My style of Karate, while giving me a very thorough grounding in the concepts of martial arts, never held tournaments; it was all working with body movements to provide a solid centre from which we could defend, both in traditional stance and more practical street stuff. The two were inextricably linked, and it did me a world of good not to worry about scoring points. Competitions and street stuff are two very different things, and to this day you can get an outstanding points fighter and have him come off worse in a real situation.

However, not having that competitive spirit meant that I was never pushed to go the extra mile, and that’s something I regretted. And now that I’m kickboxing, it’s gotten very real, very fast. Solid technique and a good martial grounding is not enough; I need speed and power. Explosive, anaerobic power. And that’s something I just don’t have yet. So it’s time to scale back the drinking a little bit and really start hitting the streets and the gyms. I’ll be using my blog as a diary to track my progress. If I haven’t posted about this for a week, I expect a virtual kick-up-the-arse. If one of you would be so kind.