You can’t wash your hands in a buffalo!

This joke came to me via an email from my step brother, Michael. I’ll try it out on my choikwangdo martial arts class tomorrow!

I saw Kwang Jo Choi, the founder of Choikwangdo at a Seminar in the K2 arena in Crawley, yesterday. At the age of 66 he gave an awesome performance.

He ran through the most important Choikwangdo techniques for about 5-6 hours with hardly any rest at all. He is a legend in his lifetime and like any great man inspires critics as well as fans.

At the end of the seminar several students were presented with
4th dan and 5th dan black belts. Some students become jealous when they see such presentations. They don’t have to be.

All they need to do is to start working hard on the syllabus and then take the necessary gradings. Before they realize it, they too will be on stage receiving applause for their achievements.

A large group of American Choikwangdo students had come to England for the seminar. They had an excellent demo team with them and gave an outstanding performance in the lunch hour.

The UK demo team did the same led by the legendary Nigel Brophy, their instructor.

Today,Sunday 27th April 2008, I walked round the neighbourhood. Seconds after leaving my house I saw a large fox loping across the road. Sometimes you can’t tell whether it is a cat or fox ahead of you but there was no mistake on this occasion.

What’s the difference between a fox and a cat? One chases rabbits, the other eats them from a tin.

My apologies! I’ll quit while I’m still ahead!

Tonight, Saturday 19th April 2008, I walked round the neighbourhood at about 10 p.m.

The air was cold and fresh. It was great to breathe it in. I was reminded of advice I received this week from an American relative.

It was advice about what to do if you feel like you are having a heart attack and you are alone. Can you help yourself? This is the advice:

“Read This…It could save your life! Let’s say it’s 6:15 p.m. and you’re driving home (alone of course), after an usually hard day on the job. You’re really tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest your home.

Unfortunately you don’t know if you’ll be able to make it that far. What can you do? You’ve been trained in CPR but the guy that taught the course, didn’t tell you what to do if it happened to yourself.

Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, this article seemed to be in order. Without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.

However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest. A breath and a cough must be repeated about very two seconds without let up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.

Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital. Tell as many other people as possible about this, it could save their lives!”

I walked round the neighbourhood quite early today since I had to be available to give my brother a lift to the dentist at 10.15 a.m. I didn’t see any walkers but quite a few builders were active.

On my return I saw a TV program called ‘The Wright Stuff’ on Channel 5. The subject for discussion was whether it is better to try and fail than it is to never try at all.

In schools there has been an ethos of don’t try to win anything and then you won’t be disappointed. Competition has been frowned on as a result. But life is full of competition. People need to learn how to cope with it.

One caller rang in to say that he was the son of an ace RAF pilot. He did not apply to be a pilot in case he failed and disappointed his dad. He went to Sandhurst instead to train for the army!

Later a top pilot told him that he had all the qualities necessary to be a good pilot. However, he was now too old to become a pilot. He obviously should have tried to be a pilot and just dealt with the disappointment of failure, if he had failed.

Most of us are too frightened of failure. I think we should be more frightened of lacking the courage to try. If we try and then fail, we shall, at least, have the satisfaction of knowing that we had the guts to give things a go.

Later at the dentist, I met a banker who has been playing rugby right up to the age of 60. He has now decided to stop after running into several tooth problems at the age of 61.

He described how common it was for people to punch each other in the rugby scrums. He didn’t like doing this himself but was told by his team mates to retaliate. The game is tough enough already without turning it into a boxing match as well!

He described how many players now wear some kind of body armour. Even one famous fly half wears a scrum cap! Another, Jonny Wilkinson, is protected by body armour.

Free running is now quite popular in London and elsewhere. The runners don’t appear to be wearing much protection but do some quite dangerous looking jumps.

They run and jump over obstacles like railings and walls that most people walk around. They tend to avoid going down steps; they jump or slide down railings instead.

Free runners warn against doing risky moves that you are not prepared for. Just take things slowly as you build up your skills.
They claim that they do not jump over cars and do not invade private property.

I love the idea of free running and might have a go at it in a very, very limited way if and when I see the opportunity! Heavily built up areas probably provide the best opportunities.

I could probably jump out of my house without stepping on the door step first! I might even manage to swing on some tree branches although they might well crack under my weight!

Watch the early part of Casino Royale to see some amazing free running by a champion free runner as he tries to escape from James Bond who is not a bad runner himself although he does tend to go round rather than over obstacles.

Why not give free running a try but do so at your own risk and don’t blame me if you break your neck in the process! Free walking and very limited jumping and swinging on large branches might be a safer option.

Later, at about 11.10 p.m. I was inspired to go for a second walk by reading an article by Robert Ringer. In it he describes how in his late twenties he tried to do one pushup and failed.

He was so disgusted by the shape he had let himself get into that he decided to embrace discipline in all areas of his life. He started doing 600 situps in the morning and the evening.

I decided that the least I could do was go for a second walk tonight. No one was about although it was a chilly but pleasant night.

Today, Sunday April 13th 2008, I walked round the neighbourhood in the early afternoon in between showers.

I met one of my neighbours and his wife. Neither of them looked too well. I jokingly suggested that the man should have been running the London Marathon this morning. He replied “I thought about it.”

I don’t blame him for not running especially as I was not running myself. However, thinking about doing something and wishing we had done something does not achieve the goal though it can help.

Alexander Woollcott, Critic and Commentator for The New Yorker magazine wrote:

“Many of us spend half our time wishing for things we could have if we didn’t spend half our time wishing.”

Today, Saturday April 12th 2008, I walked twice round the neighbourhood. No foxes. My second walk was at about 10 p.m.

I saw a cat but it might have been a little early for the usual foxes. Several cars were still about.

I did not feel that proud of going for two walks. Many dog owners go for two or three much longer walks every day.

I read recently about a Buddhist ‘Marathon monk’ from the Tendai sect of Buddhism in Japan. His name is Sakai Yusai.

Matt Furey described how he walked for 90 days without sleep and without lying or sitting down. He was allowed two meals a day but had to eat them standing!

I once walked for 17 and a half hours from one end of the Isle of Man to the other going over the tops of the hills and the one mountain Snaifell. It took me a week to recover. I don’t think I would have survived for 24 hours let alone 90 days.

Tomorrow, a man of 101 is running in the London Marathon along with 35000 other brave people. He cleans vans for a living and has not missed work for 90 days.

The world is full of amazing people who set high standards. We are fortunate to have them around.

This morning, Saturday April 12th 2008, I left the house at about midnight and took the short neighbourhood walk.

One young man crossed the road ahead of me not far from where I started and, later, I saw another young man dressed in black coming from the woods.

In good self-defence style, I walked in condition yellow i.e. checking out for anyone following me by looking behind me every now and again and studying the shadows thrown by the lamp lights on the grass. No one was following me – not even the young man in black!

I entered Berens Way expecting to see a fox as they seem to love that road. Sure enough, a very young fox walked up the slope towards me.

It kept coming but dodged into the gardens on the side every now and again and then stayed hidden in one until I had passed. It was not frightened. It was simply cautious and in condition yellow!

It is a great truth that quite often you receive what you expect to receive unless you are Oliver asking for more!

Before going I out, I watched a recording of the film ‘Waterloo’ one of my favourite films of all time. I stopped at the scene where the Duke of Wellington asks one of his young officer’s what he has done with his watch.

“Who did you give your watch to, Hay?

“Somerset, Sir.”

“Expecting to die tomorrow? I don’t like those thoughts. Having them, sometimes, makes them come true.” There was a clap of thunder as if to underline the Duke’s words.

“Get your watch back. Tomorrow, I’ll ask you the time every five minutes.”

Later, Hay was killed in the battle. The Duke was right.

Today, Saturday April 5th 2008, I walked round the neighbourhood at about 11 a.m. It was cold unlike yesterday which was almost a full Summer’s day.

Yesterday, I saw and photographed a fox in the back garden.
It was wandering about and relieving itself on the lawn. As I photographed it, I hid behind the back door but it looked towards me every now and again.

This is one reason it missed spotting a large rabbit that was further down the garden. By the time the fox looked in its direction, the rabbit had disappeared, with a flourish of its white tail, possibly under the wooden hut in my neighbour’s garden.

Thinking about the incident today I was reminded of a favourite saying of my Shotokan Karate teachers. At the time I was training in Kung Fu in the morning and Karate in the afternoon.

The Karate instructors told me that, if you chase two rabbits, you will catch neither. They knew how important focus on one thing at a time is.

Many people fail to mine gold on the internet because they rush from one exciting way of making money to another without concentration on one method long enough for it to succeed.

Focus on one rabbit at a time and you might even catch it.