BBat50 - About me

About four and a half years ago (summer 2003), my xwife signed my son up for a karate class. I showed up to watch him at his class and while I liked the dojo, I didn't much like being a spectator. Four years later, I've earned a black belt.

This blog chronicles my odyssey into the martial arts world and how the martial arts affects (and is affected) by the other parts of my life. For instance sometimes in my office, I find myself sounding like a karate instructor. I heard myself in a meeting last week talking in rhymes and expecting my colleagues to answer on cue: "Habbits we train are habbits we....". <GAIN is the answer that the class shouts out>.

The dojo is the only place where I see my xwife (she doesn't' train but she brings the kids there on her days and we use it as hand-off place for clothes and barbs).

My odyssey includes what you would expect from a 50 year old starting in karate (I have recommendations on ice packs). And some of those unexpected adventures that appear in my life. Since my kids read this, I'll be careful to watch my punctuation and grammar and to keep any innuendo buried in the boring parts. And my incredibly-sweet fiancee sometimes doesn't totally like how much time I spend in the dojo, never mind blogging about it, please excuse the fact that I post regularly, but only time permitting.

What else should I tell you? I've lived for nearly a decade in South Florida. Before here, I've lived on three continents and four countries (7 years in the UK, 2 years in France, 2 years in Cameroon, and the rest Stateside) and I recently got engaged (Thanksgiving 2007). I feel that I'm very lucky.

The Blog's Background: I started this blog initially to help me remember my katas. In the months before getting my black belt, the training got more intense and the blog became part of that effort: I wrote about each step in the process and posted a lot of pictures, a sort of yearbook for my black belt class.

After I got my black belt, the intensity dissipated. I thought about phasing out karate (I'd like to play some tennis) and mothballing the blog. Instead, I decided that this would be a new beginning for both. The black belt was the beginning of my new phase in the martial arts. And my blogging is also going into a new gear.

The Art of Blogging
I also read other people's blogs and have recently decided that I'm interested in the "art of blogging". In fact, I'm taking a course right now on How to Write a Blog that other People will Want to Read - Earn a Black Belt in Blogging (disclosure. I am affiliated with the company that offers it. If you want to learn to write well, it's a phenomenal course, sign up NOW - recent update, we renamed the course to Blog Writing Course. It turns out the martial arts language, which Black Belt Mama and I liked so much, was a little baffling to the average punter.)