April 16, 2008, Northridge, CA

It has now been 2 months since my last entry and a lot has happened since then. It is with great humility and awe that I share this information with you. Last month, I tested for my belt and the result has been at the least, shocking, and at the most, bizarre! I was informed by sensei Jeff that I would need to be tested and that depending on how I perform during the test, I would get to go beyond being a yellow belt or stay a yellow belt for another six months. Needless to say, this was nerve-wracking. After all, I had signed up initially to have some kind of an exercise program since my career had increasingly become sedentary and now, I am being considered to be a martial artist training with serious black belts in a fighter’s club! I did my usual positive self-talk and spoke to sensei Jeff, attempting to work my way out of this situation, which changed nothing. As the testing date grew closer, I started to believe that there was no way out. My choices were, I study the receivers (the fighting and defense techniques,) test in front of the whole school come what may or I just quit right now and say, nope, I’m just here to lose weight and there are other clubs around that would help me do just that. I guess I was never a quitter even though I should have, because you are now talking to a purple belt martial artist! I still walk in to the dojo feeling that I should be in a lower belt and I try my hardest to earn that *##**purple belt. I am starting to see why sensei Jeff did not allow me to stay at the lower belt…

February 16, 2008, Northridge, CA

It’s been almost 2 weeks since my last entry and not much has happened at the dojo.  We’re still at it - jab, punch, dodge, reverse punch, high straight dodge, high xback – on and on being drilled at us.  Sparring nights are the most exciting since this is where we test our reflexes.  No contact sparring usually means make sure you don’t get hit otherwise…I used to think it would hurt, now getting hit just means,“darn, I dodged too late and I missed that kick” or “ I’m moving too slow!”  We’re reminded that this training is professional training of course, with lesser frequency I thought, otherwise….today marks the day that I was actually looking forward to doing 200 situps!  Today I lasted 5 minutes sparring with sensei Jeff Lengson of Jedokan Martial Arts with just an admonition of “hit harder” and “when you hit me on the chin, don’t apologize!” Little did he know that I was so proud of myself…Imagine that, lasting 5 minutes with a world-class Filipino martial artist and hitting him!  Little did I know, he was just feeling kind-hearted today because I remember now, that for the first 2 seconds of that fight, I was hit already several times, enough to have knocked me down, way before my 1-second hit.  Oh well, still, I feel I deserved my buko-macapuno ice cream for a job well done.