After A While...

As I sit here, my hips aching and bruises in places that I didn’t know I even had places, there’s a temporary reprieve from the last 12 days.

I’ve just finished the final exam for the General Instructors Course, or GIC. This is run by Krav Maga Global and, if you pass it, means you become an instructor for the organisation and obtain at least a Graduate 1 grade (after all, you have to be at least a G1 to teach Practitioners 1 to 5). There are myths, rumours and even substantiated claims of some GIC candidates passing out with a G2 or even a G3 patch, some of which were not even a P5 when they went in.

My body is, to put it politely, completely f**ked. This was the second part of the training. In April up in the Gold Coast of Australia, I did part 1. That was the initial chunk, the first half. The reason that KMG no longer do the course Monday to Saturday with Sundays off, is that 24 days in a row is unsustainable for anyone except badasses who have just come out of the army or those who run ultramarathons for a hobby. 

After 10 weeks off, we then came back to Melbourne and began phase 2. Another 12 days. I have been pushed both physically and emotionally to my absolute frigging limits. I’ve felt like giving up, I’ve taken cocktails of painkillers, I’ve eaten like a pregnant Sumo wrestler and not put on an ounce in fat. Seven to eight hours a day of fighting training. Not just learning HOW to fight but learning how to teach OTHERS to fight….and also how not to.

Having to learn technical skills, then write down the technique, then have to teach it. It’s been beyond hard. This was a course I came into knowing it would be something to test my limits. I nearly didn’t come back for the second part, seriously considering “losing” my passport so I could get my non-refundable, return ticket from London to Melbourne refunded. 

As the days went by, in both phases, I gritted my teeth and marked off little points of victory.

Survived the first day. Whoopee!

Got through the first quarter (3rd day). Awesome!

Got to the end without being injured to the point of having to withdraw! Brilliant!

We also had homework to do almost daily. Lesson plans, theory revision and also a test on Krav that we were obliged to spend a great deal of time doing properly with a pass mark of 75%. I got 88% and momentarily felt immortal. 

Then we had the teaching test. I was assigned “Release from static choke from behind”. I had to teach this to six of my peers. I passed that test too and my hopes were high for the grading on the final day. 

There had been 15 of us but one person had to drop out due to injury. 14 candidates on test day. I shouted “Who else hasn’t got a partner?” and I got the huge Serbian guy. 

We started and it went on and on and on. After 4-ish hours we began sparring and my badass partner virtually handed me my ass. Seriously don’t think I’ve ever been roundhoused in the head in a standing position before. Determined to at the very least, stand my ground, I did exactly that, too tired and too inflexible in the back hips to try and retaliate in kind. As we tumbled to the floor my adrenalin kicked in and I could hear myself yelling “F**K YOU! YOU F**KING C**T!!” before he got me in a choke hold and I had to tap out.

The sparring and ground fighting finally came to a close and with my clothes sodden in sweat and my hair hanging so far over my face that I had about 30% visibility, I joined the other guys for the icing on the cake. 50 push ups, 60 sit ups, 70 squats and 20 brownies (imagine if a burpee decided to become a Satanist…THAT’S a brownie).

Staggering off the mats I gulped down literally about 2 litres of water and forced granola bars and glucose gel into my bruised stomach. The Serbian guy was next to me and I said “Don’t take the swearing personally, I don’t really think you’re a c**t”. 

He chuckled and said, wiping sweat from his forehead, “It’s OK, you needed the adrenalin rush”.

Now…about half an hour after the final test has ended, we are sat facing the examiner. Franklyn Hartkamp. Expert level 4 in KMG and a part of the Global Instructor Team. A nice guy, with a sense of humour but I have no illusions about any one of us being given the GIC unless we deserve it. 

He starts with my Serbian partner and after brief feedback tells him he passed and we all clap and smile at the guy, pleased for him yet still cacking it for ourselves. Franklyn then moves to another guy, feedback given, constructive criticism forthcoming and he too has passed. Then it’s the guy’s partner and yet another pass. As Franklyn moves around the candidates, he is giving the feedback to the partners who trained and fought together in the test. This sets off my internal alarm bells. I was bypassed after my Serbian roundhouser buddy. I think maybe I haven’t made it after all.

The feedback moves on and on, each person being told they’ve passed and all of us clapping and offering words of congratulations. Then finally someone has failed. The feedback is fair, the tone level and friendly but Franklyn says that some more time is needed before this person can retest. I see the crestfallen look in their eyes and the hurt and pain and realise that feeling is something I’m going to be getting soon. But I hold out hope that maybe….maybe not.

Finally everyone else has had their feedback. 13 passes, 1 fail. Franklyn says “Is there anybody else?” and I raise my hand.

He looks at me and after a slight pause says, “After a while I stopped writing”.

I know in that moment that it’s over.

I had kind of guessed this would happen. I’ve been backpacking for the last 8 months and my training has been, to put it mildly, sporadic. While travelling in Australia and New Zealand I trained now and then. While in Greece with my father I would travel once a week-ish to a club 57 miles away  to train. I hadn’t done enough and deep down I knew that. I decided to go for it anyway though, determined not to be Schrodinger’s Pussy.

I feel calm, not upset or bitter like I imagined I might. Franklyn compliments me on my theory and teaching results and says that he’d like me to wait at least a year before trying again for the grading. You are allowed 3 fails of techniques on a GIC grading. I clearly hurtled past that number if he stopped taking notes or evaluating me. I thank him for his feedback and say that I accept 100% responsibility for failing. I also add that I’ll be back. Franklyn smiles and puts on a Schwarzenegger accent, repeating “I’ll be back!!”

We all then stand up and those who passed get their T-shirts, G1 patches and certificates. Excitedly they rip open the packaging and pull the shirts on. It reminds me of Christmas morning. I feel a little sad but resigned to the situation, knowing that this isn’t personal and with enough work I can come back, try again and pass.

Then the guys start posing for photos and me and the other failee are stood at the side. I have to turn away at this point, the disappointment and the realisation of what I’ve failed to achieve hitting me hard. 

I move to the changing room and a few minutes later a couple of guys join me, both saying they’re sorry and shaking my hand. I tell them I’m pleased for them and I mean it. I’ve trained with them for just shy of a month and they deserve what they’ve achieved.

After a few goodbyes I make my way back to my lodgings. My friends there initially refuse to believe I failed but cheer me up with hugs and reassurances about the future. 

I get a shower and change and then head back out for the final dinner with my fellow trainees. The mood is good, and although Franklyn couldn’t make it we send him some photos via WhatsApp and wolf down steak and ice cream in a great, riverside restaurant. The Serbian guy sits next to me and grinning, points to a cut on his lower lip. “You did that”, he says.

“Seriously? I actually landed one on you?”

He smiles again and replies “Yes, you fought well”.

After a few hours I say my final goodbyes to the guys and go home. I sleep until about 12pm the next day and the day after I’m on a plane home. 13 hours to Abu Dhabi, 7 hour stopover then a further 7 hours to London. 

Hubba! Hubba!

My body aches all over, my hips feel like they are at least 20 degrees out of alignment. My appetite is still raging and now I have about a 30 hour journey ahead of me to get home. 

I took GIC and I failed it. Of the initial 15, one guy had to stop due to injury. Me and one other failed the final test.

Was it worth it?

Of course it was!

Beside The Mountain

For the last few days I’ve been proofreading a manuscript given to me by a friend of a friend. She’s just written her first book and after reading the first draft, I gave a few recommendations and then offered to check it all. This is, after all, one of my skill sets.

Now. Proofreading is dull and laborious and requires an extremely high level of accuracy. The main reason it’s dull (and also the reason that the author should not EVER proof read their own stuff) is that you can’t “enjoy” what you’re looking at. You are there, like an Olympic judge, to check for flaws and errors. You are not there to get stuck in to the prose.

Case in point would be my first fantasy novel, The Catastrophe of the Emerald Queen. This was a labour of love that took about a year to write, edit and get published. I didn’t see a whole shit load of mistakes that were in it because I was emotionally attached to the text. The adventures of Mordalayn, bodyguard to the child queen of Alegria as he fought the wicked King James of Anghofio. Even typing that now I can feel a little tingle. Worst mistake in the first edition was “and the shoulders shouted out for their king”, which the spell checker didn’t flag up and I was oblivious to as I was too into the excitement of the Anghofian King’s Daggers taking on Mordalayn on the steps of the Emerald palace.

The book I was proofreading was about spirituality and enjoying life. One line that the author wrote that stuck with me is that it is about the journey and not about the arrival or conclusion. We all die one day, so enjoy what you have and embrace each new day.

The book also talks about seeing and interpreting signs in life and acting upon them. Also, that we are where we are supposed to be at any given time and things come to us as they are meant to, in a time/ space sequence.

Like me, the author had read You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay and has adopted a lot of that wonderful lady’s philosophies.

Something that became clear as I looked through the book (yes, I know I wasn’t meant to be “reading” it but it kind of seeped in) was that by letting go of a lot of horrible shit, life can become a lot more “flowy” and much less of a struggle.

Recently I came back from Australia. I’d just completed but failed a course to be a Krav Maga instructor. The whole thing was, at the end of the day, an attempt for me to prove to myself that I could go for something that was extremely difficult and happening WAY beyond my comfort zone. I came out of it exhausted, disappointed and sore (with hip and back issues that still haven’t realigned). However I also felt elated and proud. I knew I might fail but I chose not to be Schroedinger’s Pussy any more and for that I feel good.

But….

There were many other ways I could have done this course.

Part one was 12 days in the Australian Gold Coast in April 2017. I applied for it while travelling out in Australasia and had a whale of a time. Determined to get my mind on the wavelength of “I will pass” I booked a return flight from London to Melbourne to take part 2 in July. I had to leave Oz during the gap because my visa is good for 9 months of the year but only in 3 month spurts.

Once I got back I realised that I could have opted to take part 2 anywhere in the world (66 countries belong to Krav Maga Global, the organisation that run the General Instructors Course/ GIC) but with a non changeable/ non refundable, Doctor Dao-esque return flight booked...well, I either did the course or I stayed but lost the money for the flight.

As proud as I am of having gone back to attempt part 2, what I have recently realised is that I could have done it in London or Rome or Athens or anywhere. I booked flights to return to Melbourne way back in April because I was too focussed on what I wanted to even consider that there might be another way.

All that travel and back pain and airline food and jet lag and exhaustion and A FUCKING AUSTRALIAN WINTER!!! could all have been avoided if I’d just sat back and let life flow with me, as opposed to wading against the current up river.

Years ago in Mad magazine I saw a short, 3 or 4 panel cartoon of a guy climbing a mountain. He was tired, dirty and injured by the time he climbed over the summit with his bare hands...only to find that there was a McDonalds at the top, full of people and a road next to it, leading down, that he had failed to see.

I try to do yoga regularly but am unable (at the moment) to assume the Full Lotus position due to stiffness in my hips, partially due to sciatica and partially due to a knee operation on my left side. I found out from a yoga teacher after at least 4 years of working around the issue, that it wasn’t even necessary to perform Full Lotus and there were a multitude of other positions that would allow me not to need it.

I always had bad BAD BAADD hangovers. My record for time in bed with a right stinking one is about 36 hours. It turns out that all I needed to avoid (most) of this was lots of water before, during and after a boozing session.

I found out that when economy airlines board their flights, every bugger and their aunty stand up and just queue like lemmings. I now sit down and wait until the herd has thinned, then get up and walk at a leisurely pace to my seat.

Life can be an uphill struggle if you don’t take a breath and just go with it.

The GIC Hump

The reality of day 7 of the Krav Maga General Instructors Course (2nd phase).

6am. Wake up and find you have absolutely no desire to go to training. Eat a 4 egg omelette, a big bowl of muesli (with soy milk) and 2 very strong filter coffees. Get your shit together and traipse off to the train station with your legs hurting from the previous 6 days of training, grizzling to yourself that the weather has the temerity to be 2 degrees above freezing.

8.15am. Get to training and realise you absolutely do not want to be there. Decide to get changed anyway and wonder how long it is till lunch time, knowing full well that it's at least 4 hours away.

8.30am to 1pm. Spend your time doing bear hug releases, throws and knife attacks. Your body is protesting at the abuse you've put it through for the last week for 7+ hours a day, every day. You find that you can't remember things that you absolutely should know by this point and wing it when you are asked "Do you know this technique?" Your knees feel like they are full of sulfuric acid and every time you make a mistake you feel like the whole world hates you. It is taking most of your stamina to stay in the room and you secretly entertain the idea that getting injured would enable you to be invalided off the course without being perceived as a quitter. You then spend 30 minutes feeling guilty for thinking that. You take 2 Ibuprofen and 1 Paracetomol and a sachet of glucose sport gel.

A surprise lesson is then sprung on you where you have 2 minutes to plan and teach any technique from that morning. You silently curse the unfairness of life while frantically scribbling on your notepad.

You feel like having a little cry in the corner but summon reserves of energy that you didn't know you had. You forget the names of about 4 people in the room and want nothing more than to go home and go back to bed.

As you break for lunch you feel that your body is completely wrecked and that life cannot get any worse.

1.30pm The double shot espresso that you just drank, plus a huge tuna salad and the painkillers and the glucose gel have all combined to give you a lift of energy. Your self pity has evaporated and you have a pleasant lunch with 2 of your fellow trainees where you even laugh a couple of times. You head back to the training centre looking forward to the afternoon session.

2.30pm. You start a workshop on some rather crafty fighting tactics involving some rather painful takedowns and throws. You thoroughly enjoy yourself and make a note to use the "Grab The Leg, Kick The Groin" roundhouse kick defence at the earliest opportunity.

5pm. You wrap up the day's training feeling tired but exhilarated, realising that you learned a great deal. You confide in an existing instructor that you felt like quitting today and she says with a grin "That's called the hump. You've just got over it. Mine was on day 5".