Are We Having Fun Yet?

Well, 2020 couldn't end soon enough for my liking, but despite that, I'm a bit surprised that it's 2021 now. More truthfully, I can accept that it is 2021, but I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around the fact that it is now January. It feels like it should be some other month. Odd.

So far, all of us have avoided covid-19. The county went into lockdown again in December, so there's no dining-in at our restaurants and schools have gone back to remote exclusively. I'm a bit surprised that gyms are still open, but they are now capped at 25% occupancy. Vaccines are being distributed but it's still just groups 1a and 1b: front-line medical workers and the residents of long-term care facilities. I'm not expecting a shot at a shot until late spring at best.

I was awarded my black belt in karate in mid-December. Like other belts I've earned since the dojo closed in March, I consider it to be provisional since we haven't been able to meet in person to do sparring, teaching of juniors, etc.. I plan to re-test when we finally get to practice together in one space once again.

Our ten-day Amsterdam to Bern river cruise last August was scrapped because of covid-19. However, Viking River Cruises offered us a 20% bonus credit if we rolled over to a 14-day Amsterdam-to-Budapest cruise in 2021, so we took them up on it. If we can't go because Europe is still closed to American tourists, or if we haven't been vaccinated by then, we can still get our money back, but I'm choosing to be optimistic.

Travel to Canada is still blocked. At this moment, I could enter Canada as a citizen, but I'd need a negative covid test within 72 hours to be able to board the plane, and submit an extensive quarantine plan electronically before arriving. Once there, I'd be quarantined for two weeks. I have plans ready in case I need to make urgent trips to southern Ontario or northern Ontario, but I'm hoping we get clear of this damn plague before I need to test either one.

Work continues. Our company is cleaning up all of the various bonus programs and performance metrics into a single cohesive plan, and it's not a bad plan at all. My next pay (Jan 8) will pay the last of the three year signing bonuses from our purchase by Enterprise Holdings Inc.; under the new plan, I'll be eligible for up to 20% of my base salary in annual bonuses. In the next month, all staff should receive a comprehensive benefits statement, including any pay adjustments due to title changes, adjustments to responsibilities, or to keep pace with industry averages. I have no idea what if any raise I might get, but the bonus is nothing to sneeze at, even if it's only half of what my last installment from the old plan will be.

Speaking of work, I've been on vacation these past two weeks. With Christmas and New Year's on Fridays, and with the regular company holidays, it only cost me seven vacation days. There is currently one more full day off before work resumes on Monday, and I'm savouring every hour.

I wish I had more to report about the plague year of 2020, but covid made it pretty boring. No square dancing, no travels, no skating, no visits, no bar nights, no day trips, no weekends away (except to the trailer where we'd self-isolate anyway), etc.. I have no idea if square dancing will bounce back, or in what form. I just want to be able to return to Canada again to see family.

Actually, things are pretty good!

Things still suck on so many levels: unemployment is hard to even measure, the economy is tanking in ways I've never seen before, and US deaths have topped 50,000 with no obvious end in sight. But as ugly as it all is, my attitude is vastly better than it was couple of weeks ago.

My job is still secure, as is Kent's. Michael's travel business is non-existent but that's not for lack of effort on his part. We've fallen into some stable & workable routines, and while I'd like better lighting in my basement bunker, it's all working pretty well.

We're all healthy, as is our extended family: we've heard of friends of friends down with covid-19, but no first or second degree connections.

Some supply shortages have been corrected, others haven't but don't affect us too much. At least the bare shelves aren't getting more bare: the shortages haven't spread into other products or stores. And the seniors' shopping hours are kinda fun if you can bear getting out of bed at such an early hour.

We miss going out to eat, but we've figured out which of our regular restaurants are open, and can handle the new curb-side pick-up procedures, among other variances. Tipping huge, needless to say, trying to help out the tipped wait staff as much as possible.

Zoom-based karate sessions haven't been too bad. It's nothing like being in an actual dojo with a proper non-cement floor and real people, but I'm able to keep a bottle of water nearby and make recordings so I can review new sequences in slow motion later. Michael's zoom-based yoga seems to be satisfactory as well. It's better than nothing.

The closed library system is a pain, but I've had a steady stream of books on my Kindle. I'd be happier if many of the books I wanted weren't already lent out, but I have several on hold and should be able to get them soon-ish.

I'm missing some of the square dance stuff, but not too badly. I like having many of my evenings back, and the lack of extra event coordination & overhead is nice.

I miss the gym. A Lot.

Mostly though, I miss travel beyond our immediate neighbourhood, especially the trailer at Roseland. Knowing that I can't fly to San Francisco for work, or to Canada for family is a fairly severe limitation.

But despite it all, we've largely acclimatized to this lower standard of living. Nationally, I think we've largely hit the floor after a long & seemingly endless plummet, so the bulk of the uncertainty has passed. Now we need to continue the distancing, keep large gathering places closed, and get a vaccine. None of these will happen quickly, but we can tough this out.

February was such a nightmare but it is wrapping up well.

I had a root canal, my first ever, on Feb 6. While the procedure itself wasn't too complicated and not at all uncomfortable, there were some issues for the rest of that week, including general aches & soreness and infection. Neither complications were unexpected --I had been given the literature and a prescription for amoxycillin at the endodontist's office-- but it wasn't pleasant.

And the following day, I was whisked off to the Advanced & Challenge square dance event in DC that DC Lambda Squares hosts every year. Sadly, this is the last: the old team is burnt out, and there aren't any obvious folks stepping forward to run the show. And it has typically lost $1-2k per year, so the club is deciding to cut its losses.

I danced as much as I could while feeling somewhat off, but I spent most of Saturday in the hotel room: I was too sick to do much, felt utterly exhausted, and the ache in my jaw & sensitivity in the root canal tooth made eating unbearable. Most of that weekend is simply a blur.

Mercifully, that Presidents' Day Monday was a company holiday so I could catch up on sleep.

I was supposed to have a karate belt test the following week, but knowing I would be travelling to California for business, I had made arrangements for my test to be the upcoming Thursday. But in my exhausted & severely weakened state, I knew I couldn't do it: I could barely summon the energy to walk to the dojo.

Still, I went on Wednesday and Thursday, driving rather than walking, just so I could keep abreast of any tips or suggestions for my eventual test, and to reinforce the habit of attending.

At the Thursday class, I apologized to Sensei that I wasn't physically able to test that night as we had previously agreed. He said that it wasn't a problem, he knew I had everything down cold, and we could do a full test when I got back from Canada in early March. And with that, we began the regular beginner class.

He had the white belts rehearse their kata, and had me work mine, we did some kick and punching drills which we would be performing for our tests, and so on. For my belt test, I'd have to perform eight kata; this night, I could do all eight but I needed a couple minutes of rest between each to get my energy back.

The white belts were going to be doing side kicks for their formal board-breaking ceremony as part of the belt graduation. My cohort would be doing flying side-kicks: run at the target, leap in the air, rotate the hips and pull back the knee of the kicking leg towards the gut, then extend the leg cleanly forward with a burst of energy, striking the target point with the blade/heel of the foot. Oh, then land with at least some dignity on the other foot.

The drills were exhausting: I wasn't so much running as briskly walking. Still, it was a new move for me, and a pretty damn exciting one at that. It's a freaking flying side kick... how cool is that?!

Finally, as we were about to end the class, he pulled over two white belts. Each was to hold firmly one side of the board, a hand on each corner, keeping the board facing out at chest level. And I was ordered to break the board with the newly learned flying side kick.

If I had more energy, I could have delivered that at head level, but chest level was fine: I hit it squarely and broke the board on the first try. The white belts were suitably relieved.

And Sensei handed me my brown belt: I had passed the test, perhaps not with the best energy, but I did the work. Being tested without knowing I was being tested was actually a great kindness: I was able to focus on doing well what I could do, rather than trying to do everything to perfection and berating myself for not being at 100%.

I was also shocked how relieved I was when this was all done. I had been carrying a huge amount of stress about so many things coming up, as well as tasks delayed & accumulating. Finally, I had a major task which was done & finished, and I needed that particular victory to help me get through the coming storm.

I regret I didn't get photos or video of that board break, and the guys couldn't attend the graduation (because we didn't know it would be a graduation), but there will be others.

And with that done, I went home for too few hours of sleep before flying to San Francisco the following morning.

I've been feeling a bit down the past couple of day because of some family issues. Given a choice between venting here and eating my feelings/my body weight in ice cream, well, here we are. You're welcome.

Reports from family indicate my Mom's mental health is sliding dramatically. Memory loss, emotional instability, cognition impairment. We've reached the point where intervention is required.

Problem: Half of my siblings are simply staring at me, insisting that I do something. Why me, you ask? Why don't they do something themselves, you ask? Largely because they don't want to. They want something done, but they don't want to be bothered.

Problem: Mom doesn't think she has a problem. She knows something is off, but insists it is the universe with issues, not her. Her memory is perfect, it's the other 7 billion people with memory loss. Her thinking is clear, everyone else is messed up. Olympic gold medalist denial.

Problem: Mom lives on the farm alone since Dad died this time last year. The nearest relative is 250 miles away. The nearest town is 8 miles away. There is a nursing home in that town, so that's an option, but.... that implies either institutionalizing her near her friends & social connections, but away from family. Or bringing her closer to family, but ripped away from her social network & home of 50 years. Both options suck.

Problem: When/if she's declared incompetent, I have medical power-of-attorney, but I live in another country. Two other siblings have general power-of-attorney for all other matters --and one of them didn't know it until I sent him a PDF of the docs a few days ago. He's not happy.

Problem: None of us even know the name of her regular doctor or what meds she's supposed to be taking --when she remembers. How does one legally intervene? What are the ramifications? We have a lot of homework ahead of us.

Plan: I'm going to head to northern Ontario as soon as I can to spend a week with her. I trust the reports from family, but I also need to satisfy myself of the necessity of any intervention.

I went to high school with the lawyer who made the wills, powers-of-attorney, etc.: I'll have an appointment with him to catch up on the legal issues. One of my sisters went to high school with her pharmacist: we can find out more about her meds. Did I mention this is a small town?

We need an expert medical evaluation. I expect however that Mom will fight us at every step and will not cooperate with any exam. There is a real possibility she will see this as a global conspiracy including her own doc & lawyer, cut off all contact and refuse her current meds.

It's not so far fetched: in Dad's last two years, she was convinced that only she could treat Dad, and that all doctors were in cahoots to secretly murder him. She even accused two of my sisters of being part of that conspiracy. She was almost barred from two hospitals because of her threats of violence against the staff. It was ultimately dismissed with a warning as the ravings of a scared, distraught wife watching her husband suffer, but we had to monitor her while she was monitoring Dad.

So in all, I have a mess of stuff happening back in Canada and I don't have any good answers at the moment. I'm trying to thread my way through, but I'm not getting much sleep and the weight of it sometimes makes it difficult to breathe.

A year ago Monday, my Dad died. The Mom I knew is nearly gone, while a stranger like her but not her inhabits her body. And we have to come up with a plan to care for this not-quite-Mom that won't destroy what's left of her. Ugh.

Dad died very early Sunday. We collected his personal effects and brought Mom back to my hotel room for the night. After a few hours of sleep, we headed back to the farm in Englehart.

On Monday, we began the process of paperwork on Dad.

There won't be an extensive funeral. The body was collected from Kirkland Lake by McDonalds Funeral Home in Englehart; it will be cremated in Haileybury today. We chose a small wooden chest for his cremains. There will be no service immediately but a celebration of life at the United Church in Englehart in April, followed by burial in the Brentha Cemetary, plot I-16. We paid Mark at the Home for their services, $3,870.

The funeral home is updating the federal government, so we don't have to make extra calls about Dad's Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Supplement or such. The CPP has a $2,500 death benefit; that should be arriving in a couple of months once we get the last paper signed. She will get a reduced survivor's benefit from Dad's CPP, as well as her own CPP and her OAS.

I've made phone calls to Primerica about Dad's life insurance policy, and to his union about his death benefits. The paperwork for those will be mailed to the farm for completion.

Dad's union pension will continue to Mom at full for ten more years, then 50% after. She will continue getting the union's supplemental health insurance gratis for the next six months, then receive paperwork to obtain it in her own name in future.

We have some issues on the credit cards: they have two Visa cards which appear to both be under Dad's name exclusively. We have to cancel those, but we also need to ensure Mom has some credit card available to her.

There were no outside investment accounts. The property & bank accounts were all jointly held so Mom retains control without probate. The Ford Escape is exclusively in her name, but the pickup truck was in Dad's: we'll have to figure that one out, but it's not a pressing concern this week.

The township has been notified of Dad's passing and we have confirmed that we will be using the plot the parents purchased some years ago.

They both had extra accident-only insurance coverage. I've cancelled both of Dad's policies to prevent further premium payments, and confirmed Mom's are still intact.

Beyond this, I'm helping put away a lot of Dad's personal items. We've taken bags of his medications to the local pharmacy for disposal. Some clothes have already been donated. His toiletries have been removed from the master bath room. I'm eating my way through is chocolate stash and his assortment of potato chips.

My parents collectively have kept a huge pile of bank statements, legal papers, invoices, receipts and so on for decades. I'm sorting out items of no consequence and documents older than seven years, burning the old stuff and sorting the current things into some vague order.

Tomorrow (Wednesday), we pick up Dad's remains and a stack of copies of the death certificate from the funeral home. We will also stop by the township hall to sign some papers prepared for us. And then we go to New Liskeard to stop by the provincial government offices to formally close his Ontario health benefits and various supplemental services he received as part of his Crohn's, COPD and mobility support. And return Dad's beer can empties as we can only recycle those in New Liskeard or Kirkland Lake --we need to keep up with the practical day-to-day issues too.

I return to Maryland Thursday; perhaps an extra 24 hours might be useful, but not enough to justify the expense of rescheduling my flight. I'm taking lots of photos of various documents & contact info with my phone, as well as recording information in Evernote and emailing my siblings daily with my progress so they know where we stand when Angela comes up this weekend to continue the battle on paperwork. At least I'll be able to say that we got 80% of the heavy lifting done before I go; we just need to complete the appropriate forms when they arrive via snail-mail in the coming week.

I've finally made it to Kirkland Lake. One of my sisters flew in from Halifax to Toronto's island airport where we met up, then few together to Timmins where I had a rental car waiting. We're now checked into our hotel and had a brief visit with Mom & Dad at the hospital.

Dad is currently in the palliative care ward. While he is not in any particular pain, he is receiving moderate doses of medication to make him comfortable, mostly by keeping his stress & anxiety at bay sufficiently so that his lungs' low performance is still sufficient. If he exerts himself in anyway, physically or emotionally, his COPD is sufficiently advanced that he cannot function and therefore becomes even more anxious, feeling that he is suffocating --because, well, he is, in slow motion.

At the moment, it doesn't appear he can go home again: his ability to physically function & care for himself, even with Mom's help, is too degraded.

This afternoon before I arrived, he had a chat with the hospital staff about medically assisted death. We don't think he's actively investigating this at the moment, but is considering his options when/if his situation further degrades to the point where he will be utterly dependent on machines to survive.

When I arrived this evening, Mom was on the phone to her mother, explaining that Dad had little time left, that he wished to be cremated, that there would be no immediate funeral but probably a memorial celebration of life later in the summer when his cremains are interred in the Brentha Cemetary near their farm. Dad was sitting upright in bed this entire time, listening to the conversation.

Dad's skin tone was definitely greyer than I've ever seen, but he was talkative, clear-minded and lucid, although periodically fighting for consciousness against the medication. His mind is good, but his body is simply worn out & failing.

At this moment, I would say that Dad is reaching the end, but it is not imminent. He will die in his own time, perhaps a few days or perhaps a few months. I have no doubt though that tomorrow will be his last birthday (77), and I wouldn't put any money on him seeing their next wedding anniversary (July 4).

As I write this, I'm OK with all of this. I will miss him, but I can see that this is no longer the life he wants, an active mind trapped in a decaying body. If he has made peace with his ending, then I'm at peace with it too. I love my father: I will not demand he live in pain just to assuage my fears or sadness, so I'm letting him go.

Mother, however, has not made peace. To the contrary, she's declaring war on the universe.

While she has somewhat accepted that his end is coming soon, she's fighting it tooth & nail. She won't leave the room because she believes the hospital will stop treating him if she's not present & monitoring. She's sleeping in his hospital bed beside him, even though crowding Dad and wrapping her arm over him makes it harder for him to breathe. She won't let Dad finish a sentence, insisting that she knows better than he does what his wishes are going to be --or tries until he glares his annoyance at her while he catches his breath to finish speaking.

She still holds that at least two of my sisters are part of the great conspiracy to murder our father, a notion she latched onto a few years ago when Dad first was diagnosed with Crohn's and his COPD became undeniable. Since one sister is a nurse, Mom has identified her as the secret agent of the medical profession, sent to monitor Dad and report back on better ways to torture him. I know how ridiculous this sounds --because it is utterly ridiculous-- but it is causing very real headaches.

Before we arrived this afternoon, Mom began shouting at Donna as she inquired about Dad's medical regimen. At one point, Mom charged at her, presumably with the intent of doing something violent; Donna, who has faced this before and is quite tired of the stupidity, simply turned and left the room, refusing to be an witness for Mom's tantrum. This made Mom even more furious and she began directing her rage at Angela, who had done nothing to this point. Angela told her directly to stop behaving like a child and that we had all come to see Dad (laying in bed, witness to the whole thing), not be held hostage to her tantrums.

As you can imagine, this didn't go over well with Mom, who became louder & more obnoxious. She then turned and kicked away a chair and a rolling tray table that were in her way. At this point, the hospital staff had to step in to address the noise level. If Mom does this again, the staff will address this as a "code white" (violent person, whether patient, visitor, staff or other) and Mom will be ejected from the hospital and refused further entry.

I have some sympathy for her: her husband is dying and she's ill-equipped to live without him, at least in the way they've been living for decades. She has mild dementia, the residual effects of mild strokes and a brain tumour. She's survived breast cancer in recent years. Most of her old social network has largely died of old age by now. But I can't accept the damage she is doing. Dad doesn't need this stress. Our last memories with Dad should be about Dad, not about Mom's exaggerated drama, conspiracy theories & inflated sense of self-importance.

I have no good answers for this. All I can say for my part is that if she goes into drama mode again, I will leave the room. I will not be an audience for her performance art. After a brief family conference this evening, my siblings are in similar agreement.

Tomorrow, we're planning to have some brief one-on-one chats with Dad to say goodbye. Nearly everyone is returning to their individual homes Friday or Saturday: kids have to be back in school, work has to be resumed, etc.. I'm here until at least Tuesday, and depending on how things look, I may extend that. We've already discussed the possibility that once we've each had a chance to say our farewells and celebrated his birthday, Dad may simply let go of his own accord. Or not. We just don't know.

And we have no idea what to do about Mom once he does pass away. What do you do when the only things which could possibly make her happy are utterly impossible, and that the only theoretically choices are Great Evils To Be Violently Opposed? How do we deal with a situation where the best possible outcome might actually be Mom's stated wish to die immediately with Dad? Again, I have no answers.

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.

Nope, don't have shingles (save for the roofing variety), but this is about ensuring that I never get it (save for the roofing variety).

I previously had a shingles vaccine, but there is a new one which is vastly more effective named Shingrix. It's a two-injection process, the second about 2-6 months after the first. There was a waiting list at my doctor's office until recently but I was called when a slot became available January 31.

The injection itself was a simple process, and my insurance covers it with no copay. What came after was harder.

The injection site on my upper left arm was a bit sore throughout the morning. By the late afternoon, I was feeling flu-like symptoms: congestion, headache, temperature sensitivity and extensive muscle aches everywhere. I worked at the data center until 1am and was really feeling horrid by that time. Since much of the US seems to be overwhelmed with the flu this year, I presumed I finally caught some version of it, especially since a doctor's waiting room filled with sick patients would almost by definition expose me to a variety of flu virus strains.

By the morning though the worst of the symptoms had abated. The congestion was reduced and my temperature sensitivity was back to normal, but my body still ached. By the end of the second day, everything seemed mostly normal again.

It's now been four days and the injection site on my arm is still pressure-sensitive. The rest of me is fine. I'm writing this up as a flu-like reaction to the injection, my immune system ramping up fiercely to counter a perceived threat, as an immunization shot should trigger. I hope the second injection in early April isn't as fierce or uncomfortable.

As recorded here earlier this year, I took up karate in August at a local dojo which opened earlier this year in our general neighbourhood. Friends had studied karate years ago and frequently mentioned how much they enjoyed it, and I've had a general interest in martial arts since I was a kid, so why not? After all, if now now, when?

In the past, my casual inquiries were stymied by the lack of an adult beginner class. Nearly every program I had looked into was largely designed to introduce children to karate around age 5, then stream them along the various programs as they grew up into adult blackbelts. It seemed there were few options for the grandparents of those same children to begin.

Victory Karate has entry levels for all ages: 3-4 years, 5-7 years, 8-12 years, teens and adults, as well as a few all-skate sessions which mix age groups. I started the adult beginners on Mondays & Thursdays. It's primarily kenpo karate (as opposed to, say, shotokan, goju-ryu, shito-ryu, etc.) with elements of taekwondo and krav maga. Fees are $150/month, charged automatically to my credit card.

I've come to like the routine & light formality of the class. One arrives, puts away the coat & shoes, dons one's belt, collects one's attendance card (each card is collected by the sensei at the beginning of the class where attendance & other comments are made), bows to the dojo, then either stretch or meditate along the side if one is early, or take one's spot on the floor if the class is immediately beginning. The first half or so of each class is a warm-up cardio or stretching, or both. When ready, we delve into the topic of the day as determined by Mr A (Sensei Ibrahim Abdallah): kicks, punches, stances, grappling (and combinations of these), kata, sparring, etc..

Thanks to much weightlifting over the past few years, I have vastly more upper body strength than others in my class. Actually, more than anyone else I've met there. Not that this strength is particularly useful in karate --no strong arms or chest will preserve you from a brutally hard round kick to the head or a back kick to the stomach--, but it lets me generally absorb more sparring hits, make stronger punches, and resist grappling. The biggest advantage is more mundane: I can do the full complement of warm-up push-ups without ending so drained that I stumble through the rest of the class.

Our class has varied from a half-dozen to 15 at any given session. Until recently, I was the newbiest of the newbies: I was the only white belt in a sea of yellow & orange, as well as a few blackbelts who tag along for fun and assist in instruction.

(NB: Beginner levels are white, yellow, gold & orange (green for teens), intermediate is green, blue & purple, and advanced is red, brown & black (blue, purple for teens).

In early December, I graduated up a level to a yellow belt. I have memorized the first three katas, can perform a required series of punches, blocks & kicks without embarrassing myself, and am greatly enjoying myself.

For some extra challenge, I've added the kickboxing class early on Saturday mornings and stay after the Monday class for Mr Tony's taekwondo training. The kickboxing is more like zumba class composed of kicking: we're not boxing each other, but Mr A puts on the house dance music and leads us through a series of high cardio kicking sessions. Imagine lining up on a floor with three kick targets: Each person is to perform one particular kick on the first target, a different one on the second, and yet another on the third, then circle around to the back of the line. In mid-cycle, Mr A might change the target order or the kick to be performed, or right-hand vs left-hand, constantly keeping us on our toes. It's really enormous fun and even more of a cardio workout than the regular karate class.

The taekwondo class is fascinating, mostly because I'm such a newbie that everything is novel to me. It's much more about blocking & grappling than karate has been so far. I've only attended a few classes so far because of scheduling conflicts and the xmas break, but will report more as it happens.

Problems? There are occasional injuries: abrasions on my right forearm from the sparring gloves, the top of my right foot from repeated round kicks, a pulled muscle in my right calf from hopping on one leg & landing badly. Nothing serious. I'm much more flexible than I used to be, but at this point, there is no way I can kick higher than chest-level, and even that lacks any elegance. While that is adequate for defense and my training, I'd really like to be able to kick at head-level with control & smoothness.

What is my plan for 2018? I've been reading a great deal about karate, the history, the physics & biomechanics, and performance guides. I was given a punch & kick target for xmas this week, although I have yet to clear out a space in the basement where I can use it. I need to kick higher: I think this will be a combination of stretching (insert wide-stance joke here) and strengthening my core so that I can pull my knee up to chest level in isolation. I'm exactly how I'm going to get there, but I will start by asking Mr A for advice.

Presuming I can successfully graduate to a new belt level with each exam session in 2018, I hope to end the coming year in the intermediate level as a green belt.

Monday evening, after our regular karate class, Master Tony invited me to join his taekwondo group in the hour following.

This was interesting on multiple levels. Firstly, I had no idea they were doing taekwondo at all in the subsequent hour. My untrained eye couldn't see the distinctions between karate and taekwondo, so I presumed the class after mine was advanced karate, just as the schedule had indicated. And they meet again Tuesday nights at 8pm. Who knew?

I was too exhausted to participate, as I had paced myself for a one hour intensive workout rather than two, but I could at least sit to the side and observe. And as Yogi Berra said, you can observe a lot just by watching.

I learned more about grappling, striking & blocking in a single hour of observation than in the past three months of karate. That's not to say that karate doesn't include these, it's just that it's not been part of my curriculum yet, so nearly everything I witnessed is novel to me.

Monday evening, I was intrigued and fascinated by this new style; Tuesday morning, however, I was wondering if it was all a mistake. How much time and how many evenings could I possibly spare for more classes? Two classes a week is OK, three is a stretch, but adding more? And where would it end?

Still, Master Tony made a personal invitation and it would be rude to decline such kindness. I went to the Tuesday night class out of respect & appreciation, but with apprehension about commitment. Unfortunately, I had a great time, dammit.

We did more grappling and deflecting work, and I got some excellent coaching on my side kick, my back stance and long stance. It was one of the best hours I've had in the dojo lately. I'm still a novice so I'm easy to impress, but being a novice means there are huge gains to be had for little effort. Taekwondo will become harder for me because it must, eventually.

My thoughts at the moment are to attend the taekwondo session immediately following my Monday karate class. If I'm available, I'll try to squeeze in the occasional Tuesday session as well, but I'm making no significant commitment to that. I'll still continue the Thursday karate class, and will try to squeeze in the Saturday morning kick boxing session, and the karate session which follows. I'm still going to the gym 4-5 times per week for weightlifting. We'll see how long I can sustain this.