My martial arts goals

My physical conditioning -- it's all come along, as you might be able to gauge from the couple of photos below (taken from today's fitness session). This improvement is only to be expected: I've been improving all year, although in 2011, I haven't regularly pushed myself beyond a certain comfort zone. This leisurely pace of my development has been by design, as 2011 was nominated as the year where I would tie up many of the loose ends of some very complicated mental process which produced my intellectual wealth.

Back to matters of training: It's a sure sign of success that I no longer feel the kind of acid burn I used to. When I was about half my age, I used to get a lactic acid burn after punching the bags for several minutes. Now, I can go for 45 solid minutes at a very strenuous level. More than that -- I feel I could keep on punching the bags indefinitely.

My health is fine, apart from errant hormones. My blood pressure reading was 104 / 64, after training and a glass of white wine today, for instance.

I now plan to do a martial arts exam -- termed "grading" -- around March, so I need to undergo mental (rather than purely physical) preparation. Physical preparation for a grading is nothing compared to developing mental endurance, which can only be achieved through doing many rounds of sparring in one session.

STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism