WEEK 11: Hammer Into White Out
As the readership of my karate blog goes no further than my own house, I’ll let you into a little secret here. The titles of my weekly blogs are daft re-imaginings of The Prisoner episode names – the 1960s spy show starring Patrick McGoohan. Episode 10 was named “Hammer Into Anvil”. I’ve started on this so I may as well see it through, although I don’t know what I’ll do on Week 18 – there were only 17 episodes of No.6’s adventures in The Village ever made.
Thursday was “one of those days”. I’d hardly slept the night before because I realised I’d made a serious clanger at work. I’d changed a fact in the magazine I work for, in-so-doing adding an error that made it to print when the original information was correct. Never done that before. All I will say is that the vettelofficial Instagram page is not official at all. It’s a fan site. Racing driver Sebastian Vettel doesn’t go anywhere near social media. I came clean first thing Thursday morning. My blood pressure went through the roof – I know cos I checked it.
I’d also lost hearing in one of my ears. Bunged up! Needs cleaning out, but you can’t get this done at the doctor’s any more. So I spent most of the day hearing my own blood moving around in my head. I went to the chemist for drops. This seems to make it worse. And Thames Water came round to check the drains and told me that we’d need to make some changes to our plumbing. Surely the surveyor should have picked this up when we bought the house three years ago! Ker-ching! No doubt this will cost us. So I arrived at karate not in the best shape.
Week 10 was without doubt the toughest exercise I’ve done since I went on the ludicrous Tough Guy endurance challenge in Wolverhampton in 2001 (which I didn’t complete – it was a story for Front magazine). Within 20 minutes of a brutal warm-up at karate, colour had started to disappear from my vision. A white out? What even is a white out? Just checked online:
“Whiteouts due to cardiovascular changes are more common in ageing adults and can often be reversed by having them sit down for a moment to regroup. Whiteouts due to physical exertion most often subside after a few minutes of rest and recovery. Days that have a high ‘feels like’ temperature are common culprits.” – Prime Med, USA
Yup, it was a high ‘feels like’ day; and I am ageing. Chief protagonist in the warm-up routine was ‘pyramid press-ups’. Jump up, do one press-up; jump up, do two press-ups; jump up, do three press-ups, etc. You stop at five. White out! Then it was the usual getting my left and right wrong at annoyingly frequent intervals and generally failing to concentrate. I mentioned to the sensei pair that they must think it would be quicker to train a monkey.
When the hour was up, I felt great. I think it was astonishment that I was able to keep up without collapsing. I drove to Watford to pick Mrs Gale up from a meet-up with her schoolpals and I was still buzzing when I went to bed at a very-late-for-me 11.30pm.
As Friday unfolded in the office, slowly the muscles in my stomach, chest and back went on strike in sympathy with last week’s rail workers. By Saturday, when I had to cross London twice on public transport, I couldn’t lift my arms to hold onto rails. Coupled with still being deaf as a post, I was a bit of a mess.
However, the good news is, I was asked in karate if I wanted to wear a gi outfit. I was thinking that I’d never reach the standard to be even asked to get one, but I have the form already filled out and with a bit of luck I’ll be wearing all white within a fortnight. A black belt by 60? That’s the aim. Can I do it? Is it possible? Then I’m going to take my martial arts skills on the road – around old-folks’ homes! A sort of karate-bingo-keep-fit mash-up with a structure I am yet to devise. I’m hoping to be fully recovered by next week. Be seeing you! (Another Prisoner reference.)