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My body didn’t ache as much as I expected when I awoke this morning, although the grazes to my feet were stinging a lot to compensate for it and as the day progressed I discovered as the day progressed that streching ached more than usual, because of this stiffening up I was a little anxious with regards this evenings sessions I was due to attend.

As it turns out I had little to worry about as although my body is aching now and seizing up around the lower back for some reason, I didn’t force myself as uch this evening. The style was somewhat diferent from the evening before due to a different sensei and I was taught a couple of rolls seperately early on and due to my inexperience I was not thrown about or manhandled too much although I did manage to draw my own blood when headbutted under the chin accidently.

Tonight I was working on a technique starting with a block then an arm lock where the oppenent was brought down by taking one leg out from under them after you had manuevered them off balance and although my coordination wasn’t great the first mistake I had to overcome was to remember to get out the way of the punch as I didn’t always move out of the way quite quick enough as I was concentrating on my footwork or misjudged whether it was a strike from the left or right.

Having now got home my body is already aching and I am wondering what it will feel like tomorrow and not looking forward to it, still at least I have a couple of days now before I am due to train again and give me a little time to recover.

Tonight saw me attend my first session, which had been billed to me as a beginners session, albeit at in the words of a friend of mine at a “vigorous” club. It started well as I was the only beginner there and so a normal session was ran.  First off was the warm up which was more of a wear out for me- Now I have to admit I am unused to being quite so active and compounded it by trying to match their pace and so by the end of it I was breathing heavily (although I wasn’t the only one to be doing so) and had removed some skin from the top of both my feet.

Then the real work started and I started trying to emulate the techniques being demonstrated, and although clumsy and a little inelegant I felt I was beginning to get into the swing of things and get things going in the right directions. It was at this point I started to feel a little under par and was sick. Luckily I had got off the mats and nearly made it to the toilets when I was sick, although I did run to the ladies as it was closest. I would have got back onto the mats at that point as I felt fine after being sick, however some of the splash back had got onto me and and so I sat out to watch the remainder of a session, where I watched people throw and be thrown repeatedly with different techniques.

Despite all this or perhaps because of it I really enjoyed the session (except for a couple of unblocked blows I recieved) and paid my money to join and am all set for another session tomorrow night.

…The less time you have to write about it.

Now I will conceed I do not have the most hectic or exciting of schedules but I did anticipate being able to add things as they came to mind on here, never mind getting a few more photos up etc but I seem to be being kept away from the joys of the internet at the moment for one reason or another and so I forget the ideas that I have over the course of a couple of days as that is what I am like still I will try and be a little more proactive so I at least manage something every few days and not only at weekends as is currently the case.

Today I had the pleasure of being invited to the 20th Anniversary of Jujitsu in Bristol to take pictures of them training as they were having a little bit of a get together with former Senseis coming along to take parts of the session and I must say bodies flying through the air do look rather graceful, although when you have 40 people all doing it together the ground shaking belies it’s grace and beauty.

As one of the instructors said to me afterwards when I was asking questins and showing my ignorance it is not about the beauty of the person flying through the air as it is a martial art it is about being able to make an attacker hit the ground if you needed to.

I have considered doing a martial art before, not while I was at school but at university as a form of exercise and Jujitsu was one I nearly joined as I had a friend encouraging me to join them (although I suspect it was only so she could kick my ass) and it was through her I was invited to do the photos.

Having being left impressed I somehow managed to sign myself up as fresh blood so this week due to one instructor running a beginners session and another instructor encouraging me to come to his session I am looking at attending 3 or possibly 4 sessions this week so I am expecting that my body might not be my biggest fan by the end of the week.

Today seeing as I had money I decided I had better do something about this I decided to go shopping to rectify the situation - so I set off, money in hand as well as buying a couple of DVDs I decided to be boring and replace my underwear as my socks were almost worthy of canonisation as they were so holy.

Being of a practical sort I decided to get socks that would were identical that way no matter what ones developed holes or went missing I wouldn’t need to worry because as long as I have 2 socks I have a pair of them.

This practical though did cause me to ask myself why they bother making socks in a variety of designs and colours? If you are wearing them they shouldn’t be seen as your trousers hide them and if you can see them such as when wearing shorts you just look stupid with your socks showing, so why not make all socks the same colour and style i.e. black. After all the function is the important importantthing , so instead of designing new patterns we should investigate how to stop socks developing holes or build washing machines that do not eat socks.

Therefore I propose that if I ever rule the world I will pass the following laws reguarding socks:

1. The giving of socks at Christmas or other events will be made illeagal, after this onl happens to men and if you are going to show that little imagination when it comes to gifts just give alcohol or cash instead.
2. All socks shall be black, the exception being ankle socks which will also be permitted in white.
3. Whoever invents a washing machine that does not eats socks shall be awarded £1,000,000 and given a knighthood.

Today marked a landmark in my education, as for the second and last time I have handed in my piece piece of coursework. It probably isn’t my greatest, but I am past caring in some ways and focusing instead on the last stretch of my degree all that stands between me and graduation is 2 exams and those are in May, so I have 5 minutes or so to kick back and relax before I begin preparing for the onslaught that will be Operation “Get Out of Here”.

Personally I cannot wait to get out of uni as overall it has been a disappointment as it was not what I expected it to be and whilst I have learned a lot the majority of that has been in the bar rather than lecture theatres, where independant thought is encouraged in some quarters at least.

I love to learn but university to me has not been abut learning like much of school all it seems to be about is jumping through hoops and as I have gone along I have become less motivated to jump through the hoops required which has probably led me to be one of the people who has had the most ideas censored in the drama department for example (and I didn’t even tell them about the bits I knew they would ban).

So here is to the university of life, where jumping through hoops alone is not enough to succeed.