Category Archives: Breaking

Bruises

I mentioned the other day that I keep a photo record of my best bruises (and other injuries), accumulated in various sporting activities.  There have been zero requests to see any of the photos, but here is a selection anyway:

1.  The fantastic knee of many colours.

I managed to bash in at taekwondo, and then again at breaking a few days later, so it was a riot of colour with various bruises at different stages of development.

2. Blood blisters

From training in bare feet on a very dirty floor.  I think they’re quite cute – like little birthmarks.  Cute little blood-and-pus-filled birthmarks.

3.  Blood blisters – a few days later

Hmmmm… not so cute now half the skin on my big toe is hanging off.

4.  Matching stigmata-like bruises on feet.

Not a sign of the second coming.  I just can’t seem to avoid people’s elbows in sparring.

5. My biggest blister ever

From a run of only about 4-5 miles I think.  I used to have cheap crap trainers, never got blisters.  Then I got some professionally-fitted, gait-analysed, expensive running trainers and this is what happens.

6. Hand blister

My first b-girl injury – a proud moment.  My second was a egg-sized bump on my head from trying to balance on it, but that didn’t really photograph.

Correction

I recently posted a blog entry in which I described Mr Stephen Mulley as a beginner breakdancer.

Mr Mulley (aka B-boy Slide) has contacted me to advise that he is in fact an expert B-boy extraordinaire with sick skills and that.

I would like to take this opportunity to apologise unreservedly to B-boy Slide for this error.  It was not my intention to disrespect him, nor any member of his family.  I will take steps to ensure that my punk ass is more careful in future.

Breaking

A weird thing happened at breaking the other day.  Our teacher was stuck in the snow, on the day when I’d brought along a couple of friends to give it a try.  Being January, there were a few other first-timers there as well.  I felt bad letting my friends down, so I wanted to just show them a few moves so they hadn’t completely wasted their time, but in the end me and my friends (we’ve all been going less than a year and consider ourselves beginners) ended up teaching a whole class!

I think we did all right – Josh did top rock and indian step as a warm up, Steve did some stretching, I did some up-rock and Mark went through a basic freeze and six step.  So it was a real team effort.  That’s quite a lot to take in for your first lesson, but everyone seemed to enjoy it and it gave a taster of what to expect if they keep coming, which hopefully they will.

We were pretty pleased with ourselves afterwards and dubbed ourselves the “Ad Hoc Crew”  (although I think it’s officially spelt “ADD-HOKK”) in honour of our achievement! So sad…

To celebrate here is a picture of me freezing in the very cool hat Mr Beet got me for Christmas (and my taekwondo suit – I’m not a beautician, which is the other group of people who favour the white trouser), don’t I look pleased with myself?

New Year

I went to watch the fireworks from the Heath – it started snowing about 1 minute to midnight which was exciting as well – although no snow this morning. People were setting off those lanterns – so there was the added frisson of possibly getting your head set on fire.

Right – new year’s resolutions! I don’t bother saying that I’ll give stuff up because that never works, so instead I usually say I’ll try new things. Except at the moment, I’m still pretty over-subscribed with the new things I tried last year. So my resolutions are going to be things to help me get better at my existing hobbies.

Tae kwon do – do the instructor courses.

Breaking – master back spins and baby freezes so they actually look good.

Acrobatics – I used to go on my day off, but since I went back to a 5 day week I haven’t been able to go. So my resolution is to go whenever I can and to practice my bad side cartwheels in my own time.

Running – to make the most of living next to the heath and Greenwich Park on my doorstep and to do a half marathon.

Climbing – I haven’t been climbing in ages, so my resolution is to go a couple of times in January to try to get back into it and to check out the climbing place at London Bridge.

Pilates – pilates is new, I’ve never tried it before. I think improving my core strength will help my other sports. I’ve just signed up for a beginners class starting in January. I had to fill in a form saying what other sports I do. I felt a bit of a fraud putting tkd, breaking and acrobatics – it made me sound like a bit of an all-round action hero. I felt like qualifying it by saying that I’m complete rubbish at 2 out of 3, and not as good as I should be at the third.