Tuesday, December 21, 2010

New Years Resolution: Frizzy Hair and Karate?

Like most women, I have issues with my hair. It's very thick and wavy...almost curly. I go through Frizz Ease by the gallons and break pony tail holders twice a week. And there's other women out there, who have straight and/or thin hair, who are wondering why I'm whining about it.

What amazes me is how different my hair looks when I go to the stylist. She's able to smooth my unruly locks and create a hair style that doesn't frizz up within minutes. She does this with no more than a brush and a hairdryer and little or no hair products. It's amazing.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Cross Fit...Oh, Crap.



L to R: BFF Teri, Brett Thomason and Me.
   I first heard about Cross Fit from Brett Thomason. So, recently, when I found a coupon in the local flyer offering a free trial to a Cross Fit gym in my area, I had to go.

Here's the thing, if Brett said he ate live baby birds for breakfast every morning...

Friday, December 10, 2010

Observations of a Black Belt Test

On Dec. 6, I had the opportunity to watch my classmate, Milomir, take his black belt test. This was my second time observing a student testing and my first time serving as uki. As soon as I heard Milomir was testing, I told him and Sensei that I wanted to uki.

Milomir had been studying karate for ten years and had been a brown belt for as long as I've known him. I told him, during the weeks leading up to his test, that he could hold his own against any sho-dan I've met and he is as knowledgeable as many ni-dan, for that matter. It was a big moment for him and I don't think I could have been any prouder if it were one of my own kids testing. He taught me at least two of my kata. It was a big day for him and, gosh darn it, I was going to be part of it.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

An Ego Boost

Sometimes when you look at your site
analytics you get a nice surprise.
So, I was taking a quick peek at my blog's analytics, yesterday, and got a pleasant surprise when looking at our natural search engine results. Check out #5 in the picture. Oh, yah!

And, almost as nice, visits from #3 and #4 have decreased to just a couple of hits a week. (We slipped down to page six on the Search Engine Results Page for these terms. Hooray!)

Back to item #5. I had to check this out and we were on page three of the SERPs. And the entry that was linked actually mentioned (in passing) how uncomfortable heavy weight gi can be for overweight karate-ka.

I don't care, though. Someone did that search, went all the way to page three of the results and made it to our page. How cool is that!

-------------------------------
Oh, and if you want to know what #7 (Selfless Sensei) is all about, check out our post from earlier this week. Don't forget to nominate a Sensei you know for the contest.