2018 In Summary: Karate

This has been my first full year studying karate. As I write this, I am just back from a Saturday morning session, my second since attaining my purple belt earlier this week.

At the moment, I'm solidly in intermediate territory, and will be for another half-year at least as a purple belt and, hopefully, a red belt. My progression so far:
1. White belt at first class, Aug 17, 2017
2. Yellow (gold) belt at first exam, Nov 28, 2017
3. Orange belt at second exam, Feb 26, 2018
4. Green belt at third exam, May 28, 2018
5. Blue belt at fourth exam, August 27, 2018
6. Purple belt at fifth exam, December 18, 2018

At this point, I'm more aware of the gaps in my knowledge and experience, as well as ability. Our dojo has not used Japanese names for any of the blocks, kicks, stances or such: the only Japanese terminology is the numbering of the kata (ichi, ni, san, shi, go...). I don't know that I'll ever compete outside of my dojo, but most regional, national & international organizations will use the proper japanese terms. If I take on some teaching duties at the dojo as I become a senior practitioner, I should know this and pass it on to my students.

Our dojo does not have many intermediate level students. There is a large base of juniors & newbies (a good thing for future growth & stability of the dojo) and a number of blackbelts from other traditions or dojos who have made our place their new home, but not many of us between, say, orange and brown. This makes for small classes and a lot of personalized attention --all good!-- but it makes for a very small & limited pool for sparring practice. At least three of my group have severe mobility issues, one is very young (and small) so I have to go extra gentle, and most of the rest are kinda weak on their punches & strikes or are too predictable in their patterns. Example: I know Joseph likes to do a leaping back fist for a head strike; the moment I see him crouch though, I know it's coming and one upper block to deflect with a reverse punch to the lower ribs and he's down. Without serious sparring time, it's very difficult to internalize the optimal attack & defense strategies, when to kick & when to punch, how to block for one particular strike or kick, etc..

The hardest thing to overcome is my own physical limitations. My lower back/upper pelvis is *tight*. This is great for weightlifting but not so good for karate. My sensei has joked many times that I don't do 'relaxed' very well, and there's a huge amount of truth to that. It has taken most of this year to learn to automatically relax my shoulders; shoulder tension has been my natural state for 50 years. The lack of flexibility in my lower back is part of what is holding me back from higher kicks and more reach. My hamstrings too are tight and are not showing much sign of loosening, despite extra stretching before class. My balance is much improved but could still use some work: that, at least, is something an aging body won't prevent.

A week off may be the kind of rest my body needs to recover a bit from recent workouts, including gym time. My left elbow is really no better than it was a month ago, and that's a problem: this golfer's elbow (akin to tennis elbow) is restricting my ability to do pulling actions. Bench press is fine, pull-ups are not. I was hoping that dropping all pulling actions from my workouts would help, but whatever gains I thought I was making seem to vanish again just as quickly. Perhaps taking a full week off from the gym as well will give it the rest it clearly needs. If not, I'll be off to the doctor early in the new year.

2018 In Summary: Work

I'm still at the same firm I've been at for ten years, Deem Inc.. Indeed, this past week was my 10th anniversary, if you count from when I first started doing work for them, Jan 5 is my 10th anniversary if you count from my official start date.

On January 25, I became the manager of our systems engineering team. I was already the senior member and was doing the equivalent of team manager since the prior fall, but this was when it was made official. Unfortunately, it did not come with extra money or stock options: management pleaded poverty. I accepted it however as it definitively shifted my job title from mere systems guy into a management roll; this is something which would look good on a resume should I move elsewhere, especially if the company was pleading poverty.

It has been a good year. Besides the day-to-day activities of keeping our systems running, we cleaned out & closed down the one cage in DC3 which I had originally been hired to support & manage ten years ago. We had switched over 90% of all activity to the new cage in May 2017, so we just had to be aggressive about moving that last 10%, then securely disposing of the old equipment.

The other big project was getting our PCI compliance certificate in the fall. Because our systems store credit card information of our customers, we are required to be certified by the paycard industry as compliant with their security guidelines. Some rules had changed since our last certification, and some of our systems had aged out of compliance on their own: it took a significant amount of effort just to collect the proof of compliance for our good systems, not to mention upgrading & modifying our non-compliant ones. In all, we were successful by the deadline but it was a huge effort.

There are still quarterly activities which must be taken as part of the compliance. I just received word yesterday that we have cleared the hurdle for this quarter. Good times will be here again around March 20.

On August 8, I was promoted from Manager, Systems Engineering, to Director, Operations. This promotion did come with extra money, and a pile of additional stock options. Now several teams report to me (and me to my senior VP, Bret). I'm spending more time in coordinating activities and in managerial meetings, but I still have my finger in the systems administration side of the house. I'm still the only person who lives even approximately near our production data center near Dulles Airport.

I had two trips to San Francisco this year, two more than last year. At the moment, there is a strong possibility of another trip for the first week of February, but I'm awaiting word to confirm that.

And while I can't write more about it here (or anywhere, really) because of confidentiality issues, there is something big and wonderful happening right now with work, and I'm very excited about it. I hope to write something a lot more informative by the end of January.