DarthPenguin

That is an awesome goal - you really need to get some t-shirts made up like "trekking to Mordor" or something wittier for doing it. Great idea though!

Excellent! Good luck with them, though am sure you won't need it Myself i always try to set some goals / targets (some of them i set a financial penalty to not meeting them which seems to incentivise nicely!). Won't derail your thread though by listing mine!

One other issue that might come up unfortunately is the issue of there being a lot of frauds out there. When i am interested in a club or style the very first thing i (as i think most people do nowadays) is google them and see what i can find out about the instructor, their lineage, the style etc. If i can't find anything it usually seems quite a red flag to me unless i can rely on word of mouth from someone i trust. Unfortunately for a lot of frauds an easy way for them to try to escape detection is claim to be trained in a "rare and rarely seen style" and then make up whatever rank they want etc. If someone queries the lack of information they can either point to the rarity or all of the info will point back to them! Obviously there are "real" rare styles without much of an online presence but this is quite a potential issue i think. I actually think that you, Wastelander, are a good example of how to go about teaching or keeping alive a smaller style: you have a clear online presence, you give clear lineage etc. and you regularly interact with other martial artists openly (of senior level) and put out technique videos. That gives people plenty to look at and give comfort - realistically most things i would find on Kishimoto-di are from you but then i can see that you interact with enough other senior people that if you had made it up yourself they could easily have called you out on it (which you haven't so they don't need to!!)

Friday 3rd January Lifting Session Bench Press 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 55kg x 10 55kg x 10 55kg x 10 55kg x 10 55kg x 12 Squat 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 60kg x 5 72.5kg x 5 82.5kg x 5 95kg x 6 Cable face pulls 15kg x 15 15kg x 15 15kg x 15 Overhead triceps extension 30kg x 15 30kg x 15 30kg x 15 Biceps cable curl 30kg x 15 30kg x 15 30kg x 15 Seated cable row 75kg x 13 75kg x 13 75kg x 13 Cable lateral raise 10kg x 22 10kg x 22 10kg x 22 cable neck extension 5kg x 9 5kg x 9 5kg x 9 Cable neck flexion 5kg x 9 5kg x 9 5kg x 9 Cable neck side bends (reps = total of L + R) 5kg x 18 5kg x 18 5kg x 18 upper trunk curl 13 reps 13 reps flat leg raise 13 reps 13 reps Single leg raises 33 reps 33 reps V leg raises 13 reps 13 reps

Wednesday 1st January Lifting session Trap Bar Deadlift 70kg x 5 80kg x 5 95kg x 10 95kg x 10 95kg x 10 95kg x 10 95kg x 15 Seated overhead barbell press 20kg x 5 30kg x 5 42.5kg x 5 50kg x 5 57.5kg x 6 Cable chest flye (weight is per hand) 25kg x 12 25kg x 12 25kg x 12 Triceps rope pushdown (superset with cable biceps curls) 30kg x 15 30kg x 15 30kg x 15 Biceps cable curls 30kg x 15 30kg x 15 30kg x 15 Seated cable row (superset with cable lateral raises) 75kg x 12 75kg x 12 75kg x 12 cable lateral raises (reps = total of L + R) 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 Cable neck extension (superset with neck flexion) 5kg x 8 5kg x 8 5kg x 8 Cable neck flexion 5kg x 8 5kg x 8 5kg x 8 Neck side bend (reps = total of L+R) 5kg x 16 5kg x 16 5kg x 16 Upper trunk curl 12 reps 12 reps Flat leg raise 12 reps 12 reps Single leg raises 32 reps 32 reps Leg v raise 12 reps 12 reps Going to add some neck and core work to every session going forward as i think i need them! Got myself a new head harness over the festive period which has D-rings on front, back and sides so i can use it with my cable machine. Should help with my grappling!

managed several more sessions in December but totally forgot to log them in here! Last BJJ session was Friday 20th December. In the interim i did a couple of 1rm test sessions around xmas time and managed a trap bar deadlift of 170kg x 1 (could have possibly done a little more but happy to use that number) and a barbell bench of 100kg x 1 (could have possibly managed maybe another 2.5kg but definitely not another rep). Used these numbers to set my numbers for 2025 and continued to workout throughout the festive period. Started programme with updated figures on new years day (will log workouts shortly). Also trying to use my ski erg every day of Jan for a minimum of 500m. Won't log those here but may put the final monthly distance when done. Idea is to get form dialled in and make it a habit!

yeah we worked our way through it already too. We enjoyed it, we weren't sure where they would take it after the first season but i think they have done a good job and the third season should tie things up nicely

i'm interested to read the above as i wonder how much people's location factors into this discussion. From my perspective boxing actually seems healthier now than it has been for years - the Saudi money coming in has led to loads of massive fights taking place this year as they won't settle for Champs taking silly defences against a tomato can. They pay premium money and expect top level fighters. From the UK perspective there have been loads of big fights taking place, not least Fury vs Usyk this year (plus Beterbiev vs Bivol etc). I would say that there aren't quite as many high name recognition top top top level american fighters anymore as there used to be: to my mind it is really Terence Crawford (who doesn't get huge gates), Devin Haney (not that popular either), Shakur Stevenson and Tank Davis, with Davis being the biggest money draw but with legal issues. (i know there are plenty more good fighters but these are the ones that come immediately to mind as at top world level). For me this is quite a change as i grew up with the majority of the top fighters being American or at the least US based (the mexican champs etc.)

Thank you everyone, surprised enough to be nominated let alone win anything! (And apologies for the belated acknowledgement! - i have tried to stay off my laptop over the festive break!)

As a Bills fan the last couple of weeks have been interesting! On the plus side it is great to see us having a genuine running threat now plus loads of targets at receiver for Allen. On the flipside : we really need to get the injured guys back in the secondary soon. Would love a rematch of last night for the Superbowl though

yeah will be interesting to see. He has always been great at extracting the most possible from undervalued players which might mesh nicely with recruiting. Would be interesting to see him win an NCAA title though. Much as he can be objectionable it just seems odd to me how he basically got dumped from the NFL and no-one would think of hiring him. Can you imaging that happening to Phil Jackson after he left the Lakers? I understand that he is a little difficult but he historically does win!

you have just reminded me that i need to get back to these! I stopped part way through Oathbringer for no particular reason and didn't get around to picking it up again! Currently i am reading through the latest Raymond Feist novel. I recently read the Firemane saga and was pleasantly surprised by them ( a lot better than the final riftwar books which seemed a bit phoned in to me). Latest one has started ok so far.

I started adding in Bulgarian split squats too myself and i think they are really useful. Personally, if you are getting sore knees i would try to explore why. Assuming you aren't overloading the movement it might be a sign of some disfunction that you need to correct which could lead to injury at some other point if not addressed. For me i felt quite a lack of stability when starting them so started absurdly light but once you get the form down you can progress quickly

The other point that might be worth thinking of is sometimes it is easier to make changes gradually and let them bed in rather than adopt a large amount of changes at once. A complete change to routines etc. for many people can lead to easily 'falling off the diet wagon'. As an example, i needed to reduce my sugar intake (which genuinely wasn't too high) since when i have more than a certain amount it causes gout to flare up in one of my big toe joints (legacy of a foot injury that i didn't get dealt with properly from training!). What i did to start with was replaced any sodas etc. with diet ones to gradually wean off any sugar, then replaced the diet sodas with diluting concentrated juices, then moved from them to sugar free diluted juices, then made them more and more dilute so that they are in essence flavoured water. Also just stopped buying any sugary desserts etc. For me it is easier to just totally avoid something than have it occasionally in moderation. Doing that allowed me to have the odd amount of sugar when appropriate (birthday cakes etc.) without any worry - since it seems to be a build up over time in my system that causes the issue. I would echo Nidan_melbournes suggestion of speaking to a dietician / nutritionist, though with the addendum of trying to find one who works with people exercising more often, and develop a long term plan to shift towards.

I would echo the other posters comments but also mention that trying to self teach, without significant prior experience, is likely to result in learning faulty movement patterns and having a lot of hassle down the line trying to fix the faulty muscle memory. Once someone has a lot of experience and has developed a lot of awareness of exactly what their body is doing when they perform a technique then yes you can probably self teach to an extent e.g. bushido_man has his 5th dan in TKD : he can probably relatively easily pick up variants of techniques from karate etc. and seek to add it to his technique repository by making some adjustments. Personally, i would suggest googling all the clubs in the styles you like the look of that are near you and just popping along for a trial lesson and see what you actually like when you try it for real. Plenty of times things are different in practice to what they seem like when viewing from a distance

Congratulations! You going to try and push on now for your 5th? Fantastic achievement though

Fantastic, well done!

I wonder if that is a difference between different shotokan classes / clubs. At mine we start the gohon kumite at white belt and they do it in their grading too. My instructor lets people do free sparring straight away too (though obviously it is a lot gentler for the lower grades and usually the white belts etc will be paired up with someone a lot more experienced).

Tuesday 3 December Lifting session Quite a compressed session as needed to get it done in 30min. supersetted every exercise with a set of deadlifts and took max 1min rest between sets of the superset. Managed to get it all done though which was good! Trap bar deadlift 70kg x 5 90kg x 3 110kg x 2 120kg x 1 130kg x 3 130kg x 3 130kg x 3 130kg x 3 130kg x 3 130kg x 3 130kg x 5 Seated overhead press 20kg x 5 30kg x 5 42.5kg x 5 47.5kg x 5 55kg x 6 Cable chest flye (weight is per hand) 25kg x 11 25kg x 11 25kg x 11 Overhead cable triceps extension 30kg x 15 30kg x 15 30kg x 15

Monday 2 December Karate Session Usual warm ups to start the class followed by grade required kihon. Went onto kata working bassai dai first and then backwards through the Heian's until Heian shodan. Did a couple of rounds of jiyu ippon kumite at the end

Saturday 30th November BJJ Session relatively straightforward session . Worked on scissor sweep from closed guard and some options when people defend it. Nothing much to write about tbh though was a good session to get more reps in

Friday 29 November lifting session squat 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 60kg x 5 75kg x 3 90kg x 3 90kg x 3 90kg x 3 90kg x 3 90kg x 3 90kg x 3 90kg x 8 Bench press 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 62.5kg x 5 70kg x 5 80kg x 6 Cable seated row 55kg x 12 55kg x 12 55kg x 12 55kg x 12 55kg x 12 OVerhead triceps extension 25kg x 20 25kg x 20 KB jefferson curl 8kg x 8 8kg x 8 8kg x 8 KB seated good morning 8kg x 8 8kg x 8 8kg x 8

Tuesday 26 November Lifting Session Seated overhead press 20kg x 5 30kg x 5 40kg x 5 55kg x 3 55kg x 3 55kg x 3 55kg x 3 55kg x 3 55kg x 3 55kg x 8 Trap bar deadlift 70kg x 5 80kg x 3 90kg x 3 97.5kg x 5 112.5kg x 5 127.5kg x 8 Cable lateral raise (superset with seated row : reps are total of L + R) 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 10kg x 20 Seated row 50kg x 12 50kg x 12 50kg x 12 50kg x 12 50kg x 12

Best of luck (not that you will need it!) for the 5th Dan test At your school will that officially grant you the 'Master' honourific or is it 6th Dan for yours? I look forward to hearing about it

Congrats!