I'm enduring yet another slow week at work. The "plan" appears to have been delayed yet again. I'm not taking any more vacation time... & I'm actually not even sure how much of that I have remaining. My prediction is that we'll begin getting busy in August... which is when I was planning on taking a full week off. That's entirely predictable.
The crew has been chopped down somewhat. We lost our immediate manager, one of the testers in our immediate team, a build engineer & several other contractors. No one here seems to have any information as to the future of the team, the product or anything else relevant. I'll just continue to work this contract as long as I can. After that I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I don't know if I really want to take yet another pay cut (that 15%) and still manage the horrific commute from the south end to Redmond. If I've already saved the money for the EP course, I may just dump the testing contracts altogether & opt for something mundane to keep cash coming in.
Right now I'm looking at ways to finance the self-defense training. The Krav Maga is cheap enough. In fact I think that no matter where I study, I'll be looking at around $100 per month. As I wrote earlier, Krav Maga of Seattle has no beginners’ classes until mid-September. Their summer classes are advanced students only. I still think I'm going to be checking that out. They're running these classes outdoors at Woodland Park beginning Thursday the 9th. I may even sneak the video camera up there & try to film some of it. I still want to see what type of training they have going for the advanced students.
All of this repeated posting regarding the self-defense training options is due to more than scheduling. It's a tough decision. (Sadly, this is making me violate one of my own rules about DOING SOMETHING!) The Kali training simply doesn't seem all that practical on its face. The more I review what they offer... and while it may be a great school... the system(s) complexity honestly makes it seem virtually useless for my purposes. Dedicating an entire year to a system that may require at least that amount of time in order for a student to absorb even the most basic of techniques is pointless when the purpose is to become fluent as soon as possible. Of course, since the weapons & empty hands techniques of the Silat, Jun Fan & Kali are taught as a single block I may actually benefit from it greatly. It's difficult to make such a decision from teh outside & the school requires a one-year committment.
If I had two or more years to devote to training then it may be a viable solution. Another factor that is influencing me is how the training & system are approached. I'm more convinced than ever that it is almost a sport. Certainly the inclusion of the Thai boxing wrestling... & the often mentioned connections to MMA are clues as to the focus of the instructors. It's a common mistake. Here to there's an over emphasis (IMO) on boxing type skills. I would love to be able to study this in depth... but I'm not certain that I can afford to do so.
This parallels one of my (many) concerns about KMAA facilities; High kicks, boxing techniques - closed fisted strikes being emphasized to the apparent exclusion of open hand strikes - & the apparent infatuation with "sporterized" contests.
The other attraction of the KM training is the conditioning; both physical & mental. The highlighting of multiple attacker & crowd scenarios is going to be a VERY practical aspect for me to have if I make it through the protection training successfully. They approach this differently than Combato does.
I'll have the deposit funds saved within another week or so. I'm currently less than $100 from that goal. That leaves roughly an additional $3k to be saved between now & my training date... which I do not have yet. The 2010 schedule will likely not be posted until October.
Between now & the actual training date, I want to be able to have as much training time as possible. I may choose to enroll for a date in the fall of 2010 for this reason. It would enable me to train in KM or Combato for an entire year... and give me some additional time to save emergency & travel funds.
Regarding the physical conditioning, I'm sticking well to the Couch-to-5k program. I rarely "skip" days & when I have it hasn't been an extended delay. I'm beginning to see the longer-term effects of the running. I don't think it's as effective a form of aerobic training as martial arts but it is working nonetheless. It's one aspect of training.
I'm looking forward to getting through this & then being able to augment the standard running with the more challenging Fartlek sprinting intervals. I badly need to insert some strength training in my routine though. I also need to adjust my diet as I'm getting back into unhealthy habits again. That and once again having the afternoon power naps sneak up on me is wearing me down. I mentioned likely needing to adjust the training schedule to allow for additional rest days; as it is, I'm currently running three days per week. At this point I cannot see myself adding three strength workouts on top of that. I'm not at that level for fitness yet. (This is somewhat amusing because I'm working with some people who barely manage a single "workout" per week. I suppose it's about priorities but it's been my own personal experience that one day per week is useless for anything other than inviting an injury. This frequency of training doesn't modify or even maintain any level of health or fitness. Unless a person is extremely unfit & this is their starting point, it's simply ridiculous.)
Ultimately, this will end up being my own CrossFit regimen. This was only partly intentional. While I've written about the need to do things this way... the fact is that I'm simply recognizing what types of training I NEED... that is, the areas of fitness where I'm lacking & attempting to apply a fix to these problem areas.
Then there will be the problem of adequate time... & the problem of adequate energy. At this moment I'm not feeling very energetic at all. I allowed myself to skew my sleep schedule over the break I took for July 4th... & now I'm paying the price for that stupidity. If I train for two days per week in Krav, run two days per week & do some form of strength training on another two days... that pretty much blows the week save a single rest day. This will DEMAND realistic adjustments in my sleep & eating habits. Oh joy...
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