It’s that time of the year again where the New Year’s Resolutions are declared.  I don’t care for New Year’s Resolutions.  I find that many people set vague resolutions that aren’t established in a practical way to achieve success or even in a measurable way to really measure success if it was obtained.  I personally go for a practical goals list for the New Year.  I’ve been doing this since 2004 and have been pretty successful at it.  Even though some years I don’t get everything I want done, I do get quite a few of my goals completed which is always a wonderful accomplishment   Below is my 2010 goals list:

1.       I plan on advancing at LEAST three belts in tae kwon do.  The belts are: Blue, Purple, and Red.  If I am able to maintain consistency with attending class I should advance approximately every three months.  Technically if I succeed at this I might be able to advance an additional belt, but I like to give myself room for injury, illness, and just life in general.

2.       I plan to obtain at least my first tip (out of four) for my blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  The minimum time it should take to achieve this is four months and for the second tip an additional five months.  Now because advancement in BJJ is very difficult and is based upon a variety of factors and not standardized testing or set periods of time, the four month number is only a guideline.  It could take me over a year to get that tip.  But I’m going to try my damn hardest to improve and train enough to earn it within 2010.  If I advance further than that, it will be great, but one step at a time.

3.       CPR and First Aid Recertification.  I could have done this in 2009 but I just didn’t get to it.  I have no valid excuse for not doing it, but this year I will attempt to get it done early on.

4.       Fly 10 Hours.  I haven’t been up flying in awhile.  I’m going to try to get rid of the rust on my wings and start going up a little.  At least 10 hours, hopefully much more.

5.       Be able to do a split.  I’ve had this damn goal on here every year for the last few years.  Hopefully I bang this one out.  It just needs to get done.  It is very important for martial arts.

6.       Go up to 450 vocabulary words memorized.  I haven’t been doing this very frequently for the past year-mostly I was focusing studying for the bar exam and finals and all that.  But now that all that is behind me I’m going to start memorizing additional vocabulary words. 

7.       Drop weight down to 180 lbs and body fat down to 10%.  This shouldn’t be a terribly hard goal actually since I’m not too far away from these numbers to begin with at this point.  The second half of 2009 was a very healthy one for me where I’ve completely cut out fast food from my diet.  This year I’m also aiming to drop those pesky chain restaurants such as Outback, Applebee’s, etc.

8.       Read 20 books (10 fiction and 10 non-fiction).  In 2009 I read 33 books, so this shouldn’t be difficult, especially since I won’t have bar prep or law school as added reading.

One thing that some of you might have noticed is that I no longer am aiming for my green belt in the Japanese Style of JuJutsu I was training in.  The school is an hour away, so it takes two hours round trip to travel to the classes and a steep bridge toll so I decided to put it aside indefinitely.  After I obtain my Tae Kwon Do black belt I will move on to Mauy Thai training and when I obtain my black belt in BJJ (which won’t be for many years) I will take up Judo to supplement the training.  Perhaps after that I might take up a Japanese style again, but I’m not worried about it.

Ever since being promoted to Blue Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) I have been training in the Advanced Class and the experience there compared to that of the Beginners Class is worlds apart. 

When I first began I thought I would do fairly well considering my Japanese JuJutsu background, but I was completely off base with such thoughts and found myself struggling there.  By the time I reached my fourth stripe I was actually doing very well in the Beginners Class and was submitting people regularly and was very successful with defending against submissions.  The only trouble I had was against those guys who were significantly larger than me and a few guys whose skill level was just obviously beyond mine. 

Fast forward to the Advanced Class.  This class is filled with Blue, Purple, and Brown Belts and the occasional Black Belt.  Whenever I used to train with these guys while a White Belt, in hindsight they were obviously taking it easy on me.  Now, while the vast majority of the upper belt students are helpful and take the time when they don’t have to helping me and walking me through things I should be doing, I still am feeling very frustrated at how horrible I’m doing in this class.  I’m getting submitted left and right and the only people I am doing decent against are those that were just promoted to Blue Belt alongside me.  And on top of that after these classes I feel beyond exhausted.

I know that as time progresses I should slowly improve like I did as White Belt and will begin to more successfully avoid being submitted and begin to catch guys not far above me in submissions here and there, but at the moment it just feels like I will never get there.  Perhaps I’m overreacting.  The minimum time between Blue Belt and Purple Belt is two years which gives me plenty of time to grow as a BJJ practitioner and does explain why those at Purple are so good since they have all been basically training for at least three years if not longer depending on how many tips they have on their Purple Belt.

This weekend I was promoted to Blue Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  I had been training for almost a year, though I have had prior training for many years with the Japanese style that I also train in (not that that training has really prevented me from getting my ass handed to me more times than I can count in BJJ).  I was actually surprised I was promoted when I was, but advancement is always welcome.  This means that I will no longer be training in the beginners class and have now moved onto the advanced class with blue, purple, brown, and black belts.  My first advanced class was last night and it was hard as hell.  The advanced belts take it real easy on you when you are a white belt and now that you have some color around your waist they step it up a notch.  I was utterly destroyed the entire night.  It is like starting over.  But with these guys you can’t cheat, you can’t use strength to win or get away with sloppiness. 

One thing that was bizarre but kind of interesting was having to go through the “Gauntlet” after the promotion.  Basically two lines form parallel to each other and the newly promoted student takes off his or her gi and gets down on all fours (some schools allow you to do it standing) and makes his or her way up the line and then turns around and comes back to where they started all the while being whipped pretty damn hard with belts from those students equal or higher in rank.  My back was burning after that experience, and I got a bit of mat burn on my knees and feet from trying to make it up and down the line a bit quicker than I was probably capable, but I’m glad I experienced it