lot more energy into the programme. Last time, it was kind of on the sidelines. I was trying to lose weight at the same time, and was wanting a high calorie burn, so often ended up doing my ETK workouts on the same day as teaching classes or other cardio. This time, I am concentrating on one goal only: strength gains. I will eat maintenance level calories, so won't need to do cardio every day just so I can eat! and will do no other workouts on medium and heavy days, so that I can really push myself and give it my all. I think this will be a huge challenge for me! But I am relishing it! I'm very happy to be doing this with the support of some lovely ladies: Lillian, Cath, Julie and Sarah. We even have our very own hashtag! #ETKFeb

So - here is my planned schedule for the next 9 weeks (1 week to get warmed up before we start properly!)

Monday: ETK light day workout at lunchtime, teach combat in the evening.
Tuesday: Teach jam.
Wednesday: ETK medium day.
Thursday: Dance lesson at lunchtime, teach jam in the evening.
Friday: ETK heavy day.
Saturday: REST!!!
Sunday: Variety day - climbing, or jam/combat practice, or bike ride, or run.

So watch this space ... I will try to be less sporadic with my blogging and update on my progress! A belated Happy New Year to all my blogging and Twitter buddies. Thank you for all the help, advice and support in 2009!

It's December. How did that happen?

2009-12-08T13:50:00.005Z

It seems like there I was merrily ETK-ing and blogging away and then I had a week out sick and then suddenly a month had passed. WTF? Where did that go? Am I living in some sort of time warp?

So. A catch up is required I guess. I'm going to shamelessly copy my lovely husband and catch up by subheading ...

Kettlebells
Had something of a hiatus after the last post due to various factors - sore neck, week off with stomach bug, etc etc. I will restart ETK proper in January, but for now I am greasing the groove with heavier weights. And oh, boy, it's HARD!!! You wouldn't think that extra couple of kilograms could make that much difference, but it really does. To recap - first time through ETK I was using 8kg for the clean & press, 12kg for the swings, and doing chin ups with an assistance band. My aim for next time is to increase to 10kg for C&P, 16kg for swings, and change to a wide grip for the pull ups. Today's workout was as follows:

C&P/Wide pull up ladder - 3 rungs - 8kg
Swings - 25 secs on, 35 secs rest, for 5 mins - 12kg (80 swings total)
C&P/Wide pull up ladder - 3 rungs - 10kg
Swings - 25/35 for 5 mins - 16kg (80 swings total)
TGU - 1R, 1L - 6kg
C&P/Wide pull up ladder - 3 rungs - 10kg
TGU - 1R, 1L - 8kg.

I'm still struggling with the extra weight. The cleans are fine with the 10kg, but presses on the left get a bit wobbly on rep number 3. And as for the swings with the 16kg .... well I think my form stays good throughout, but I am SMOKED by the end! and that is after only 5 minutes! I think a "medium day" of swings with that weight would have to be something ridiculous like 15 secs work, 45 secs rest! It'll get easier though ... right??!!

Anyway - its progress, of the 2 steps forward 1 back variety, but progress nonetheless. I'm impatient to get stronger, but need to remind myself of how far I've come already - before I started seriously working out with kettlebells (maybe 6 months ago?) I could only press my teeny 6kg and I was swinging with the 8kg. And pull ups were out of the question - now I can just about squeeze out 2 reasonable reps with no assistance. So I am getting there.

Running
Pah. It's too cold. I'll venture back outside in the spring, maybe!

Classes
I've got a new bodyjam class starting from January!!! I'm very excited about it. It's at the same gym as my Monday night combat, and I've already covered that slot many times, so I know the guys there and they seem to like me :-) This means I will now be teaching 3 evenings a week: combat on Monday at 7.00, jam on Tuesday at 5.30 and jam again on Thursday at 6.00. This should fit in well with my schedule as jam is much less upper body work than combat (with all the punching) so I can easily manage a kettlebell workout Tuesday and/or Thursday lunchtimes. Also both jam classes finish early enough to still be able to make plans in the evening. So all good! New releases are due out this week, and Saturday we have quarterly workshops, then studio launch on January 2 - this is good, as it means I won't be able to sit on my arse over Christmas and do no exercise, as I'll have new releases to learn!

Climbing
Been climbing twice more and I'm still really enjoying it. This weekend we went to Fort Purbrook which was fab - not too high and big foam mattresses all round, so no harness necessary. I did manage to fall off a couple of times, which was a little scary, but also kind of fun as you land and roll around on the padding. Haven't done that for many, many years! There's an assault course there too which I've resolved to have a go at in the summer. Which made me a little philosophical ...

When did I become the sort of person who goes "Assault course! WICKED FUN! Let's try it!" ?

Ten years ago I was the sort of person who would have said "Assault course? Yuk! Sounds scary and hard. I might hurt myself or look silly. Let's stay at home and watch tv instead".

I like being this sort of person better. Exercise really has changed my life :-)

Happy happy happy ....

2009-11-07T16:28:00.003Z

... is what I am today!

So I have now attempted the full 5x5 ETK ladders 3 times in total, and I'm happy to report that for the first time today I managed the full 75 reps of everything! WOO HOO! I'm feeling strong!

My plan is to do the same next week and then if I'm happy with my form on next heavy day, I will call it quits. I've still got one more week according to the AOS workbook, but I'm really just using this as a guide and trying to follow Pavel's training regime, so one more week and then onwards and upwards!

What next, kettlebell-wise, I ask myself? Well, boring though it may sound, I want to continue with the basics. So another go through ETK with heavier weights. I'm still working on my form and technique with the basic moves, so I also want to re-incorporate TGUs into my practice. I guess some people do these on "variety days" while doing phase two of ETK, but I haven't been doing any as my non-ETK days tend to be filled with combat, jam, etc etc. So my tentative plan for 3 days of ETK workouts is going to be:

Light day - C & P ladders with 10kg, snatches with 10kg, 5 mins of TGUs with 8kg (hoping to move up to 10 after a few weeks).

Medium day - C & P ladders with 10kg, swings with 16kg. One thing I've decided to do is just one "dice roll" per week as I feel doing the same time for both medium & heavy days makes it easier to track my progress. So whatever number comes out on medium day, I will do the same on heavy but hopefully fit in more swings. Currently for medium I'm doing 35 secs on, 25 off but when I move up from the 12 to the 16 I doubt I will manage this, so will aim for 30:30 to begin with. 5 mins of TGUs to finish.

Heavy day - C & P ladders with 10kg, swings with 16kg, for same length of time as medium but 40:20 split of work to rest.

How does that sound? Opinions welcome :-)

In other news, I had a cracking jam class this morning. I've been a bit at sea with my classes recently, for reasons too long and boring to go into here, but I've been trying to improve my technique and teaching and I think to a certain extent almost been overanalysing myself too much ... Anyway, today was one of those classes where everything just came together, do you know what I mean? I was totally in the zone; everyone in the class had a smile on their face and looked like they were enjoying themselves; I came up with some good cues which not only made them smile but also - miracle of all miracles - ACTUALLY RESULTED IN PEOPLE CHANGING THE WAY THEY WERE MOVING!! I danced my little heart out and had one of those rare moments where I felt as if I had been born to do this. It doesn't happen very often but when it does ... magic :-))

Toughening up

2009-10-28T14:03:00.004Z

On Sunday Dave and I ran the Great South Run. It's a lovely flat 10 mile race around Portsmouth; we did it last year in 1 hr 52 (speedy I am not) and in the thrill of finishing, entered for this year with great plans of doing much training and getting a better time.

And did we? Well. Dave has had knee problems and done no running for most of the year - he has only just started getting back into it (see his blog!). I got distracted by bodyjam training and kettlebells and have been filling my cardio requirements quite nicely, thank you very much, without doing any running at all. I did Race for Life (5km) in July and one 5 mile jog in August, and no running since then. Compared to last year, when we were running 2-3 times a week and did several 8-10 mile runs to prepare us for the distance, we were hopelessly, hopelessly underprepared.

So how did we do? 4 minutes faster than 2008. Faster!! Huh????!!!! I attribute this to two things......

1) My general cardio fitness is much, much improved. So despite the lack of "sports specific" training I had enough in the tank to get me round. I felt the lack of actual running training the next day when my legs refused to work, though :-)

2) I have toughened up! Yes, all this kettlebelling may indeed be turning me into a "man among men" as Pavel would say (woman among women? doesn't have quite the same ring to it!). I was in pain from about mile 6 onwards and I know that given the same circumstances last year, I would have given up and walked. But this time, with lots of encouragement from my lovely husband, I dug deep and plodded on, with just the occasional stop to stretch out my aching piriformis. I have learned that sore muscles will not kill me. I knew that when I got to the end without giving up it would be worth the painful legs and the inability to climb stairs the next day. I am not a quitter!

I guess kettlebell training is toughening up my brain, as well as my hands. Yay :-)

Here we are at the end with Goldie the Hearing Dog:

Climbing!

2009-10-23T16:21:00.008Z

This week Dave and I went indoor climbing for the first time. Well, we had a brief bash at it at The Ultimate High while on our holidays, but not a proper session. We went with our friend and PT Mike who is rather good at it. Dave and I hauled ourselves clumsily up various walls while he swarmed up and down like some sort of monkey on speed.

It was a lot of fun and I would definitely like to go again!

I am so happy and grateful to have discovered the joy of exercise. A few years ago I would never have dreamed of doing something so active for fun! My idea of a good day off would have been sitting zonking in front of the tv all day. I love that I am getting stronger all the time and am able to haul myself up walls and throw big lumps of metal over my head.

Here are Mike and Dave grinning cheesily:

And here am I looking perplexed about where I should be putting my feet next:

So, a great morning off, but what was I thinking arranging it in between ETK medium day and ETK heavy day? On the very first week that I was moving up to 4 and 5 rung ladders???!!!

Wednesday was medium day and I managed my 5 ladders of 4 rungs. I was very pleased with myself when I realised that meant I had done 50 reps. 50 pull ups!! from the girl who not so long ago couldn't even hang from a pull up bar let alone haul herself up!!! OK so I'm still doing them with a resistance band, and they are chin ups rather than proper tactical pull ups as all we have to do them on is a Doorgym - but still. That's a major achievement for me.

Thursday was climbing as I've already mentioned, and by the end of that my shoulders, fingers and wrists were oh so very tired.

And today, Friday, was heavy day. Great planning, Beth! Under normal circumstances I would have saved the workout until Saturday, but Dave and I are doing the 10-mile Great South Run on Sunday so really wanted to have a proper full rest day Saturday. So, we ploughed on with an attempt at heavy day. Oh wow, but that was hard. Everything hurt. You know you're in trouble when rung 2 of ladder 1 feels like hard work! I didn't manage the full lot - my muscles failed me on the pull ups. I did manage all of the clean & presses though. Here's what my ladders looked like:

1) C&P 1,2,3,4,5 Pull ups 1,2,3,4,5
2) C&P 1,2,3,4,5 Pull ups 1,2,3,4,4
3) C&P 1,2,3,4,5 Pull ups 1,2,3,4,3
4) C&P 1,2,3,4,5 Pull ups 1,2,3,4,3
5) C&P 1,2,3,4,5 Pull ups 1,2,3,3,3

Just couldn't keep up those pull up reps at the end. However, I'm pretty encouraged with that. That's 67 pull ups! The day after climbing! I'm reasonably optimistic that I'll get up to the full 5 x 5 within the next week or so.

..... Which brings me on to the question: what then? The AOS workbook advocates doing about 5 weeks of the same ladders. But Pavel, if I am reading ETK correctly, basically seems to say, as soon as you can do 5 x 5, move up to a heavier weight and start again at 3 x 3. Which to do? I'm tempted to say that once I've done 2 weeks of 5 x 5 with good form, I'll start again from the beginning using the 10 kg for presses and the 16 kg for swings (eeeeek!!). What do my HKC/RKC friends think? Does that count as completing the ROP or do I need to stick to the letter of the AOS workbook and do the same reps for longer before moving up? Any advice gratefully received :-)

In the meantime, I'm off to start my pre-race rest with a long hot bath and a glass of wine. Laters!

I'm starting to realise why I don't stick to exercise programmes .....

2009-10-07T17:22:00.002Z

Great tweet from Sandy Sommer caught my attention this week:

"Stop being distracted by shiny objects when you train. Stick with a program long enough to see the benefit from it when training."

This was SO me! Until I started ETK I had never managed to stick with any sort of strength training programme for more than about a week or so. (Although I've always stuck to doing my combat, jam and martial arts classes as I enjoy them). But weights/strength programmes? Oh no. You name it, I have tried it: Afterburn, Turbulence Training, Body for Life, several programmes written for me by an excellent PT, and stuck at none of them. I think there have been three main reasons for this:

1) They were boring. BORING. B. O. R. I. N. G. I do not enjoy lifting weights or using machines in the gym. So many reps, rest for a minute, so many more .... yuk. Just not my thing.

2) Some of them were less boring, but just not practical in my small and overcrowded gym: anything that proposed supersets of, say, a lat pull down and a chest press just wasn't gonna happen: as soon as you vacated a machine or bench someone else would grab it and be there for 10 minutes.

3) Lack of TIME! Dog walks, teaching bodycombat, training for bodycombat, teaching bodyjam, practising bodyjam, martial arts, running, cycling .... I do all of these things, and enjoy them, and it doesn't leave a whole lot of time for strength training.

HOWEVER I appear to have turned a corner. I am now of week 7 of ETK! Seven!!! I have resisted the lure of shiny things! Yes, I missed a week when on holiday, but I got straight back into it when we got back. I love kettlebells. They have dispatched reasons (1) and (2) for falling by the wayside. I actually enjoy the workouts. Throwing a kettlebell around at home with my husband and my choice of music on the stereo is a lot more fun than competing for bench space with muscleheads in the gym with their god-awful music pumping out. It's not boring. I can see recognisable strength gains in the short time I've been doing it, and that in itself is hugely motivating. It's very empowering to fling a kettlebell up over my head. OK, so my snatch form still needs work, and quite often is clunky, but when you (occasionally!) get it just right and it flows, its like poetry in motion and it feels GREAT!

This last fortnight has reminded me about reason (3) though - which is still applying! After getting back from holiday I rashly agreed to launch the new bodyjam release on Saturday which meant last week was taken up with many, many, oh so very many, jam practices. I ended up fitting in my heavy day ETK workout straight after the launch on Saturday. This week is worse if anything: I have new combat to learn before Monday and I am away at Fitness Fiesta this weekend with friends: 3 days of exercise classes! But I am still staying on course with ETK even though it means I will be doing my heavy day on Friday morning, before heading off for the weekend and doing, err, 3 classes Friday afternoon. How is that for dedication. I'm quite impressed with myself :-)

Oh and in case you're wondering, the holiday was FAB, we went for a couple of bike rides, went to The Ultimate High for a fantastic high ropes and climbing wall extravaganza (no kettlebells needed that day, oh boy was that a hard upper body workout!) and generally chilled out.

Next week I'll be starting week 8 of ETK and I must say I'm a little nervous about increasing the rungs on my ladders to 4. I'm already struggling with the 3rd pull up on ladders 4 and 5. I'm not sure I can manage 4 reps, which is a little frustrating as I'd like to progress (patience has never been my strong point!). I will follow Pavel's advice and just add an extra rung on one or two ladders to begin with if that is all I can manage. I'm starting to think that weeks 8-12 might turn into more like 8-20 if I don't manage to improve my reps more quickly than I think!!

ETK and combat update

2009-09-08T13:10:00.011Z

OK this could be a long one ....

First, an update on my Les Mills packed weekend. If you're not interested in Les Mills stuff, skip onto the kettlebells below the photo .......

The combat technique day was fantastic. Meeting Rach was just brilliant; she is such an inspiration for me and in the flesh turned out to not only be just as fit and fabulous looking as she seems, but also really friendly, approachable and just lovely! Straight off at the start of the day we had to teach a track and get feedback from her. EEEEEK!!! It was a little scary, but a fantastic thing to be able to do. My feedback was mostly positive - she didn't say anything about my technique, which I'm taking as a good thing, just that my teaching style was a little too "cheerleader" - lots of fun but neglecting the darker, "grrrrrr" side of combat. I know she's right; I think I used to be a little more grrrrrr, but since I've started teaching jam I've found it hard to switch over from happy smiley jam mode to fighter mode for combat. We had a really useful discussion about how to get "into the zone" for the class you're teaching - lots of good stuff I can implement. Then we spent the rest of the day doing some pretty intense drills on a variety of martial arts - karate, capoeira, TKD (that one suited me lol and I even got to count everyone as I knew the Korean!) and kickboxing. I made the mistake of teaming up with Paul (the marine!!) for the kickboxing padwork. He didn't hold back! I was battered!! Fun though :-) At the end of the day we got to present again and I got some more feedback, yes I was doing better with the grrrr but still smiling too much! Plus some minor technical pointers. All good. I think I have got into the habit of thinking that I must always smile when I make eye contact with the class, but there are other ways to connect with them - needs some work! But overall, it was a fantastic day and I learned a lot.

The other great part of the day was meeting so many lovely people. I met up with some combat guys I knew from Twitter, and best of all I bumped into Helen my old combat instructor. She used to teach a class at LA Fitness about 4 years ago and I was a regular there, we were quite friendly but around the time she left my granny died, so I was a bit all over the place and never got her contact details. I've thought about her lots since I did my combat training, as she was a real inspiration to me and motivated me to think of training, but I had no way of getting in touch with her. Anyway I walked into the cafe at the course and there she was! It was great - much squealing and hugging (in a very non-grrrrrr way!) ensued.

So on to Sunday: the quarterlies (still not on kettlebells, skip ahead again!). What an amazing day. I got to see loads of guys to catch up with and did jam (awesome), step (meh), pump (double meh), RPM (fab) and combat (double fab!!). Once again Rach was totally inspirational presenting both jam and combat. If I can ever move half as crisply, cleanly and gracefully as her I will be a happy bunny. Here is a pic of my with her after combat - check out those ABS!!

So all in all a fab, if exhausting, weekend :-)

Now finally to kettlebelling! I didn't manage to complete week 4 of ETK. I did the first 50-swing workout, but the end of the week was crazy: Thursday I taught jam and combat back to back, Friday was the combat technique intensive, Saturday I could barely move, and Sunday was the Super Quarterly. I think even Pavel would have struggled to fit in the other ETK workouts on top of all that lot :-) I know you're not supposed to progress until you've completed a week, but I'm happy with my swing form and my conditioning, so I'm going to continue. I'm really excited to be moving on to the Rite of Passage section!

Lunchtime today was the first ROP workout. I used the 8 kg kettlebell following advice from RKC people (thank you guys!) and it was definitely the right decision. I tried pressing the 10 kg at the end of the ladders just for kicks and couldn't get it up at all on my left side! The 8 kg does feel a little too easy on the cleans, but right for the presses. So I will stick with that and hope to progress to the 10 kg next time I go through the programme. For the pull ups, I'm using my doorgym and a 1" superband to give me some assistance. Seems about right for me at the moment, as I was finding the 3rd rung hard, but do-able. I followed the ladders with 100 snatches, still with the 8kg, sets of 20 with a minutes rest. I'm feeling the urge to have a go at a snatch test soon (what has happened to me??!!) and feel reasonably confident I could manage the 100 snatches in 5 minutes when fresh - albeit with the 8 kg which is only 2/3 of my RKC standard weight! But we all have to start somewhere, right?!

My arms and shoulders are now feeling pleasantly achey and I'm happy to be back on track with ETK :-)

ETK week 3 report

2009-09-01T12:28:00.008Z

I can't believe I got to the end of week 3 .... this is pretty good going for me, people! I have a bad habit of starting programmes and getting bored after a couple of weeks and ditching them! Not so with ETK - although I am starting to dread the workouts as the swing sets get ever longer, I'm also finding it strangely addictive and already looking forward to repeating it with a heavier bell.

So - here was my week ...

Monday: combat teaching.

Tuesday I had a combat technique session in the morning, then taught jam, came home and did my ETK workout. This took a fair amount of willpower as I was tired ... but determined! Succeeded with the 40 swing sets. Wow - they were hard going though. My heart rate got up into its top reaches and I found all I could do for recoveries to let it come down again was walking or very gentle jogging on the spot. No TGU practice but a well earned stretch and bath after that.

Wednesday I had a rest day; Thursday I taught both jam and combat, so was having to squeeze the rest of my ETK workouts in over the weekend ...

Friday I did the second swing workout and this time followed with the TGUs, 3 sets each side with the 8kg, 1 with the 6kg.

Saturday I taught jam and then came home to complete my final TGU workout for the week. This time Dave offered to spot me so I had a bash with a 10kg. Managed one each side with this which I was very chuffed with, then 3 with the 8kg. I'm very happy to be seeing some real improvements with these, bearing in mind three weeks ago I could barely manage one rep with the 6kg - I'm definitely getting stronger :-)))

Sunday it was combat teaching again and Monday, which was a bank holiday, I took another rest day and spent the whole day vegging on the sofa with the PS3 and a good book. It was bliss!

This week it is going to be a real struggle to complete week 4. I was hoping to do my swings at lunchtime today, but have been suffering with a dodgy stomach all morning (my own fault for consuming vast amounts of junk during my sofa day yesterday!). So lunchtime consisted of chicken noodle soup and no kettlebells. I will hopefully do the swings this evening after I teach jam. If I'm going to complete week 4, I will then have to do the second swing workout tomorrow, and squeeze in the TGUs somwhere as the rest of the week is totally hectic. Thursday I teach jam and combat; Friday I have my technique intensive course, 7 hours of combat (the starting point for my whole 6 week challenge!); Saturday I will definitely need a rest day; and Sunday I have quarterly workshops - 6 classes to do. So ETK is getting squeezed into the gaps - not ideal but I will do my best to complete it as I'm excited about moving forward to the Rite of Passage section and really don't want to have to repeat this week.

On that subject, I could do with some advice from my kettlebelling friends, please. Pavel says to start the Clean & Press ladders with a weight you can press 5-8 times. I had a go at pressing the 10kg today and could only manage 4 times on the left, although more on the right. So really I guess I should be starting with the 8kg? But I would prefer to go heavier, as I feel the cleans will be too easy with the 8kg. Also, the 10kg is actually easier to clean as its a bigger bell and fits better into my arm in the racked position. Any advice, people who have done ETK before?

Assuming I manage to complete this week, I will be starting week 2 of the Rite of Passage when we go on holiday, So I'm going to have to convince Dave to let me pack the 8kg/10kg bell for C & P, the 12kg for swings, our pull up bar and my band for assisted pull ups. He's going to be so thrilled .... :-)

ETK Week 2 report

2009-08-23T15:56:00.003Z

An up and down week.

Monday - did my first ETK workout of the week, graduating to sets of 30 swings. HARD! Am dreading the increase to 40 and 50! The bit of me that actually hurts most towards the end is my fingers, wrists and forearms. Damn my pathetic weak grip. I suppose it can only improve :-)

Once again I did the TGU workout straight after. This time I managed two reps on each side with the 8kg, before dropping down to the 6 for another 2 reps. It's definitely the shoulder that's holding me back. Towards the end I find it hard to keep the elbow locked out. Still it's good that I've managed to up the weight a little so I shall keep working at it.

The downer was that towards the end of the swings my right knee started to get a stabbing pain in the kneecap every time I bent my knees at the bottom of the swing. Not good. I completed the workout, and taught combat in the evening, but it continued to niggle me all day Tuesday and Wednesday. It's my own fault; I have minor knee twinges due to tight ITB and piriformis - I keep it under control with physio exercises and stretches, but had been neglecting both of these recently. Why do I find it so hard to stick to my physio plan? I mean, if someone said to me "spend 15 minutes 4 times a week doing really boring exercises and stretches, and you won't get any more knee pain" I would say, well of course I will. It's a no brainer. But the days and weeks come and go and I'm busy trying to fit in combat, jam, kettlebells, runs, bike rides and the physio and stretching gets neglected. MUST DO BETTER!

The knee seemed to recover by Thursday, and indeed I taught back to back jam and combat Thursday evening with no ill effects so thought I was good to go with ETK workout number 2 on Friday. However after doing Pavel's prescribed warm up I got 10 swings in and straight away the knee pain kicked in. I decided to ditch the workout rather than make it worse and stropped around the house in a major grump at my stupid body not doing as it was told. I was really gutted as I wanted to stick to this programme, and as Dave is doing it with me I didn't want to have to repeat a week and get left behind. However I pulled myself together, collected my toys back into my pram, and did my physio exercises and then did some of the clean & press practice drills Pavel recommends. They definitely helped my technique (although its still not great!). Will try and practice some more over the next two weeks so I'm ready to progress to the next phase of ETK when I get there.

Friday I had a massage, and Jan gave my legs a good going over, which helped a lot. I taught combat Saturday and did some jam practice this morning all with no knee pain, so when I got home I thought I would have another go at swings in a last ditch attempt to complete Week 2. Happily, the knee held up ok. Yay! Once again the fingers and forearms were the weak link. I'm concerned how they are going to manage on sets of 40 swings. I fear they may just give out and drop the bell at some point! Perhaps it may be wise to train outside as I move up the reps so as not to put a kettlebell through a wall :-) I did the same TGUs as Monday as well, and then spent half an hour doing my physio exercises and a really good stretch, including a VERY painful ITB stretch over the roller. Ouch ouch ouch. I expect to see Jack Bauer using that torture technique on terror suspects soon. It HURTS!

By the way in case you're wondering why I've gone so very quiet about the weekly weigh ins its because basically nothing has shifted since I started this 6 week challenge, err, 4 weeks ago. The scales reckon since the start I have lost 0.8lbs of fat and gained 0.47lbs of muscle. Marvellous! It's the eating that's letting me down, I know. I'm reasonably healthy about 70% of the time but the rest ..... I go out for meals at least once a week and always, always order something with fries. I eat chocolate. I eat bagels with butter. I drink wine. I'm keeping my overall calories to maintainance level, but I'm not eating clean enough and not creating enough deficit to lose much fat. I have to say though: I'm not too bothered at this point. I'm a healthy weight, my BMI is 20.3, my bodyfat is 27% if you believe the scales or 22% if you believe the Accumeasure - I suspect the "real" figure is somewhere in between the two around 24-25. So I'm going to keep concentrating on my exercise plan and as long as I don't put weight ON, not worry too much about the eating at this point. I'm all about the getting stronger at the moment, people. I want to be doing pull ups and throwing bloody great lumps of iron around. Rah!!

ETK week 1 report

2009-08-14T16:31:00.004Z

So this was the first week of ETK. I started it Monday, and in my blissful ignorance I wondered about skipping the first couple of weeks, on the basis that (a) my cardio and general fitness is pretty damn good and (b) I had already been kettlebelling for a while. Ha! After 12 minutes of 20 swings, 1 min recovery I was gasping for air and wondering how the hell people who have never picked up a kettlebell before go straight into this programme. To be fair, I think I was not really recovering properly- I was finding the 1 minutes intervals harder than the swings at some points. Having re-read the workbook I realised that I'm used to going all out on exercises like jumping jacks and mountain climbers, so really wasn't recovering properly. Of course the whole point is to get perfect technique on the swings and work hard at those; the in-betweens should actually get my heart rate down, not up! Well, duh, I know it's obvious :-) Anyway - I did the workout again today and really made the effort to hold back in the recovery periods and watch my HRM to ensure my heart rate dropped. Much better. Still found the last couple of sets of swings hard going, but was happy with my form and technique. I'm using the 12 kg, and while I can manage swings with the 16, I don't feel ready to move up to this yet for the number of reps I'm doing. My plan is to repeat the whole programme with the 16kg in the future when I'm stronger.

Then it was onto TGUs. Now these are supposed to be done on different days, but due to my hectic exercise schedule (since last Friday, as well as the ETK workouts: 2 half day bike rides, 2 classes taught, 1 run, 2 hours of combat/jam practice and plyo drills) this is just not practical for me. In amongst that hectic schedule I have no desire to spend 10 minutes warming up just for 5 minutes of TGUs. So have been decided to do these straight after the swings. Anyway, I started off on Monday with several naked ones as I've struggled with these. But I seem to have improved so went on to use the baby 6kg kettlebell. Today, I used the 6kg for the full 5 minutes. Dave and I watched each other do our first 2 reps so we could critique each others technique and happily he seemed to think mine was ok. Yay! Next week I will have a go at going up to the 8kg. I think the shoulder stability is what's holding me back rather than core strength. Towards the end of the 5 minutes I was finding it hard to keep my elbow locked out and really feeling it in my shoulders. Mind you, on Tuesday after the first workout my obliques were killing me - it hurt to breathe! - so obviously they were working too!

All in all I'm very happy with my first week of ETK and looking forward to the challenge of week 2 :-)

Kettlebells and Kallipers

2009-08-03T12:50:00.007Z

This may be a lengthy one ....

First off, workouts. I'm doing well at sticking to plan so far this week. Saturday I did a short and sweet kettlebell workout, just trying to concentrate on my technique for swings and snatches. My snatches were pretty dreadful. I have quite weak and tiny wrists (can get my thumb and little finger to meet around them!) and am really struggling both with my grip strength and with keeping the wrist straight. To the extent that at one point I didn't manage to lock out my arm enough and smacked myself on the back of the head with the bell. NOT good. Fortunately my lovely hubby got home at this point and helped me with my technique. Turns out I was trying to "punch through the bell" straight up into the air instead of slightly forward. This meant the bell was going too far back and almost pulling me over backwards. I adjusted slightly to start punching at an angle, and lo! instant improvement! Sadly by this point my arms and wrists were too tired to go on much longer, but I was at least heartened by the breakthrough. Then went off for a 5.7 mile run; thought it would feel hard on the legs after the swings, but it was actually ok. Was pouring with rain and I got drenched but at least it was nice and quiet, no picnickers!

Sunday I taught combat and then had a good stretch and sauna. Today it was kettlebells at lunchtime and teaching combat tonight. I rashly decided to copy kravmascara's workout idea and did the following:

100 swings - 12kg
100 cleans (50L, 50R) - 10kg
100 swings - 16kg
100 presses (50L, 50R) - 8 kg

Boy was that hard work! Did the whole lot using OH's Gymboss to mark 35:25 intervals, 35 secs work, 25 secs rest. I just wish I could get stronger and stop using such wussy little weights - I'd really like to kiss goodbye to the single digit kettlebells soon. Everyone tells me that Enter The Kettlebell gets you strong fairly quickly, so I'm looking forward to getting started on that when it arrives. If only so I don't have to lug so many different bells out into the garden when I'm working out!

Secondly, the callipers. Well, I have been measuring my bodyfat on my Omron scales, which I know is notoriously unreliable. These ones are supposed to be better than most, as they have a hand held part as well as the bit you stand on, but still. I have been wanting to get tested with callipers as I hoped this would be accurate, and lets be honest too, I was hoping for a lower reading than the scales!! So our friend who is a PT came over and I asked him to measure me. He apparently has had some training doing the measuring, but doesn't have his own set of callipers, so we used my Accu-Measure ones. He did 4 sites - the Durnin-Womersley method according to the very helpful Laura - and when we added up all the numbers and put it into the table it came out at 28.6%. I was pretty gutted, to be honest, as I was hoping for a lower reading than the scales and certainly better than that! Anyway having had very helpful advice from my Twitter friends and done a bit of research I have come to the conclusion that (a) I had just taught combat so it wasn't the best time to do it, (b) this method doesn't seem to get such good results and (c) I'm not even sure if you're supposed to use the Accu-Measure callipers for other measurements, if you see what I mean?

Anyway, I then measured myself using the Accu-Measure guide, which is only one site but according to various research seems to be as accurate as anything else, and that came out at 25.1%. A little more respectable.

What conclusion am I drawing from all this waffle? Well despite my tendencies to be, errr, a little obsessive/competitive/anal about these things (blame my parents and private school education!!) I am just going to have to accept that the numbers are never going to be that accurate and I should just use my scales and concentrate on getting that number to go down, rather than worrying about what it actually is. Which as OH will no doubt remind me, he has been telling me for weeks :-)

Weigh in .... perplexing

2009-08-01T10:57:00.003Z

So here was this morning's official weigh in:

Weight: 118.6lbs (up 0.6lbs)
Bodyfat: 26.1% (down 1.7%) = 30.95lbs (down 1.85lbs)
Muscle: 30.8% (up 1.3%) = 36.53lbs (up 1.72lbs)

In theory this looks fab as it's exactly what I'm aiming for, to build some muscle and lose some fat, but I'm a little sceptical about such good results so quickly! and wondering if they are being skewed by the (ahem) 5 glasses of wine I had last night, making me dehydrated? So I'm reserving judgement on this until next week's weigh in. If the numbers stay the same then I shall be most happy, as I'm aiming for under 25% bodyfat and this would be a very good start.

After being inspired by Laura I ordered Enter The Kettlebell yesterday. I also ordered some resistance bands to help me with assisted pull ups. I think it's a good time for me to start ETK; I've been doing ok on my own with my own routines, but it feels like I'm getting to a point where I need a more structured kettlebell programme. I hear it's HAAAAAAAAAARD! but hey, I like a challenge :-)

Plan for week 2

2009-07-31T12:34:00.003Z

So, week 1 of my challenge done; well not really a whole week as I didn't start until Monday, but I like to have my weigh in and start of week on a Saturday, so am having a short week 1.

I stuck to plan, mostly, except that I decided to swap tomorrow's rest day to today, as I'm feeling rather tired. Probably because last night's jam class was an 8.15 timeslot: I don't really like teaching so late as I get home at 9.45 too hungry and buzzing from teaching to get a good night's sleep. In fact, think I will stick to Fridays as a rest day for the next few weeks as it seems to fit in well with my weekly routine.

So here is the plan for week 2:

Saturday: Run, kettlebells
Sunday: Teach combat
Monday: Kettlebells, teach combat
Tuesday: Practice new jam routine & teach jam (old routine! head may explode!)
Wednesday: Run, kettlebells
Thursday: Combat technique session, jam.
Friday: Rest day and massage (mmmmmmmmm)

Will have my official weigh in tomorrow morning and update then ......

TGUs with canned goods

2009-07-29T13:50:00.002Z

All good on the workout front since the last post, sticking to plan (mostly). I taught combat Monday night, but swapped Tuesday's planned combat technique session for some extra jam. I am loving teaching jam, but it is so much harder to learn than combat - not helped by each release having completely different moves and styles of dance, so every time I am learning a new block of choreography I have to watch the "dance school" tips on the dvd and break it all down, video myself, and practice some more. Plus the actual choreography is much more complex than combat. Anyway, I digress.

Today's plan was kettlebells and a run and I really didn't feel like doing either as I was pretty drained today thanks to a lousy night's sleep last night. However, the GSR is looming so I dragged myself out for a 5 mile run. Well, jog, to be strictly accurate: I am not what you would call speedy. That done, I was all set to collapse in small heap and eat lunch, but Dave rightly pointed out to me that if I didn't do my kettlebells now I would not end up doing them later. Oh, how I hate it when he's right :-) So I copied him and did the devilish 666 workout: 6 swings, 6 cleans, 6 snatches each side, repeat 6 times. I started off with a 10kg for everything but had to drop down to an 8 for the last 3 sets of snatches. They feel a little too easy now with the 8 to be honest, but soooo hard with the 10! What is that all about?! With the 10 being a competition bell it is much bigger, so one problem is that if I don't stay strong and punch through the bell at the top to lock out the elbow I end up almost hitting myself in the back of the head. Not good.

After the 666 Dave suggested I finish off with some windmills and TGUs. I did 6 windmills on each side with the 6kg, which I was happy with as I've never really done these before. Then onto TGUs. I'm still working on my technique for these and am not up to doing them with a kettlebell yet. I keep meaning to, ahem, borrow a 3 kg dumbbell from the gym to use as a stepping stone. Anyway for today I decided to use a tin, just to get used to holding *something* while doing the TGU, and the first thing to hand was a tin of lobster bisque. I wonder if anyone has ever done TGUs with lobster before?! (Please note, we are not usually the sort of people who would possess a tin of lobster bisque. It was part of our tin wedding anniversary present from my mum!). Those were successful, so Dave suggested balancing something on my fist and getting up with that. For this we used a tin of Assam tea (again, from my mum!) on the grounds that it was light enough not to do me any damage when it inevitably fell off onto my head. But, actually, it didn't! It stayed in place for a TGU on each side. I was pretty pleased with myself!

Glad to have got my workouts out of the way now; when Dave goes to the gym tonight I shall be able to put my feet up with a glass of wine and watch Dollhouse :-)

Monday kettlebell workout

2009-07-27T13:16:00.002Z

Today's workout:

10 reps of each, repeated twice. Numbers are weights used on first and second sets:

Double hand swings 12/16
Single hand swings 12/12
High pulls 10/10
Roundabout 16/16
Figure of 8s to a hold 12/12
Sumo squats 24/32
Snatches 10/10
Vertical thrusters 12/12
Single leg deadlift 16/16
Renegade Rows 2x8/2x10
Chest press 2x8/2x8
Farmers Walk 8/8
Stability ball jack kinfe

Pleased with progress in some areas - for example, the first time I tried to snatch my 10kg I couldn't even manage one! now reasonably happy doing sets of 10. I feel I am struggling with my single hand swings though - can do doubles with the 16 reasonably well but only manage a few single hand ones before my arms give out. Guess this means I am not using my legs/hips enough? The down side of working out at home is no mirrors, so hard to tell if my form is good. Must try videoing myself sometime soon ....

Weigh in & plan for week

2009-07-27T08:08:00.004Z

OK here we go - as expected I managed to put on 2lbs over the weekend!! Sure some of it is just water retention as although I did pig out I'm sure I didn't eat 7000 calories over maintenence!

Weight: 118lbs
Bodyfat: 27.8% (32.8lbs)
Muscle: 29.5% (34.8lbs)

Plan for week:

Monday: Kettlebell session, teach combat
Tuesday: Combat technique session, teach jam
Wednesday: Run, kettlebell session
Thursday: Jam & combat (as participant)
Friday: Run, kettlebell session

We are out for dinner Wednesday and Friday, so sticking to calories will be a challenge! But nutrition is my downfall so really must make the effort to do better there!

Fluffie Bunnie Blog lives again

2009-07-26T16:19:00.003Z

I have decided to resurrect this blog temporarily, to keep track of my 6 week challenge.

So here's the deal. In just under 6 weeks (Sept 4th) I am booked onto a bodycombat technique intensive course with the one and only Rachael Cohen. Rachael is my absolute role model in terms of fitness, figure and of course her awesome technique for both combat and jam. So I want to be strong, lean and super fit by the time I get to meet her :-) I figure this will be excellent motivation for the next 6 weeks!

I have just come off a 6 week challenge where I threw myself into doing proper regular kettlebell training, and I'm very happy with the results. I lost 4 lbs of fat and got my bodyfat % down to 27.1% (according to my KaradaScan scales). I feel stronger, leaner and more toned than when I started. Kettlebells rule!

We've had a weekend of drunken debauchery and junk food with our anniversary celebrations, so I'm ready to get back to a healthy regime tomorrow. I don't need to lose weight as such, BMI is now bang on 20, but would like to build some muscle and lean out a bit. Ultimately I'd like to be able to wear cropped tops to teach in, without everything wobbling when I jump around!!

Anyway .... here are my goals for the next 6 weeks:

1) Get my bodyfat down to 25%. Will do this by tracking calories on WLR and sticking to exercise regime as outlined below.

2) Have one session per week working on my combat technique (kicking, punching, plyos)

3) Have 3 kettlebell sessions per week and continue working on getting stronger and increasing my weights (my shiny new pink 10kgs which lovely OH got me as anniversary pressie will be useful here!)

4) At least 2 runs per week - also have Great South Run on the horizon in October and probably ought to get in some training at some point!

5) Have at least 3 other cardio sessions per week which will be easily covered by teaching classes.

Will report back tomorrow with official starting weigh in (suspect will be a pound or so up on Fridays due to excesses of weekend!) and my training plan for the week.

Dinosaurs on my desk!

2007-06-25T21:18:00.000Z

Here are the dinosaurs complete with their faces! They are happily sitting on top of my monitor. It's kind of cool to look up from boring accounts and tax returns and see funky dinosaurs :-)

Cool huh? You can't say you never get quality material in this blog.

And today's award for sheer fuckwittery.....

2007-06-25T21:12:00.000Z

.... goes to me!

I got into the studio tonight to teach my combat class, plugged in the mike, nothing. I checked the batteries, wiggled the lead, said "testing, testing" many times and still nothing. So I resigned myself to no mike and nearly killed myself shouting over the music. At the end I had another look to try and work out what was wrong. Turned out......the mute button was on.

DOH!!!!!

Yes, I'm still alive .....

2007-06-24T20:07:00.000Z

.... just lazy arsed. As usual. I always feel like I have to come on here and apologise for not blogging for ages. It's been so long this time, I did wonder whether to continue with this blog...but then I decided, I do actually enjoy having it, when I feel like updating it. So, I'm just going to resign myself to the fact that I'm sporadic. I'm embracing my inner lazy blogger.

New and exciting things have happened in Fluffie Bunnie land since the last entry. We are growing vegetables. Dave decided we should have a vegetable patch in our garden. I was dubious at first (gardening = hard work = bad idea) but then I came round to the idea (handily, once Dave had done all the backbreaking digging out part. Hee hee. Timing is everything). Anyway, we planted potatoes and carrots and beans and lettuces and radishes and parsnips and I started to get quite excited about the prospect of picking our dinner out of the garden. How cool to pick your own salad just before dinner! Huh. So far, here is a summary of our vegetable progress:

1) The lettuces have all been eaten. We're not sure what by, but if I get my hands on those slugs/birds/caterpillars I will make them regret it. Greedy fuckers.

2) The beans are growing like mad bastards. I think they are magic beans.

3) The potatoes are also growing nicely and yesterday we manged to harvest two of them. Two! Of our very own home grown potatoes! Today we boiled them for about 40 minutes and they were still rock solid. We have somehow managed to breed a genetically mutated, impossible to cook, potato.

4) The radishes were only planted because the old guy next door gave us some seeds. Neither of us actually *like* radishes. Needless to say, they are the most flourishing plant in the entire garden. They are huge. We are going to have a bumper crop. Anyone want some radishes?

So in short, this summer we will mostly be eating raw potatoes, with vast amounts of beans and radishes. Yum.

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My great aunt died and very kindly left me some money. Yay. As if by magic, finding out about this coincided with the announcement of UFC 75 in London in September. It was a sign, I tell you! What else is a girl to do but spend some of that unexpected windfall on UFC tickets? Not that we went mad and got expensive seats again, you understand. We didn't really spend more than last time on ringside seats. In the 4th row. Oh no, that would have been mad and extravagant.

4 rows away from Rampage Jackson and Mirko Cro Cop! HAAAAAAAA! If Broke & Angry is still reading this blog, he will be mad jealous :-)

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Today, as well as the raw potatoes, I was cooking.....

..... dinosaurs! A few months ago I spotted a "Make your own dinosaurs" kit in a shop. Aimed at 8 year olds, but I've always been a sucker for dinosaurs so I had to have it. Turns out that rainy afternoons in June present the ideal opportunity to make your own dinosaurs. You have to cook them in the oven when you're done to harden them. Now all I have to do is draw little faces on them. Oh don't worry, you'll get photos of the finished results :-)

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Body combat stuff is going great. I have been given my own regular class at my regular gym! Which is handy, to say the least. Monday nights at 7. Have taught it twice and it seems to be going ok. The new release is really cool, which helps. We had a minor technical hitch this week though: the mike in the studio is on the same frequency as the one in the spin room upstairs, next to the gym. Turns out that the spin system was left on and everyone in the gym was getting the benefit of my voice being belted out to them for the entire class. How embarrassing.

And with that, I'm signing off and going downstairs to watch the Ultimate Fighter 5 finale. Go Manny!

World's slackest blogger

2007-05-22T20:25:00.000Z

Yep, that's me. Dunno why but I seem to have had nothing interesting to say recently. (No change there then, I hear you all say).

I think I've just felt a bit flat since I got back from the last day of my body combat training. (Which I passed, by the way.) Hence the lack of blogging motivation.

Why the flatness? I think I was just looking forward to the training and planning for the training and generally crazily obsessing about the training for so long that once it was over it seemed like kind of an anticlimax. Also, I kind of came away feeling crapper about teaching than when I got there. I'd been quite happy teaching a few classes and just getting on with it, but on the course it was all about cueing and scripting and correcting technique and so on and so on....you got the impression that as an instructor you had to more or less talk non stop throughout the entire class without pausing for breath! So I felt kind of freaked about going forward and looking for classes and doing my video (which I need to do to get my final certification). But a week on, I think I'm over it. I realised that in all the combat classes I've gone to, none of the instructors actually *do* all the stuff they tell you on the course. Mostly, there's just not enough time. When I practiced my track before my course for instance - I had all these great cues planned out to get everyone's roundhouse kicks right - then Lee was doing everything on the wrong side, and by the time I'd told him and got him turned round we'd moved on the the next bit and my nicely planned script had gone out of the window.

So, anyway, I'm looking on the video as kind of like passing a driving test. You know, you have to do all the correct things and tick all the right boxes, but once you've passed you do it all completely differently. He he. So, I'm chilling out a bit more. I should have a class to cover on June 9, and I'm hassling the co-ordinator at my gym to give me a regular slot when the new timetable comes out in July. That would be cool. I'm going to phone round some of the other local gyms too this week, and get my name on the cover list. I have got my enthusiasm back!

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Aside from body combat, which anyone still reading must be heartily sick of hearing about (I know Dave is!) we have had quite a nice chilled week since the training. We took a day off last week and went to Marwell Zoo. I had really good intentions of looking at other animals this time and NOT spending all our time with the big cats, but they're just too cool and we ended up taking a billion photos of leopards again. You can see them here if you've nothing better to do. Here is one of the better ones:

Snow leopards are sooooooooooo gorgeous.

******************************

Anyway, that's it for today, I'm off to watch Heroes in bed. Is anyone else really addicted to that show?

I think, therefore I blog

2007-05-05T14:25:00.000Z

I was awarded a Thinking Blogger Award by Broke & Angry!

For some insane reason he nominated my blog as one that makes him think. Ha! Makes him think about UFC, I think, not like the meaning of life or anything. Anyway, thanks, B & A!

So, apparently how this works is:

1) If you are tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.

2) Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

3) Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award'.

So now I have to nominate 5 blogs which make me think. Which should be fun as I have quite a few blogs that I read and love.

1) Skwigg. This was the first blog I ever started reading, and still the first one I check every day. I love Skwigg. She's a lot like me: a dog-loving, child-phobic martial arts addict. I always love reading her stuff. If there's not news about her latest insane workout there'll be a funny story about her mad dogs. It's all good. And I know this sounds really corny, but she's really been an inspiration to me. I don't think I'd be where I am now without her blog - she was the one who made me first think about taking up martial arts. She rocks!

2) Otter. Possibly the funniest woman on the planet. That's all I really need to say about her. Check out her blog and if it doesn't have you laughing so hard you spit coffee all over your monitor, there's something wrong with you.

3) Shauna, AKA The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl. Along with Skwigg's, this is a blog I enjoyed so much I went right back through the archives and read the whole thing from the start. Shauna is fab, funny and inspiring. If you haven't already, check out her blog. She's having a hard time at the moment because the lunatics at the Home Office have rejected her permanent residency application. The fools. Don't they know that Dietgirl is now a great British institution? Don't they realise if they try to deport Shauna there will be an international campaign among bloggers of the world?

4) Amy, AKA does this font make me look fat? Amy is sweet and clever and funny and starts her entries with a Buffy quote, which is fab. I tried it myself for a while but ran out of inspiration; she's kept it going for ages. Best of all, she's prolific. Unlike lazy arses like me who only update once every couple of weeks, there's something new to read on there most days so I usually eat my lunch with Amy's blog.

5) Colleen, AKA Spank Your Inner Moppet. Colleen likes martial arts and Buffy. Need I say more? She also has two of the cutest kids you've ever seen. Even I think they're adorable, and I'm about as un-maternal as you can get.

So there you have it, blogs that make me think and laugh and take up martial arts :-)

Body combat training report (better late than never!)

2007-05-05T13:49:00.000Z

Well I know you've all been on tenterhooks waiting to hear how my training went! Would have posted sooner, but I'm a lazy bugger. Also I was COMPLETELY wiped from the weekend. It was like 2 solid days of combat classes, basically. It's taken me until now to catch up on my sleep. Anyway, here is the full report.....another long one, so feel free to skim!

On Saturday we started with a masterclass of BC31. It was pretty awesome doing it with such a top quality trainer. After that we had a brief sit down and chat about BC and what we need to do as instructors. Then it was a 2-hour technique workshop where every little bit of every move was broken down and we learnt how to do perfect punches and kicks. Then it was lunch - only 30 minutes! So the choice of showering or eating, no time for both! I chose to eat and stay smelly. LOL.

After lunch we went through each track again learning the choreography. Steve (the trainer) did each track with us following, then we had to do it without him. Then we were given a track to learn overnight and present the next day - I got the warm up, which I was happy with.

Sunday started with the "combat challenge" which was supposed to be a fitness test to make sure we were all up to standard. I was dreading it, but happily it turned out to be right up my street, the sort of stuff we do on Friday night TKD training all the time. It was a 30-minute circuit, about 3-4 minutes on each of these:

1) Sprints and jabs
2) Side kicks non-stop
3) Jump kicks and back kicks non-stop
4) Roundhouse repeater - keeping the knee raised and flipping out the foot
5) In a circle, elbows and scissors
6) Press ups
7) Plank
8) Cool down, stretch, collapse in small heap.

I got through it ok, so was pleased with myself. After that we had a brief sit down and talk about cueing and instructing, then it was back to work again. We had to split into pairs and for each track Steve would teach it to all of us as a group, then we had to teach it to our partner doing all the cueing etc etc. After another teeny tiny lunch break it was time to present our tracks; each of us had one track to present and then had to be a participant for other peoples' teaching. I had to go first as I had the warm up, which was a bit scary, but it went fine. Steve videoed us all teaching and then gave us feedback after. Mine was pretty positive, a few technical things I need to work on, and I need to connect with the class better - I have this bad habit of staring at the floor when I teach rather than meeting people's eyes! But nothing too major so I was happy enough with that. And that was the weekend over!

I have module 2 next Saturday where we get assessed on teaching 2 tracks, I was given tracks 2 and 3 which I was very happy with, I think I can do those ok.

This week has been a bit of a wash out though, I tweaked something in my inner thigh on Thursday and it was giving me a horrible stabbing pain. So I've had to rest yesterday and today, and now it's feeling fine. Whew. Bit annoying though, as I could have covered combat at our gym today which would have been excellent practice. Still never mind, at least the leg is feeling better now so I just need to focus on getting through next weekend. Tomorrow I've got some mates coming in before TKD so I can practice my tracks on them, and Dave is going to video me so I can see what I'm doing wrong. Yuk, I hate hearing my voice on tape as I always think it sounds horrible, but it's got to be done!

I have to say, as much as I love my combat, I'm really looking forward to getting next weekend out of the way as I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all. The 2 days were very intense, and since then I've been listening to the music and learning the choreography and I just kind of feel like I'm drowning in combat. I seem to be dreaming about it nearly every night and there's forever bits of music and choreography going round in my brain. We were at the checkout at Tesco today and Dave asked me what I was thinking about as I was staring into space like a moron....obviously, I was busily jabbing and hooking and kicking in my brain. I think Dave will be happy when the training is over too, and he has Sane Beth back again too. Well, Slightly Less Insane Beth, anyway :-)

Just a quickie.....

2007-04-27T07:30:00.000Z

I'm off up to London shortly, for my combat training! Wow what a couple of weekends I'm having. I'm staying with my friend Jen and her son (my godson), she has got the afternoon off work today so I'm going up at lunchtime and we will have a nice afternoon together. Then I have the training 9.30 through till 6.00 on Saturday and Sunday. I am going to be sooooooo tired by Sunday night :-)

I'll be back on Monday, no doubt with a lengthy report on the training!

PS: B&A and CDM, I'm glad you appreciate my gratuitous swearing but the word is fuckWIT not fuckTWIT! It's important to get these things right you know!

PPS: I will get round to doing the thinking blogger thing soon, honest!

We have the technology!

2007-04-25T20:47:00.001Z

OK, here is the Arlovski vid! (thanks to my techno-minded hubby!)

You can't actually see me until right at the end, but I am there high-fiving! Keep your eye on the middle of the screen right at the bottom, and right at the end you see me turn round with a big shit-eating "I've just high-fived Arlovski" grin on my face. Hee hee.

UFC report!

2007-04-25T20:01:00.000Z

OK, so this post is entirely about UFC 70. If you're not interested, feel free to skip :-)

UFC 70 report in a nutshell: FUCKING AWESOME. We had the BEST time. Worth every penny and I can't wait to do it again.

We left home at about 11. Here I am before we left, in my "Andrei the Pitbull" vest :-))))

Got to Manchester around 3 - and wandered around and got something to eat. Then headed into the Arena for 5.30, thinking we had loads of time before the first fight at 6.15 - just as well we were early as it turned out they had been moved forward to start at 5.35!! Would have been well gutted if we'd missed out! The undercard was actually excellent. The first fight was English lad Paul Taylor against Crocata and it was cracking - they really went for it, loads of action and a TKO for Paul in the 3rd round. The other cool undercard fight was Terry Etim against Matt Grice. It looked like Matt was winning most of the way through the first round, until Terry got a choke hold and just *would not* let go. Grice refused to tap out, despite the fact that even from our seats you could see his face turning purple. In the end he just went to sleep and the ref stopped the fight. Once he woke up, he looked pretty pissed off.

Our seats turned out to be pretty cool, here is a shot of the Octagon to give you an idea how far back we were: The visibility was pretty good, and any time the action went onto the ground or was obscured by the ref you could just switch to looking at the big screens.

Also it turned out that we were only 3 rows back from the route the fighters took to get to the Octagon. HOW FUCKING COOL??!!! All night long there were famous people walking up and down not 5 feet away from us. We saw Dana, all the refs, Matt Serra, Randy Couture (Randy Couture!!! OMG!!!!), plus all the UFC 70 fighters, obviously. And there were photo opportunities! I got my photo taken with Mario Yamasaki! Some twat got his elbow in the way, and it's like the most unflattering photo of me ever, but hey, it's me and Mario, so it's goddamn going in the blog!

So: on to the headline fights. The Bisping fight was fantastic. I got to shake his hand before the fight! And the fight itself just had us on the edge of our seats. I know Bisping was the favourite, but I was scared he might get overconfident or reckless, fighting in front of the baying home crowd, and he certainly lived dangerously, nearly losing to that kimura. I still don't know how the hell he managed to wriggle out of that; one minute I thought he was going to have to submit, the next minute he was on top and pounding on Elvis and then the fight was over. Great stuff.

Then of course there was my fave, Andrei Arlovski. Now the fight itself was a huge disappointment. Dave and I both thought he was terrified of getting taken down, as his losses have knocked his confidence. And he more or less admitted that in the post-fight interview. So it was not a great spectacle, but hey, my guy won, and, of course, got to walk out in front of us again! So I just had to squeeze my way down to the front for that, and got rewarded with an extremely sweaty high five from Andrei! Yay! I have a vid which I have tried to upload but due to technical issues (read: I am a fuckwit) I can't get it to work. I will try to sort it later!

After the Arlovski fight there was of course the Cro Cop fight and what can I possibly say about that? Unbelievable. Dave and I both thought that either Herb Dean was having a really bad day, or they were trying to fix the fight; Herb stood them up for absolutely no good reason - Gonzaga was doing loads of damage with those elbows. But if it was supposed to be a fix, it totally backfired. Wow, what a knockout.

And that was UFC 70. We had the best time. I hear that there are plans to have few more events in the UK this year, so my next hope is that Chuck ends up fighting over here....now that would be AMAZING! Who needs life savings, anyway :-)

Today's the day!!!!!!!

2007-04-21T06:15:00.000Z

UFC 70 has arrived!!

I'm SO EXCITED!!!!

We're leaving at about 11 to drive up to Manchester, fights start at 6. I seem to remember that Broke & Angry will be watching in the middle of the morning due to time differences. Hope you enjoy it and hey you can blog about it straight away without having to worry about waiting for me to see it this time! Look out for me on the telly. I'll be the chick in the pink "Andrei the pitbull" vest :-)

By the way here's who I'm supporting in the "headline" fights:

Bisping - gotta support the Brit haven't I
Arlovski - obviously
Cro Cop - "Right leg, hospital. Left leg, cemetery". The guy is just cool
Machida - Don't know much about him but looks like an exciting fighter from the blurb.

Last night at TKD training Andy (the instructor) got me to pair up with him and gave me a total beasting. My own fault for telling him I wanted to work harder in those classes; what was I thinking? He made us do twice what everyone else was doing, so when we do our little combos (jab, cross, turning kick, etc) up and down the room we were going really fast and doing 4 lots instead of the usual 2. My heart rate got up to 200 at one point, I thought I might barf, and I got bruises all over my hands from all the punching. And I really enjoyed myself. Odd.

See you all after UFC 70!!

No-so-prolific blogging

2007-04-15T16:19:00.000Z

Yeah, I know, I've really been slacking on the blogging front. We've been stupidly busy since we got back from holiday. Plus I've been exercising like a total nutter (or a Skwigg) trying to make sure I'm fit enough for my combat training which is in just two weeks time! So when I haven't been working, I've been at the gym.

Today however, we are having a nice relaxing afternoon in the garden. The sun is shining and the birds are singing and Dave is sitting on the grass playing with the dogs. It's all very mellow, and thanks to the joy of wireless networking I am able to blog to my heart's content.

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The obligatory exercise report

So...lets get the exercise stuff out of the way first. I'm happy-ish with my fitness, but as the training gets nearer I start to get cold feet. For instance, in combat on Thursday night it seemed like I couldn't do any of the moves and it all felt like really hard work. Cue panic attack. However, by Saturday I seemed to have my mojo back and felt like the class went really well. I think it's just pre-training nerves making me jittery. I'm getting jittery about picking up any injuries too. On the one hand I want to keep my fitness up as much as possible, on the other hand I don't want to overtrain and be injured and/or tired for the training.

Anyway, this is what I've done this last week....

Saturday: Weights followed by Body Combat
Sunday: Spin followed by TKD training
Monday: Combat
Tuesday: Evil personal training session (more of that later) and Tae Bo class
Wednesday: Rest day
Thursday: Body Jam and Body combat
Friday: TKD training.

You'd think that little lot would mean I'm fit enough for the training, right?

The PT sessions have been awesome. Exhausting and painful, but awesome nonetheless. You may remember that we were working on my non-existent jumping skills. Well, now I can jump onto a step with 4 risers under it; I can bunny hop over two steps in a row; I can jump over things. I am altogether much more bouncy than I was!! And I'm starting to see a difference in combat, which was of course the point of the whole exercise. My jumping knees and jumping kicks are looking much better than they were.

The training is the weekend after next and I think it will be fun, because let's face it, I really love combat, so what better than a whole weekend of it? But also physically I think it will be exhausting. It's 9am to 6 pm both days. Apparently you do loads of work on technique, teach tracks and on one day they have some sort of challenge which is like a mad circuit that goes on for about an hour with stations of kicking and punching and all sorts. Makes me tired just thinking about it. So, basically I'm alternating between really looking forward to the training and being filled with a cold dread at the thought of it.

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Rant of the week:

I send my passport off recently to be renewed. Of course some people might think that with our 8th wedding anniversary coming up in July I've been a bit slack about getting my passport changed to my married name. But we tend to go on our holidays in the UK, what with us being stupidly devoted to our dogs and all, so there didn't seem much point. But with the imminent arrival of ID cards you're going to have to start giving fingerprints and all sorts to get a passport. This country is turning into a fucking police state. Grrr. Don't get me started. Check out No To ID instead; their rants are much more articulate than mine. Anyhow, I decided I'd better renew now, thus handily postponing the invasion of my privacy and abuse of my human rights for another 10 years until it runs out.

In case you were wondering, that wasn't the actual rant. Oh no, that's still to come :-)

So, I had to fork out £80 (about $160) for this new passport which is fucking extortionate. This week we get a card through the door saying that some delivery service has tried to deliver my passport. So I phone the number on the card and they want to arrange redelivery. It has to be between 9 and 5 but they can't give you a time, oh no, you have to wait in all day for the fuckers. Unless you want to pay a further £20 in which case you can specify morning or afternoon. I'm like, are you taking the piss? You expect me to pay a further £20 on top of the £80 I've already paid? So I tried to rearrange the delivery to the client I'm going to be at all next week, as I will actually be there all day. They go and look up the address, come back and tell me they can't deliver there because it's down on their records as a residential address. It's the registered office for EIGHT limited companies!!! Unbelievable!!! Then they say I have to speak to someone else to try and get this address okayed, but the lines are all busy, so someone will call me back. Surprisingly enough, no-one did. So now I will have to go through the whole palaver again next week and see if I can get someone to deliver it to this client. AAAAAAAARGH!!!

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UFC report

So we watched UFC 69 which I thought was really good. The Serra and GSP fight was a good un. I've gotta admit I really like GSP, so I was cheering him on, but it was kind of nice to see Serra win. Talk about the underdog. Then there was the most awesome lightweight fight between two guys I'd never heard of. They went at each other like lunatics for the full 3 rounds, fantastic stuff. And finally, I don't mean to sound like a total bitch, but I really, really enjoyed seeing that arrogant little shithead Diego Sanchez lose his unbeaten record. I thought the crowd were a bit harsh to boo all through the Sanchez-Koscheck fight. Yeah, it wasn't the most thrilling spectacle, but it was a well thought out fight by Koscheck and that made it interesting to watch. To me, anyway. Maybe I'm just too much of a geek.

So, watching 69 really whetted our appetites for 70 which is happening NEXT WEEKEND!!! Oh my god, I am so excited. I got myself an Andrei Arlovski vest made up, as he is my fave out of all the guys fighting. I'll make sure I get a shot of me in it for the blog. I'd like to try and get one with the man himself, but maybe its not such a good idea to go talk to a fighter nicknamed "The Pitbull" when you're wearing a non copyrighted t-shirt with his image on that you made yourself. I would have bought an official one, honest, but on his website he only had big baggy bloke shirts and I'm a bit of a tart so I wanted a nice fitted girlie one.

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Other wafflings
I read the first Buffy comic! And I absolutely loved it. I've ordered part 2, but it hasn't arrived yet.

Some arsehole managed to get hold of my credit card details and when I checked my online statement there were a whole load of weird foreign currency transactions that most definitely weren't mine. So I had to cancel it and I'm waiting for a new one to get sent out. I was sorely tempted to buy something really extravagant on it before I phoned up to cancel it and claim that it wasn't mine. The thought of the imminent jail time stopped me though. I figured the purchase of a giant flat screen tv from a store in Southampton, when all the other fraudulent transactions were overseas and I happen to live in Southampton, might just look a tad suspicious. I feel kind of bereft without a credit card. Yes, I know, I'm sad.

Gaah! Low battery. Better post this before it disappears!

Prolific blogging!

2007-03-30T17:00:00.000Z

If you've just checked in and you're wondering where the hell all these blog entries came from, it's my holiday blogs which I've just uploaded.

They're probably not remotely interesting to anyone except me, so feel free to ignore!

Normal service will be resumed shortly!

Holiday blog - Thursday 29/3/07

2007-03-30T16:56:00.000Z

The bunnies have disappeared! None to be seen either tonight or last night. Dave reckons its cos it's raining, but bunnies still have to eat when it's raining, right? Or do they have some sort of underground bunny delivery service? Hey, it's a bit wet tonight, let's not bother going outside to eat grass, I'll phone the takeaway and get some dandelions delivered.

I think the bunnies actually may have been scared off by the insane weather. This morning it was pouring with rain so we mooched about and had a late breakfast. Then it cleared up and got nice and sunny, so we headed out to do a leisurely walk around St Breward. 10 minutes into the walk we had cold winds, rain, snow and hail. Partly due to the weather and partly to our lousy map reading skills, we cut the walk a bit short and headed back to the car. As soon as we got inside it, beautiful sunshine again. Grrrr.

Anyway it's been a nice relaxing last day, we had the baby walk, came back and watched a few episodes of My Name is Earl on DVD and chilled out with our books. Tomorrow we have to be up at the crack of dawn (well, 7, but we've got used to holiday lie ins so it will feel like the crack of dawn) to pack all our stuff up and attempt to hoover all the dogs hairs off the rugs and stuff.

It's been a very nice holiday :-)

Holiday blog - Wednesday 28/3/07

2007-03-30T16:50:00.000Z

A misty day today, so we decided to drive around a few places and see what we could find. We headed off to Padstow first, which was ok, but a bit overpriced and touristy. We wandered along the cliff path and ate our picnic lunch on the cliff. Probably would have been really good views if it hadn't been totally cloudy :-)

Then we drove to Port Isaac, a nice little fishing village, and mooched about there for a while.

When we got home we played some games. It turns out that the table football is a really cool little multi game table which turns into mini pool, hockey, skittles or table tennis. Nifty! We had 3 games of pool (I won 2-1) followed by a spectacularly violent game of hockey. Then Dave kicked my arse at table football some more. I am so useless at that game. My technique is to just spin my little men round and whack the ball as hard as I can. Dave has, like, tactics and strategies and stuff. He gets his little guys to pass to each other, like real footballers. If he could, he'd be giving them motivational half time pep talks and rearranging them into different formations.

Considering we have really done bugger all today, I'm pretty sleepy. Must be all that sea air, or something.

I can't believe tomorrow is our last day - we have to leave Friday morning. That is the one down side of being self employed, I miss being able to take 2 week holidays. A week just goes by so quickly. This one seems to have just disappeared. Sigh. Still, I will try and not get depressed about it, as it's not like our normal life at home is so shit or anything. I refer you to the previous post :-)

Here are 3 good reasons to look forward to going home:

1) All that good TV waiting for us on our SkyPlus box. There will be episodes of Heroes, Boston Legal, CSI, Battlestar, 24 and Lost. Mmmmmmmmmmm. That should keep us entertained for the weekend.

2) Our super king sized bed which is oh so comfortable. It's 6 ' 6" wide so beds in holiday cottages and hotels always feel TINY in comparison. And the dogs are used to being allowed up on the beds, so they jump up onto the tiny holiday beds just like they do at home, and Dave and I end up with about 2 square inches of bed space each.

3) Back to TKD training. Yay! I miss training when I can't go. We should be home Friday afternoon, so have good intentions of training as usual on Friday night. Although I'm pretty sure the draw of good tv will provide some competition.

So there we go, no reason to moan and groan :-)

Holiday blog - Tuesday 27/3/07

2007-03-30T16:33:00.000Z

Today has been really, really nice. The weather has been gorgeous, bright and sunny all day. Neo still seems absolutely fine so we decided we could be a bit more adventurous today. So off we went to the other side of Bodmin Moor for a nice walk which took us to the Cheesewring - a very cool bunch of rocks all balanced on top of each other.

We also went to a couple of stone circles on the moor. I'm not too sure of the history of these things, but I think they were some kind of pagan ritual thingie. They have kind of a spooky feel to them. As we walked up to one circle, Dave made some quip about whether we would feel some sort of mystical energy in it. And then, I kid you not, the minute we entered the circle Eddie started growling. This spooked the hell out of us. Eddie NEVER growls. Neo will bark at scary things like the postman or cats, but Eddie hardly ever barks and never, ever growls. As we approached the stone bang in the middle of the circle it became apparent that this was what had spooked him and his growls got louder and he was scooting down looking very scared of it. The whole thing was really freaky, I mean he sees stones and statues and things like that all the time, and I've never seen anything spook him like that. So maybe there was some mystical energy there after all :-)

After the walk we found a cafe with a dog-friendly garden where we scoffed a sandwich and a cream tea, before heading back here for a nice hot bath. I've upped the intelligence level of my reading slightly and I'm now on Richard Dawkins' Unweaving the Rainbow. It's a very interesting book, all about why science makes the world a more wonderful and mystical place. I learnt lots of cool facts today: for instance did you know that when you see a rainbow, it's not the same rainbow as the person next to you sees? It's actually an optical illusion of light refracting in the raindrops, and everyone sees a rainbow as a circle around where they are. So the person standing next to you is seeing a different rainbow. Isn't that cool? I love books like that, with cool science facts for ignoramuses like me. If you're Otter, or indeed my husband with the PhD in chemistry, this stuff is like The Ladybird Book of Science for Dummies, but I find it really interesting.

This evening we have curry for dinner and 4 episode of Battlestar Galactica to watch (we had a backlog of episodes stacked up, so Dave whacked them onto a DVD to bring with us).

Days like today remind me how incredibly lucky I am. I'm lucky to have a husband I adore and two gorgeous dogs who bring me so much happiness, not to mention my wonderful friends and the basics we all take for granted like health and enough money to be able to afford holidays like this.

Ooh, and I managed to get some lucky shots of the bunnies tonight!! I hid behind a bush and caught them just as they were close to me. Aren't they the cutest?

Holiday blog - Monday 26/3/07

2007-03-30T16:21:00.000Z

Whew. Neo seems absolutely fine today. Little bugger, scaring us like that :-) Dave and I have decided it might have been cramp, he had that kind of muscle spasm thing you get when your muscle cramps up. I guess if you were a little dog and you didn't understand what was going on you would freak out a bit.

Anyway, even though he seems absolutely fine we thought we'd better follow the vet's advice and rest him today, so gentle walkies only. Bit of a bummer really as the best thing to do around here is go for lovely long walks on Bodmin Moor! We had a nice lie in and I finished book number 2 of the holiday, another crime/serial killer type thing, no brain power required, perfect holiday reading. Then we had a brunch of bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast - yum - before setting off to Pencarrow House & Gardens. Not our usual thing at all, we both find the whole stately home thing as dull as dog shit (actually, duller, because at least with dog shit you get a dog, and dogs are interesting). But we thought it would be a leisurely stroll for Neo and we could just do the gardens, not the boring house, and there might be some nice flowers to photograph. As it turned out the flowers were a bit non-existent - well, I guess it is March, so probably not that unexpected. However this was compensated for by the best bouncy tree ever. Did you used to go on bouncy trees when you were a kid? Does anyone even have a clue what I'm talking about? Bouncy trees are ones with branches which come out a really long way and quite low to the ground, so that you can perch on them and bounce up and down. They're like a free fairground ride for pikeys. Pencarrow Gardens turned out to have the perfect bouncy tree with wide comfortable branches at just the right height with plenty of bounciness. I could have bounced all day, much to Dave's amusement and the dogs' confusion.

As well as the Best Bouncing Tree Ever, there was also a peacock which did provide a few good photo opportunities. It was very pretty.

After the gardens we headed home and sat out in the garden with a book and a glass of wine, followed by steak for dinner. Did I mention that I love holidays?

Holiday blog - Sunday 25/3/07

2007-03-30T16:17:00.000Z

Well, today started off very nicely. We wandered down to the river at Helsbury with the doggies, let them play in the water and chase sticks. They seemed to have lots of fun. Then we came back to the house and were just about to settle down for some lunch when Neo started biting at one of his paws. Dave tried to have a look at it, thinking maybe he had cut his pad or something, but we couldn't see anything. Then he started kind of twitching his leg as if he had cramp or something, tried to stand up and didn't seem to be able to put any weight on it, and started whimpering. Needless to say this freaked us the hell out. Neo is a tough little dog and he never makes a fuss if he gets injured. Last year he had a really nasty deep cut on his paw that needed stitches, and the first we knew about it was when he left a little trail of bloody paw prints all over the house. So to see him obviously distressed and in pain was just horrible. We phoned the emergency vet number which was handily left in the house, and called some poor woman away from her Sunday dinner. She thought it was probably a sprain, but said we could bring him in if we wanted. So we did. She gave him a good old check over and decided he had probably pulled a muscle or something, gave him a painkilling injection, and sent us on our way. No doubt muttering under her breath about motherfucking overprotective dog parents calling her out on her day off :-)

Anyway, he seems much better now, he's walking ok, but still feeling a bit sorry for himself. We have to rest him for a couple of days and take him back if he's still in pain. So no walkies for him tomorrow. Poor puppy.

Now we're calming our nerves with wine (me) and cider (Dave), and about to watch Borat on DVD. More tomorrow!

Holiday blog - Saturday 24/3/07

2007-03-30T14:39:00.000Z

I always feel like when I get back off holidays I can't actually remember anything that we did, so this time I thought I would commit the holiday to blogdom. So I'm going to blog every day while I'm on holiday, and then upload them all when I get back. Obviously it will be boring as shit for everyone reading, but hey, that's what the scroll button's for. Feel free to use it :-)

So, we got here yesterday at around 3 and oh my god, this is the nicest holiday cottage I have EVER been in. I mean, it's really posh. Way nicer than our house :-) It even has a dishwasher. And table football. Which, by the way I suck at. Dave beat me 9-1 yesterday. Then we noticed that the table sloped slightly towards my goal. So we swapped ends and did it help? Not in the slightest, he just continued to kick my arse.

There are really nice views from the cottage, a big enclosed garden for the pups, and a field behind which has bunny rabbits playing at dusk. I tried to get some shots of them looking all cute and hoppy but the little bastards legged it as soon as I got my camera out.

So yesterday we just unpacked and monged around. We watched Slither in the evening which I was a bit disappointed with. I dunno how much they paid the reviewer who said it was the funniest horror film since Shaun of the Dead, but he lied. The film was ok, but just not that funny.

Today we woke up at 6.30 am. What the fuck is that all about? Normally I wake up around 7.45, or earlier if I have to set the alarm to be somewhere. Get me on holiday and I start waking up at the crack of dawn. Anyway, we had coffee and read books in bed until it got to a more respectable time. Then after sausage sarnies for breakfast it was time to head out for our first explore of Bodmin Moor. We walked up Rough Tor (1325 ft but not that steep). The guide book had said it was strenuous but it really didn't take us long to get up it, so we turned our attention to Brown Willy (yes it's really called that) on the other side which at 1378 feet is apparently Cornwall's only mountain. Dave insisted it would be a doddle. I was not too keen, as there were various dire scary warnings in the guide book about people getting stuck in bogs and mist descending really quickly so you can't find your way out. However, he talked me into it and of course he was right. I hate that :-) It was a lovely walk with a really nice view from the top.
After a picnic at the top it was time to head home and soak our tired legs in the huge, big enough for two, bath. there's something really indulgent about having a bath at 3 in the afternoon. Mmmmm, I love holidays!

Laters, potatoes! *

2007-03-22T15:47:00.000Z

Yes, I know, I've been sadly neglectful of this blog recently. Life has been hectic! We are off on holiday tomorrow for a week, so have been running around like mad things getting all our work finished before we go.

We're going to Cornwall, to Helsbury Park. We've not been there before but it looks really nice, so I'm looking forward to it.

Tonight I am covering combat again, as our normal instructor has called in sick! Now obviously this would normally deserve a big woo and a big hoo, but I'm a little ambivalent about it tonight because:

a) I haven't exercised since Sunday due to a cold, and I'm still a little snotty and tired;
b) I haven't yet packed for holiday;
c) I haven't practiced the routine since I did it back on March 10th, and
d) I don't actually have a fourth reason.

But I feel like as a newbie instructor I can't really say no, I just have to take any classes that are thrown at me. Oh well, I guess it will kill or cure the cold. I'll either blast the rest of it out of my system, or drop dead. I'll let you know when we get back from holiday.

See you in a week!

*(The correct response to that, by the way, is "manyana, banana")

Combat-tastic

2007-03-10T15:21:00.000Z

Sooooo, today was the momentous occasion of my first ever time teaching body combat!

It went BRILLIANTLY! Could not have gone better really. The only thing which slightly worried me was how completely exhausting it was. I guess part of it was the nervous energy, plus obviously yelling all the way through makes it a lot harder work - the mikes in our low budget gym don't work :-). I really flagged towards the end and struggled to keep my energy up for the last track. But I didn't feel nervous, didn't make any mistakes and everyone gave me really positive feedback afterwards. So overall a big success!!

My HRM stats made interesting reading (well, interesting if you're a complete geek like me, anyway):

Last weeks class (as participant): 354 cals, average HR 162, max 190.
This weeks class (as instructor): 489 cals, average HR 181, max 197.

So apparently 45 minutes of yelling burns around 140 calories. Who knew?

Broke & Angry asked whether I'd seen UFC 68 yet. Yes I have!! I gotta say, I wasn't bowled over by it. The Couture-Sylvia fight was a good one but I didn't really approve of it in the first place - I didn't think it was fair for Randy to walk straight into a title fight. I'm not a big Tim Sylvia fan -Arlovski is my guy in the heavyweights, and DID I MENTION that I'll get to see him live at UFC 70?! But I thought it was hard on Sylvia. I mean, there was no good way for him to come out of that fight. If he won, he was beating one of the most popular guys ever, so not winning any popularity contests. Not to mention, on paper Randy was an huge underdog so Sylvia wouldn't even have got much credit for beating him. If he lost he was losing to a retired guy 12 years older than him, which lets face it is pretty embarrassing. So either way he was screwed. However, I was not expecting it to be quite such a walkover for Randy. Poor Tim.

Still, I confidently expect Arlovski to be back for a title challenge and kicking Randy's arse soon enough. If only they'd change his UFC 70 fight to a title match with Randy. Mmmmmmmmm.....

"Give me something to sing about..."

2007-03-07T22:22:00.001Z

Today the sun came out after nothing but cold and rain all week, so we headed out with the cameras and met this little guy singing his heart out.

I don't get how such a little bird can make such a big noise!

"Oh God! My leg!" "See? Now we're communicating."

2007-02-26T22:44:00.000Z

Years ago there used to be a Saints player called Egil Ostenstad. He had his better moments as a player, but what he was totally rubbish at was jumping up to head the ball. Dave and I used to joke that his jumping was so crap that he actually seemed end up lower when he jumped. Like he was folding himself up or something.

Well, anyway, my jumping technique? Makes Egil look like Michael Jordan. I don't really jump. I kind of bunny hop. And when I am teaching combat, I need to do things like jumping knees and jumping kicks without looking like I should have big ears and a carrot in my mouth. So, as I was telling Colleen, I went insane and booked 4 personal training sessions with Michael to work on my jumping. I knew I was in trouble when he started off by telling me that good jumping technique stemmed from good squatting technique. I fecking hate squats. Anyway, today was my first session and it duly turned out to be as torturous as I expected. Here is what Evil Michael (as he will now be known) made me do:

Squats with fitball against wall - 3 sets of 15
Lunges - 3 sets of 15 each leg
Squats with arms above head - 3 sets of 12
Squats swinging 8kg kettleball up and over head - 3 sets of 15
Jumping squats - 3 sets of 12
Single leg squats with other leg in hamstring stretch position holding a ball between heel and bum (if that makes sense) - 3 sets of 12 each leg.

By the end my legs felt like jelly and now they are screaming very loudly whenever I go near stairs. This had better bloody well work. If I'm going to put up with legs this sore, I want to be able to do kick ass jumping knees by the end of these 4 weeks.

In other news, tomorrow I am going for lunch at my old sixth form. They have these "career lunches" where they get old students to go back and talk to the current lot about their chosen career. So I'm supposed to be going to talk about accountancy. It's going to be very weird going back there. It must be - eeeek - 16 years since I left. I can't decide whether I ought to make an effort to wear a suit and look suitably boring and accountant-y, or whether to just turn up in my usual uniform of combats and vest. It's quite a stuck up school, so they probably would prefer the suit. Which, of course, makes me want to go with the combats. You see, just the prospect of going back there is turning me into a rebellious teenager. Maybe I should dress all in black and get stoned before I go :-)

"Is it a gathering, a shindig or a hootenanny?"

2007-02-24T17:48:00.000Z

I was so completely excited over the UFC tickets I forgot to blog about our Chinese New Years party. We had all our TKD mates over for the evening to celebrate Chinese New Year. I think it probably qualified as a shindig.** It was quite a big deal for us, as we have hermit-like tendencies and really don't have people round that often. Plus we've never had that many people round at a time and weren't sure what the dogs would make of it. As it turned out they were really, really good, didn't pester people for food or anything. They did end up climbing onto the sofa for cuddles towards the end of the night but nobody really seemed to object, even poor Craig, who went off for a drink and came back to find his space on the sofa strewn with dogs so he had to sit on the floor. Hee hee.

Life is pretty great at the moment. You guys must be sick of me being so goddamn happy all the time :-) The latest happy news is that I have booked my body combat training. It's in London at the end of April. Yay! The weekend after UFC! That's going to be quite a couple of weekends. I am so looking forward to it.

Even happier news is that the combat instructor at my gym, Juliana, is just being so amazing and supportive. Today she pulled me up with her in front of the class for a track which was cool and fun and, remarkably, not at all scary. Or maybe I was just too knackered from all the jumping knees to have any energy left to be scared. Anyway, she was obviously happy enough that I didn't fall to pieces in front of people cos she has asked me to cover her class on March 10th when she is away. How totally cool is that????? So I will have to do a fair bit of practice over the next couple of weeks to make sure I know all the choreography. But it will be great practice for me before my course.

**"A gathering is brie, mellow song stylings; shindig, dip, less mellow song stylings, perhaps a large amount of malt beverage; and hootenanny, well, it's chock full of hoot, just a little bit of nanny."

"Want beer. Like beer. Beer good."

2007-02-20T21:53:00.000Z

Or, to be strictly accurate, wine good. We went over to Dave's parents for dinner tonight, as we always do on a Tuesday, and my good intentions of not drinking, as they always do on a Tuesday, lasted about 5 minutes. 4 glasses of Cava later I am a little tipsy, and feeling the need to blog while listening to Bohemian Rhapsody at top volume. Seriously, no-one will ever write a song to top that one. Freddie rocks.

You know what else rocks? UFC tickets. Oh yes, we got some :-) We splurged a gigantic £400 (I believe that's about $750 for my American friends) on 2 tickets in the 3rd row of the first tier, having heeded the advice of Broke & Angry and various others that floor seats are actually not that great cos you don't see much. That's more than we've *ever* spent on a holiday and about twice what I spent on my wedding dress. That's how addicted to UFC we are. I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited I don't know how I'm going to contain myself between now and April 21.

"Good luck in England." "Yes, well, I'll drop you a line some time."

2007-02-16T14:13:00.000Z

OK, that's a pretty lame ass Buffy quote today, I admit. I'm too impatient to look for a better one because I'm just bursting to share my excitement that UFC IS COMING TO THE UK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UFC 70 is going to be held in Manchester on April 27. For the benefit of my American friends, Manchester is a good 200 + miles from us, so we would never normally entertain a trip up there just for a night, but for UFC live it will have to be done!! OMG, I am SO excited. The official fight card has not been announced yet but there's plenty of rumours on the internet and they're all good. Bisping (to be expected), Cro Cop, Ortiz, and Griffin are all rumoured, plus Arlovski. Wow!! Even if only a couple of those turn out to be correct, I'll be happy. I feel the need to splurge our accumulated life savings on some ringside seats :-)

Anyway, tickets go on sale on Monday and since I'm out at a client all morning Dave will be left with the crucial task of logging onto Ticketmaster ASAP and grabbing us some good seats.

Oh, and note to self: when looking for the UK UFC site, do not, repeat, DO NOT go to ufc.co.uk. That turns out to be the home of "The world's leading National Socialist and Fascist Resource Centre". You can buy lots of handy items like Hitler Youth armbands on there. Nice. No doubt my computer is now on some sort of government blacklist, and commando-type guys with night goggles will be kicking the door in at any moment.

Turns out the site I want is uk.ufc.com. D'oh.

"I'm starting to think this working hard is hard work. I thought it was gonna be like in the movies - you know, inspirational music, a montage..."

2007-02-12T21:35:00.000Z

Dave and I both passed our gradings. Woo hoo!! We are now green belts. So no messing with us. LOL. We've even been promised *actual* belts by next week's class.

So now, apparently, is when the real work begins. According to our instructors it's all been pretty easy up to now but the gradings are going to get progressively tougher. There was a good atmosphere in class on Sunday, like all of a sudden it had got serious and we were all taking it up to the next level (god, I hate that phrase, but I'm too lazy to think of a substitute). We started learning the pattern for our next grade, and sure enough it did seem quite considerably harder and more complicated than the last one. It's all good though.

Dave took his camera along to class and got some wicked shots of Mike and Andy showing off their kicks. Somehow I feel that I could train every day for 20 years and never manage anything as impressive as this. (Again with the lazy, it's Dave's photo so I can't figure out how to get it on here. You'll just have to follow the link, ok?)

"This is a beautiful moment we're having. Can we please fight?"

2007-02-10T15:28:00.000Z

Broke & Angry says he wants some of my workout motivation. So I thought I would pass on my handy tips for getting yourself motivated to go to the gym. Not that I'm an expert or anything. You need Skwigg for that.

Anyway, my best tip for motivation is to avoid boring exercise that you hate. I used to force myself to go running and use the machines in the gym, which just bored me, so I never really got a good workout doing it. Find something you enjoy, really enjoy. Me, I enjoy hitting things. I put it down to too much watching of Buffy. I want to be a hot chick with superpowers. Anyway, Buffy was what got me started doing body combat, and then I enjoyed that so much I thought I'd give proper martial arts a try and took up TKD. Before you know it I'm doing 2 combat and 2 TKD classes a week. Add in a couple of weights sessions, a spin class and a burst on the treadmill for a bit of cross training and now I'm never out of the gym.

By the way, the Buffy quotes for titles thing is proving to be a serious time-wasting exercise. I go off looking for an appropriate quote and end up spending an hour on the internet just reading Buff Stuff. Oh, how I miss Buffy. I hear Joss is putting together a Season 8 comic book. I'm not much of a comic book kinda girl, but I think I will have to get that just to find out what happens. I hope it's not lame, because the ending of season 7 was just about perfect, I thought. I loved all those potentials getting all empowered and arse-kicky.

Speaking of good tv, there is just too much on at the moment and we're building up a backlog on our beloved SkyPlus. There's 24, and Jericho, new CSI and CSI NY, plus both Bones and Lost are starting up again next week. And tonight there's a new UK show starting called Primeval. It's been described as a cross between - get this - The A-Team and Jurassic Park. What could *possibly* be any cooler? It's like they looked into my head and pulled out my dream tv show. LOL.

"I'm just worried this whole session's going to turn into some training montage from an 80's movie"

2007-02-09T17:24:00.000Z

Thanks for the comments guys! You all rock. And Colleen gets a gold star for her excellent Buffy knowledge :-)

So, I had a veeeeeeeeeery nice birthday. The zoo was great. We went nuts and purchased annual passes - a bargain at £40 instead of £12.50 for a single visit. This is good because it means whenever there is a nice sunny day and we don't have much work to do we can head off to the zoo. Hurrah! Also it made the whole day much more mellow because you didn't feel like you had to fit everything in. We spent absolutely ages with the big cats and giraffes and didn't bother with much else. Here is an amur tiger:

And here is an amur leopard:

Both of these beautiful animals are critically endangered, which really sucks. There are apparently around 500 of these tigers and a truly appalling 30 (no, I didn't miss a zero off) of these leopards left in the wild. Fortuately the zoo has breeding programme going on, which is less sucky.

And finally here's me at the end of the day cuddling a hippo and looking ridiculously pleased with myself. I love the zoo!!!

You can see the rest of my zoo photos here.

After the zoo we came home, looked over our photos and then went out in the evening for a seriously delicious meal. After which we came home and ate cake. So all in all a pretty good birthday. I got some cool pressies too, notably a Polar heart rate monitor from my mum. Very cool. It tells me lots of fascinating facts including how many calories I burn when I work out. Apparently yesterday's combat class burned 479. I like. My maximum heart rate was 186 and average 159. So there you go.

The birthday celebrating continued on Saturday, when I went up to London to see two of my girlfriends. We were going to be all cultured and go round a museum, but in the end we decided to browse the shops and then have a long lunch with copious wine. A much better idea. We had such a nice time; it makes me sad that we don't live closer together so we could do it more often.

Then the action packed weekend continued with our green belt grading for TKD on Sunday. I think it went ok, but we don't get the results until next week. Hopefully if we pass we will get given an *actual* green belt as currently I'm still wearing a white one, never having got round to getting a yellow. I believe I promised pictures of myself looking like Mr Blobby in my TKD suit so here is our happy little TKD class after our grading:

Actually it doesn't look too bad in that shot. I think it may have shrunk a bit in the wash. By the way, notice how my loving husband is trying to karate chop me in the back of the head. Bless him.

I've been a pretty energetic 34 year old this week. I've really been trying to stick to a good exercise routine since the Xmas break. Also, I discovered the joys of i-train. Wow!! I managed 20 minutes of running on the treadmill without wanting to scratch out my own eyes from boredom. Quite an accomplishment. I did the i-train in the morning, and enjoyed myself so much I went back to the gym with Dave in the evening and did it again. Yeah, I know, I'm a freak. I think it will come in useful for getting my cardio in on days we don't have classes. So, does anyone want to know my exercise routine at the moment? No, thought not, but hey, it's my blog so too bad :-)

Monday: Weights (chest, tris, shoulders) and spin class
Tuesday: Rest
Wednesday: Weights (back, bis, abs) and 40 minutes cardio - will definitely be i-train from now on!
Thursday: Body Jam and Body Combat
Friday: 90 mins TKD/kickboxing training class. Hard work with lots of kicking, punching, squats, press ups...the usual torture :-)
Saturday: Body Combat
Sunday: 90 mins TKD class - more technical and less sweaty than Fridays.

I'm pretty pleased with the way my cardio fitness is coming on. I've been trying to improve it because I think the combat training will be a killer. A whole weekend of combat. Eeeek. I know I ought to do some lower body weights as well, but it just doesn't work cos I can't afford sore legs for any of my cardio work. I'll have to give that some thought. How do other people manage? Legs before rest day? I did think of that but the prospect of spin followed by leg work makes me want to roll into a ball and cry.

Anyway, I'd better wind this up....I really should blog more often so I don't end up with these gargantuan entries.

"We just saw the zebras mating!" "It was like the Heimlich, with stripes!"

2007-01-31T21:36:00.000Z

It's my birthday tomorrow. I'm gonna be 34.

In case anyone was wondering where I'd disappeared to, January turned out to be a little on the hectic side. Tax return deadline at the end of the month, loads of work to do, plus my final ETM assessment on January 28th. So blogging fell by the wayside a little. I shall try and be a bit more reliable in February. Plus, I've set myself a challenge: I'm going to shamelessly copy Amy and head up all my blogs for the next month with Buffy quotes. Gold stars for anyone who knows which episode today's is from.**

Soooooo did you notice I sneaked in the mention of my ETM assessment. Well....

....drum roll please....

....I passed!! Woo hoo! I am now a fully qualified aerobics instructor. There's a terrifying thought. I've been obsessively checking out the BTS website every day waiting for a local combat course to come up, but there's nothing on there yet.

So, tomorrow if the weather is reasonable we are going to take the day off and go to Marwell Zoo. I'm such a kid. But what better way to spend a birthday than at the zoo? We went last year as well, but I didn't have my camera then. I'm quite excited about going now that I'm more into photography. Better be prepared for a variety of half-arsed giraffe photos to appear on here tomorrow :-) Then in the evening we have a table booked at Berties, a very nice local restaurant. Yum.

We have another TKD grading on Sunday. What with tax returns and ETM to worry about I haven't really managed to put as much effort into my TKD as I'd have liked to, and we missed last Sunday's class because we were off on the assessment (yes, poor Dave had to come too, as a guinea pig). So we've had to do some last minute cramming for it.

We spent yesterday evening testing each other on our Korean terminology while we made dinner. In the event of me ever visiting Korea, I won't be able to say "hello" or "do you speak English" but I will be able to string together useful phrases like "low block side kick" and "long stance reverse punch". I'm sure that will come in handy.

Today we went to the gym and practised all our patterns. Andy (instructor) has very kindly agreed to give us an extra hour's teaching on Friday afternoon, so hopefully we will be ok. Oh, and did I mention that we've now got the proper uniform? Hopefully after Sunday it will have a green belt to go with it. I have to say though that it is possibly the most unflattering outfit I have ever owned. I mean it's white, for a start, and the trousers have an elasticated waist. Plus the suits only come in different heights and are basically designed for men, so I have had to buy one that fits round me the boobs and is massive round the waist. Then you get the belt on and it kind of balloons out around it. It's a sexy look, I'm telling you. I'll get round to posting a picture on here soon so you can see what a total dork I look like.

** It doesn't count if you google it :-)

Fun with cloning

2007-01-06T19:27:00.000Z

Look! There's two of me!

Inspired by my UFC addiction I thought I would face off against myself with the traditional pre-fight stare down :-)

New Year grumpiness

2007-01-06T15:00:00.000Z

I hate this time of year. You can't open a paper without having some sort of detox/diet/new years resolutions/change your life article shoved down your throat. Today's Times had an article about spa detoxes; apparently, if you want to get healthy and cleanse your body and mind, all you need to do is pay £750 for a weekend of enemas and wheatgrass juice. Who knew? There was also Paul McKenna with a "New Year New You...I can change your life" article. I don't want a new me, thanks Paul; I'm quite happy with the one I've got.

Also, the gym is currently mobbed with new-years-resolution people, cluttering up the place in their brand new, January-sale-purchased gym gear. Combat had 34 people in it today and there was barely enough room to do the class without kicking someone. Grrrr!! Roll on February when they all get bored and we'll be back to the usual regulars.

This week has been quite good. Getting back to work was a bit of a struggle but we seem to be doing ok; the list of tax returns that need to be done by the end of the month looks reasonably manageable. As for exercise, I gave spin a try. I've done a taster class before, and kept saying I was going to start going regularly but not getting round to it. Dave bought me a gel seat for Christmas, so no excuse not to go now. So we did a class on Wednesday. Oh my god, it was hard work. I was expecting it to be challenging cardio-wise, but actually my legs let me down; I wanted to work harder but I just couldn't up the resistance any more cos my legs were killing me. The rest of the day I wobbled around like Bambi and on Thursday I could barely walk cos my quads were so sore. Fortunately I recovered enough to manage TKD training last night and combat this morning. I'm going to keep going with the spin but have decided to go on Monday this week instead; that way I have a couple of days to recover before my other classes in the week.

Oh, and we watched UFC 66! Yay for Chuck! He totally kicked Tito's arse...again!

Happy holidays

2006-12-31T16:38:00.000Z

Dave and I have had a really nice Christmas break. It's been very relaxing and involved lots and lots of DVD-watching. So far we have watched all four Harry Potter films, plus all three Lord of the Rings films. Extended editions too, i.e. the ones that go on for about 4 hours each. Tonight we're planning a Kill Bill fest with both films back to back. Dave has finally (only 3 years after moving house) wired up our surround sound system so everything sounds really cool.

Santa (aka Dave) bought me some very cool stuff this year. In addition to the Harry Potter DVDs I also got The God Delusion, which I'm halfway through and is excellent, and volume 2 of Is it just me or is everything shit? which is just as funny as the first one. Also lots of cool fitness gear, including a powerball, an aerobics book, a skipping rope, a sit up bar (is he trying to tell me something?!) and finally a mouth guard for sparring! Oh my god, I had no idea how totally disgusting mouth guards are. I couldn't keep it in without gagging. No-one will ever need to use any sort of skill to beat me at sparring, because I'll be too busy trying not to vomit to actually put up any sort of fight. How do people wear these things for any length of time?

So overall we had a very nice mellow break. What a shame we have to get back to work on Tuesday. And then it will be tax return season and I won't be coming up for air until the end of January. Sigh.

So the Chuck-Tito fight took place last night and it's doing my head in waiting to see it. I'm having to avoid any blogs or websites that might give away the result. Usually we get the fights shown the day after they're on, but this one's not on until tomorrow. Presumably the programming guys thought no-one would want to watch UFC on New Years Eve so they delayed it a day. Ha! We would have been more than happy to see in the start of 2007 while cheering on Chuck. As it is I will just have to restrain myself until tomorrow night and avoid all possible spoilers.

Christmas photos!

2006-12-27T14:56:00.000Z

They say a picture tells a thousand words....

Here I am in my new Chuck vest - pressie from Dave! Is he the best hubby or what?

Here's Dave dancing round the kitchen with his carrot & swede mash. No, I don't know why either :-)

Here's me about to tuck in to our Christmas dinner....it was yummy. About 2 days worth of calories, I reckon.

And finally here's Neo wearing his Christmas hat and giving me a big sloppy wet kiss.

Happy Christmas!!

2006-12-24T21:29:00.000Z

Yeah, I know, I haven't blogged forever. Here's a brief recap:

1) The course rocked. Consider me a convert to aerobics :-) Seriously, it was fun, the other people were all nice, and I passed everything so far. Woo hoo! Now it's just the practical assessment on January 28 to get through. More on that later when I get round to a proper blog update.

2) Dave has a cold. Last Christmas I had a cold. Being ill at Christmas sucks.

3) My diet has gone all to hell for the last few weeks, but I have been very good at sticking to exercise. Well, cardio anyway (see below). I have done Combat the last two Saturday mornings despite being out drinking both Friday nights. I have surprisingly discovered that dragging yourself out of bed and jumping around like a mad thing is a fairly efficient hangover cure.

4) I have hurt my neck AGAIN. How? Showing off my negative pull ups to Dave. I'd already done 8, which was well past my fatigue point, when he came downstairs and I went "hey, look at ME, look what I can do" and proceeded to do the crappiest negative pull up ever cos I had no strength left, and give myself a sore neck. So I've been staying off the weights since then (2 whole weeks!) and I'm scared all my muscles will wither and die. Will have to get back to a proper weights schedule after Christmas.

Anyway, that's it, I'm all caught up and I'm off to bed to wait for Santa to come and visit us.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Not so bad......

2006-12-09T21:55:00.000Z

Just a quickie from my hotel room, bluetoothing laptop to mobile. Ain't technology grand.

Course has been much, much better than anticipated. Will post a proper report when I get home but here are the basics so far:

1) I am not the oldest person on the course. Woo hoo!!

2) I am not the crappiest one there. I have not yet fallen over my feet. More woo hoo!

3) I am in all fairness probably a little rounder than most of the other girls :-) But hey, not enough to make me feel crap.

4) I have drunk 3 glasses of wine tonight. That may also be contributing to my new found body confidence.

5) So far this weekend I have clocked up about 6 hours of aerobics. I have done about a million grapevines. And about a billion squats. My quads hate me.

Thanks for the encouragement, NoRemorse and Yogagirl!

Nervous

2006-12-06T21:24:00.000Z

I'm getting nervous about my Exercise to Music course this weekend. Every time I think about it butterflies do little dances in my belly.

Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of things I am currently flapping about.

1) I have to get up at 5 in the morning to drive down there on the first day. Therefore, I will be nodding off by around 10.
2) I have to *actually work* from 9 until 5.30 for three consecutive days. I'm not used to that anymore. I'm used to getting up when I feel like it, waltzing upstairs to the office, doing some work, getting a snack, walking the dogs, doing some more work, going to the gym, doing some more work......basically having a pretty laid back working schedule. Three days of actual proper working hours might just kill me.
3) I have to stay in a hotel on my own, which, and I know this is ridiculous, but I've never done before! Whenever I've stayed in hotels it's been with Dave, or on hen weekends with friends, or whatever. This time I'm going to be eating dinner on my own in the restaurant reading a book and looking like a total saddo.
4) I will be the oldest person on the course.
5) I will be the fattest person on the course. Have you seen any aerobics teachers recently? They're all TINY. Their bottoms are the size of walnuts. And lots of them also have big fake boobs to make their tiny waists look even tinier. You can tell they're fake cos when they jump up and down in class the boobs don't move.
6) I will be the crappiest one there at the aerobics, fall over my feet and forget all my moves.

Neurotic? Me?

Breaking boards

2006-12-03T17:58:00.000Z

Ha ha!!!! Today I managed to break a board!!!!

We have to break one with a front kick for our next grading and last time I tried I just couldn't do it at all. Today in class we all had another go and I still didn't manage it. But Dave asked if we could borrow the board to practice at home and sure enough after lots of encouragement from him (bless him) I managed it! There was much celebrating and jumping around the kitchen. And of course I had to do it a few more times and video it just to put on my blog :-)) You can see it here. Yay me!!!!!!!!!

This week I invested in a Doorgym to help me with my pull up quest. It's a very nifty gadget. I'm definitely getting there. I can now manage a couple of negative pull ups on it. My next target will be to get up to 5 negative ones. Once I can do that I will enlist Dave's help to do an assisted one. I.e. him giving my arse a big shove on the way up :-)

So, apart from my endless attempts to become kick ass martial arts/pull up queen, not much has been going on since my last blog. I had a trip up to London last week to see my friends and their kiddies. I got to spend time with my lovely godson, plus my other friend who has just had her second little girl. It was a really nice day.

This weekend we had a blitz on Christmas. In an unprecedented burst of organisation we arranged when we were going to see all our relatives. We've managed to swing it so we have Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day all to ourselves. We plan on doing nothing but walking dogs, eating yummy food and watching tv. Mmmmmmmmmm. We also ordered presents for all our relatives from Oxfam Unwrapped. What a fantastic idea that site is. Not only are you spending your money on something more worthwhile than socks and unwanted pointless gifts, but you can also do your entire family's Christmas shopping in under an hour. Altruistic and time-saving. Everyone's a winner :-)

Could my dinner.....

2006-11-22T22:17:00.000Z

....BE any more orange? Chicken breast in red pepper dressing, carrots & sweet potatoes. It was yummy. Dave had peas with his, but I didn't want to spoil the orangey-ness.

Today at the gym I tried a new exercise from this month's Muscle & Fitness mag. It's like a normal bicep curl, except that at the top you rotate your hand so your palm is facing down, and do the lowering part like that. It works your forearms as well as your biceps. Ouch. After 2 sets my hands felt like they were no longer connected to my brain, and I flapped around like an uncoordinated seal for the rest of the afternoon. So much so that I managed to drop Muscle and Fitness mag down the toilet. I think that's what's known as ironic. It's currently drying out on a radiator.

So, today I have mostly been eating orange food and dropping reading materials into the toilet. :-)

Francesca

2006-11-22T18:42:00.000Z

Soo blogged about naming cars, and it made me shed a tear for my old mini Francesca. She was pale gold and gorgeous and cute and zippy and named in honour of Saints legend Francis Benali. Some mad bitch wrote her off. WHILE SHE WAS PARKED. Not that I'm bitter, you understand. The mad bitch was trying to park in a space in between Francesca and a Jag. She apparently reversed into the Jag, panicked, hit the accelerator and shot forward, hitting my car so hard that she was pushed back into the car behind. Thus managing to take out FOUR cars, including her own, while carrying out a maneuver at about 5 mph. Which I think you'll agree is a pretty impressively bad bit of driving.

This was about 5 years ago and I still haven't forgiven her. Grrrrr. I miss my little car. She was such a cutie. RIP Frannie.

Watched it......

2006-11-20T22:49:00.000Z

Wow. GSP was awesome! He rocks! And I have to say, I take back everything bad I ever said about Matt Hughes. I used to think he was arrogant and smug, but he was so gracious in defeat I had a tear in my eye. I'm sure he'll be back for a rematch.

So next up is Chuck vs Tito. I'm getting a bit nervous for my buddy Chuck; I'm a little worried he might not win this one. I hope he's practicing that sprawl of his, cos if Tito gets him on the ground that could be it. UFC 66 is happening on December 30th so Dave and I are keen to find out when we get to see it. Usually we get the fights a day later. If so, that'll be our New Year's Eve plans taken care of. Yes, horribly antisocial I know, normal people would want to be out at a party somewhere......but how better to see in the New Year than with a takeaway and a large dose of UFC? Besides, we can't leave the dogs on their own with all those fireworks going on. That's our excuse and we're sticking to it.

Right, I'm off to visit No Remorse now and see how he's coped with Matt's defeat :-)

I'm back!

2006-11-19T22:03:00.000Z

Gaaaaaaaaah. What a slack blogger I am. Over 2 weeks since my last post!

Trust me though, you wouldn't have wanted to read any posts from me last week. I had the world's suckiest cold. I am such a miserable cow when I'm ill. I don't want to see or talk to anyone, I just want to be left alone to snuggle under the duvet, dose myself up with hot drinks, and watch tv. Poor Dave got no conversation out of me for practically the whole week. I was very grumpy :-)

But now I'm all better. Hurrah! I'll say one thing for being ill, it makes you appreciate how great it is *not* to be ill. I hate when I can't go to the gym. I get all twitchy and restless. I missed two TKD sessions, and then just when I was feeling better our teachers were away, so I missed two more! Eek! I was suffering serious withdrawals from beating things up.

So, anyway, I blame my cold entirely on my trip to London. You may remember I was heading up there to see my friend Jenny and my lovely godson Laurie, and then go to a course the next day. Well, seeing them was fab, but heading into London the next day for the course SUCKED. I don't know how people do it every day. You're stuck on a train which is horribly overcrowded, crammed in like cattle , breathing in everyone else's germs. Ugh. I got back to Southampton feeling exhausted and woke up the next morning with a sore throat. So I've decided, I'm definitely allergic to London.

This weekend Dave and I managed to get out with the cameras. It's been gorgeous over the weekend, all crisp and bright and autumny.

After dog walking with cameras it was time for TKD and we did some sparring drills. I still feel pretty hopeless at sparring, but I can start to see a gradual improvement. Mostly I'm just so slow. We had to do a drill today where one person attacked, and you had to shuffle back out of their way. I was pairing with Dave, and Andy came round offering advice. When he got to us he said "Don't just wait for Dave and then move yourself. You should be reacting to his movement". I was like, "I am reacting to his movement! Yes, my reactions really ARE that pitifully slow!!" My kicks are quite good technically, but if I ever end up sparring with anyone halfway decent it will do me no good whatsoever because by the time I get my leg halfway to its target they will have already knocked me out. LOL.

Speaking of sparring we're taping UFC 65 right now. We get it a day later than you Americans, so I've been avoiding spoilers and staying off No Remorse's blog in case he gives away the result. We'll probably watch it tomorrow night so don't leave me any comments with the result before then please! Or I will have to beat you up, Chuck-stylee!! Really looking forward to seeing the Hughes/St Pierre fight.

So, that's me vaguely caught up, I'm off to bed now. It's an early start for me tomorrow for a change so I need some zzzzzzz's.

PS Right On Crouton tagged me for a meme, but after not blogging for so long I thought I'd better catch up instead! Sorry, fellow Beth!

Hola, México!

2006-11-01T16:53:00.000Z

I got the aerobic stuff done. Phew. And a whole 2 days before the deadline, too! OK, so I may well have designed the world's dullest aerobics routine ever but hey, I figured it was best to keep it simple so I don't fall all over my feet when I have to do it in front of a class.

My blog has gone all big-brother. I signed up for Statcounter so I could see whether anyone was actually reading my waffle. Wow! It tells you which site people have linked from, and where they are. Scary. So far since installing it I have had 13 visitors, 12 from the USA and 1 from Mexico! Hola, México! But why is no-one from my own country reading me? Sob!

Speaking of my own country, I'm quite excited to see that Michael Bisping is going to be fighting in the next UFC on November 11. Now I'm possibly the least patriotic person in the world, but it'd be nice to see a Brit do well. Even if he is a Scouser. Come on Michael!

And speaking of UFC (wow I'm just full of tenuous segues tonight) I just discovered the "Which UFC Legend Are You quiz, and I'm delighted to report that I am Cousin Chuck! Woo hoo!! Chuck rules!!

You Are 'Chuck Liddell'
Take this quiz!

Two left feet

2006-10-30T21:40:00.000Z

This morning I decided it was time I did an aerobics class, since I haven't done one for years. I was also hoping to steal some choreography ideas for the one I have to do for my course. But oh my god, how crap am I at aerobics?? You know that girl in the class who always turns the wrong way and appears to have two left feet? That was me. Admittedly it was quite fancy schmancy stuff, lots of turns and dancey-type moves, which I'm not going to have to do for my course, but still. If you'd been looking in the window of the studio and trying to pick out which person was training to teach aerobics, you sure as hell wouldn't have picked me.

So I came out of the class in something of a blue mood wondering what the hell I was doing. I need to focus. I don't want to be an aerobics instructor. I don't need to be able to do twirly things and look elegant while I do grapevines. I just need to do the bare minimum to get this qualification so I can go on and do my combat training. Focus, woman, focus!!!! I have to get my next lot of choreography in by Friday, which means I have to post it on Thursday, which means I have to get off my arse and do the bloody thing tomorrow or Wednesday. It's so long since I did any studying that I'd forgotten about my annoying tendency to put things off until right before the deadline. It's that habit I euphemistically referred to on my CV as "working well under pressure". Which is actually code for "Oh fuck, I've left everything till the last minute again".

Anyway, as you may have gathered by the complete lack of entries for a week, we're still kinda busy. This week in addition to finishing my ETM work and making some headway on the piles of actual proper work I have waiting for me, I have a trip to London for a conference. This is very cool because it means I get to go up the night before and spend the night with my girlfriend Jenny and her son, my adorable godson Laurie. Yay!

My London trip also means I will miss both combat on Thursday and TKD training on Friday. Aaaaargh! I'm kind of gutted. I need my weekly fix of hitting stuff. Speaking of which, we had an excellent TKD class on Sunday. We practised some sparring techniques and once again I paired up with Dave, and once again I came away covered in bruises. That boy is vicious, I tell you. Although in all fairness I did manage to aim my back kick a little lower than it should have been and get him in the nuts, so he probably thought I was pretty violent too :-) I almost feel like I'm starting to get the hang of the sparring. I'm getting less self-conscious and just going with the flow more.

Right, I'm off to watch some UFC now. Dave and I are soooooooo addicted.

Blog-tastic

2006-10-22T16:06:00.000Z

I'm loving this new ability to link from Flickr. It took me all of about 20 seconds to post those two doggie pictures. Prepare for this blog to be inundated with loads of photos :-)

So, I dunno where this last week went. It disappeared in a haze of too much work. On Monday I went on an update course. I fecking HATE those things. They tell you everything that's new in the world of accounts, audit and tax. All of which generally serves to terrify me. That's one thing I really, really hate about accountancy. It's always bloody changing. You get your head around one set of tax rules and then good old Gordon decides to change everything. All of which leaves me constantly feeling like I'm two steps behind. I invariably come back from these courses with a do-list as long as my arm, a very grumpy face and an overwhelming desire to do something less stressful. Like go work in McDonalds.

After that the week didn't improve a whole lot, you know those weeks where you just never feel like you get on top of things? Thursday night I went to bed absolutely knackered and convinced I had nothing on the next day until lunchtime. After a nice lie-in and leisurely breakfast I opened up my calendar and realised I'd completely forgotten about a meeting I had with a client. Oops. Very professional. Not. I had to phone up and apologise profusely.

Anyway, apart from work the week has not been too bad. I've been pretty good with my eating since we got back from holidays. The thought of my Exercise To Music course in December is spurring me on. At 33, it seems pretty likely I'll be the oldest person there. I don't want to be the heaviest as well, so I'm quite keen to lose a few more pounds before then. The whole healthy-eating thing has led me to do something wildly out of character. I baked. I know! Me!! My mum would be amazed. She's one of those people who actually makes her own scones and things, whereas I've always though that's what Tescos was invented for. But you can't get healthy high-protein bars in Tesco, so I was forced to cook something from scratch, as opposed to my usual version of cooking which goes "open packet - put in oven - remove and eat". I tried one of Tom Venuto's recipes for protein bars. This involved mixing things! In a bowl!! I even had to separate eggs! And miraculously, it turned out to be pretty tasty. I took some on my course and ate them in the coffee breaks, instead of the pastries and cookies on offer. I felt very virtuous :-)

In other news this week, I had my final personal training session and Michael insisted I should try a pull up again. I thought he was bonkers, bearing in mind that when we started I couldn't even do an assisted one with my legs on a bench. But off we went, with an attempt at a negative rep. I dangled from the bars, he pushed me up and told me to stay there and then come down as slow as I could. And I managed it! I actually stayed up there for a second or two and then came down in a controlled manner. Last time I tried that I just dropped like stone as soon as he let go. So I am getting there! Yay! I shall miss the training sessions, they've been really great. I'm going to save up and try and get another course of them after Christmas. In the meantime Michael has given me another 6-week programme to follow, again all based around pull ups and push ups. I'm determined to be able to do full push ups. We have to do 15 for our next TKD grading in December, so I'm going to aim to get those as full ones.

Wow, that entry went on a bit. Guess that's what happens when you don't blog for a week :-)

Eddie

2006-10-22T15:56:00.000Z

...and here's Eddie, also looking rather adorable.

Neo

2006-10-22T15:55:00.000Z

Here's Neo looking extra cute :-)

The smelly midget

2006-10-15T21:12:00.000Z

So I thought I'd start this new blog off with some random and pointless waffling....

For our TKD black belts, assuming that is that I ever get that good, apparently we have to write a 2-page essay about what TKD has done for us. There was moaning and groaning from the class on hearing this, but to me it sounds easy. I reckon the hardest thing will be condensing it to 2 pages. I could bore people for hours on how TKD has changed me. It might be too dramatic to say it's changed my life, but it's certainly changed my outlook in lots of ways.

I'm sure I've already blogged at length about the fact that it's given me more confidence and strength. But this Friday in training I realised I've changed in another way: I've discovered a competitive streak! I never used to have one. I mean, not even a little one, at least not when it came to anything physical. I suppose at school, being a total geek, I was competitive about getting good grades, in a very Lisa Simpson way (remember the episode Lisa's Rival? That was totally me at school. Yes, I know, I'm sad.) But I hated sports at school. It was all netball and hockey and lacrosse and I was rubbish at all of them The only thing that saved me from always being picked last for teams was the poor girl in our class who was about 3 foot tall with really bad body odour. Even then I think it was frequently a close call between me and the smelly midget. So, basically, I spent my entire childhood trying to avoid anything active.

Even in recent years since I started getting fitter I never got the whole competitive thing. Dave & I went through a squash phase a few years back. I played with a girl called Linda and we would have a giggle, knock the ball around and get a bit sweaty. Meanwhile on the next court Dave would play her husband Roger and there would be nothing but grunting and score-keeping. We used to mock them and their testosterone-y male competitiveness and wonder why they couldn't just enjoy a friendly game without it.

But NOW, all of a sudden, I get it! My competitive streak has awoken from hibernation and announced its presence! Mainly on Friday night training where I kind of feel like I should be the fittest of the girls, and be able to keep up with the boys. This Friday night Mike thought up a lovely drill where we had to squat and then kick a pad, run to the other end of the room and back, squat & kick twice, etc etc up to 10 squats and kicks. I was in between Andy and Glen and for no good reason at all I really wanted to match their time. And I did. Ha! The fact that by the end my legs were jelly and I thought I was going to throw up a lung didn't seem to register with my newfound competitive edge.

Anyway. I'm not sure quite what the point of this entry is, other than I quite like my new competitive streak, as it seems to push me to do more than I would otherwise. Which can only be a good thing for my fitness.

Tune back in tomorrow for another instalment of "what's new in my personality" :-)

OK, I lied...

2006-10-15T17:04:00.000Z

...this is my real blog. At least, it is now. I got sick of Tripod falling over every time I wanted to post something. Blogging should be fun, right? not something that makes you want to throw your PC out of the window in frustration. Plus with blogspot I can send photos here direct from my Flickr page, which is pretty damn cool.

So here I am, with a shiny new layout. Whaddya think?

If you're new to this blog and you're very, very bored you can still find all my old posts here. If Tripod decides to play nice, that is :-)

Not my real blog :-)

2006-07-27T18:23:00.000Z

Ermm, this is not my real blog. I just signed up to this so I could talk to Amy :-)

My real blog is here