LicensceToMaimYou are on the archive wiki. The new wiki is here. I was rather busy this weekend, which was nice. I like to feel occupied. Although, I think Richard will blame this on my perpetual need to avoid working on a logo for our site, but actually it's just because if I slow down I tend to wallow, and wallowing isn't good for me. I wallowed enough for the week I got back here, 'tis time for wallowing to end. On Friday evening, having received no reply from the Jujitsu club I'd emailed I decided to just head down to the dojo anyway. I'd cunningly put on a pair of pant suitable to being energetic in the morning and a plain t-shirt under my jersey. So after work I ventured through the snow (well, more like pellets of frothy ice, but technically it was snow) to locate the dojo which was, according to the website, hidden in the basement of the City University. The welcome I received was brisk, cheerful and conveyed the impression that I'm far from being the first person to trundle unannounced into the dojo. I guess that's a side effect of being located in an educational institution, and possibly the best way to recruit new students. Apparently now is a good time to join, they've just had the last grading, something to me now having enough time to train for the next grading (which happen every three months and if you're keen, for the first belt or two you should progress every three months). It was all a bit well, whoosh! It was also the hardest work-out I've had since I quit swimming, and way, way more fun! The fact that I'm a touch of a maniac comes in handy, as does the fact that my wrists and fingers bend to un-natural angles. Although, apparently that might not be quite as cool as I might think, since it means that by the time I feel pain there, it's when actual damage starts occurring. Oh, well! However, it does have one adverse effect for my opponents - it means I actually have no clue how far a normal human hand can bend, and kind of expect them all to be like mine. Which means when I had poor Caleb on his knees in a rather viscous wrist-lock in which there was no way he could touch me to tap-out and I couldn't hear him trying to tap out on the mat since we were surrounded by grappling pairs of yellow-belts, the lad was in quite a bit of pain. Caleb, being an eastern-european lad a few lessons ahead of me from an affiliated dojo who'd come to ours since his was closed for uni vac. I doubt he'll be back much, and if so, will choose to partner me. :-D The whole two hours were so much fun I was somewhat sad when it ended. From my descriptions of it Richard was teasing me for being a total sadist, but I got almost as good as I gave. You just don't really dwell on that, which was something I noticed among the rest of the class. A lot of martial arts appear masochistic in nature, with the focus being on hardening oneself and putting oneself through agony in order to be tougher, faster stronger, where as this school of jujitsu is a little more focussed on doing the worst to anyone stupid enough to attack you - although it is singularly a self-defence based martial art. Maybe it's just that the whole “mind - body - soul” philosophies of a lot of schools don't appeal to me and I'm painting them as masochistic to excuse my own inner-wimpyness. Either way, I don't know why it's taken my so long to find a jujitsu class since I've wanted to do it for years, and to think that I lives for so long in dear old SA with out knowing how to defend myself is a little unnerving. Hence I'm off there again tonight for my first not-so-free lesson, and I've been looking forward to it so much that it's added a real shine to my Monday. Whoot! |