Happy New Year everyone.

To say December was a bad month for me would be an under statement. Don't get me wrong there where some good thing as well. It is weird to air my personal events on an open form but I am hoping thing will only get better from now on.

First, I lost the place I have been holding classes for the last couple of years. So now my school is in lombo. I have been looking but it is hard this time of year. Maybe the New Year will bring luck.

Second, I tore a ligament in my left knee which makes training hard. I have kept up with my cardio and Body for Life training just had to make a few adjustments to the lower body exercises. By the way I have completed the Body for Life and it works great, I look and feel fantastic. Starting yesterday I have amped up my exercise routine to get even better results. I will be in the best shape I have ever been and want too be one of the person in the best of shape.

Third, my mother died a couple of weeks ago so I had to drop everything and drive to Florida (30 hours non-stop from Tucson) to help with everything that needed to be done and to see if my father was alright. He was not alright as you would expect and there is still much that needs to be done. I will miss my mother very much. She was my biggest fan and supporter. I am glad that she got to see what I have done with Shinkyu Kenpo and that I was recognized though IMAC for my achievements. It made her very happy.

Here we are on week 7 and I look and feel much better. My gym has closed down for a week this week for painting and re-carpeting, but luckily one of my students as access to another gym and is letting me tag along so there isn’t any disruption in my Body for Life workouts.

I got some of my students to join me on my Sunday hike to Seven Falls, about a nine and a half mile hike round trip from where we start according to the park information. Great little hike and a must for anyone visiting Tucson.

What a busy week. I was going in 10 different directions tying to get all I needed to do done plus keep up with the UBBT. The plus side is I did get some small personal victories done (none that I will be listing) that I have been tiring to get done for over a year. Each little project completed is like a weight lifted off my shoulders.

One thing I see everyone else doing a lot of are the Personal Acts of Kindness. Now I am only counting when I go out of my way to do something nice or help someone. I am nice to people all the time, it's my job to be and just the way I am, so I have not been counting basic everyday acts of kindness. Should I be? My numbers are so low I must look like a mean SOB.

I did a 9 1/2 mile hike last Sunday to Seven Falls and it was very nice, but one word of advice, wair a good pair of shoes that are broken in. I have really bad blisters the size of silver dollars on each heel. I will be doing the same hike on November 11 but this time I am inviting my students and any UBBT persons here in Tucson to join me. It's a great hike 8 miles up hill and then the reast is all down hill.

The last week was a disappointing week for me. With my back and neck out I couldn't do my push-ups and sit-ups, so I am a little behind now. I kept up with the Body for Life workouts and my cardio so I am good with that.

I feel much better now and I am back doing my push-ups and sit-ups. Stared meditating today, feels a little weird but I am sure I will get the hang of it..

2 weeks down and starting the third week a little slow. We had our first kickboxing and ground fighting classes on 10/13/07 and it was a blast. Learned some good stuff and can't wait to get into the gym and go over everything. I did learn something about myself though, I am not as young as I use to be. I through my neck out during the ground fighting class, It wasn't bad them but later that night I was paying for it. I also discovered the next morning that my lower back was out as well. Not to worry though, I am making friends with ice and aspirin.

Went to do my push ups and sit ups this morning and couldn't. Even though my neck feels better my lower back let me know very quickly it wasn't going to play. So here is WALL ONE, getting older. As soon as I can I will be doing extra work on my neck and back muscles to build them up so this problem will not happen again.

This is also my third week on the Body for Life program and I love it. I look forward to my workout days and feel great afterwards. When I say great I mean energized and ready to go. I am also not as hungry as I use to be and on my free day I still stuck to the diet. Even though I could have had anything I wanted, I stayed with the diet.

Got myself a sparring partner so now I have some one to spar with as well as do my hands on.

The 1st week is now behind us now and the worst I hope. I became so incredibly sore and tired from the all the push ups and sit ups plus doing the Body for Life workouts / diet, that I had to back off on the push ups and sit ups / crunches to one set a day, I took a day of rest Saturday to heal. I am still tired all day but the soreness is gone. The Body for Life diet keeps me hungry and I think it is one of the reasons I don't have any energy right now. I know this will pass when my body adapts to the workouts and diet. We have a boxing and NHB class coming up this Saturday plus we will be sparing, I hope my energy is up by then or I will be in a world of hurt.

Well here it is, the first day of our groups UBBT and I am also starting the Body for Life 12 week program today as well. I talked my wife and one of my students into doing the Body for Life 12 week program with me. I spent the weekend getting everything ready so that today would go smoothly. So far so good.

My wife and I got up at 5:30 am today and went on a brisk two+ mile walk though the Lincoln Park desert trails, took about 30 minutes. At a little passed 6:00 am I did my first set of push-ups (60) and sit-ups (120), by the end of the day I will have done 200 push-ups and 400 sit-ups.

The Body for Life workout looks easy enough so I am going to do my best to push it hard. I guess I will find out today with the first workout.

Our UBBT group officially starts Oct. 1 and I have started put the different components together that I will need, such as my custom test requirements, printing the Mastery cards, and so on.

I am a little apprehensive right now about the test as I don’t even now if I will have enough time in a day to all that will be need. I have picked a kata that is new to me but one I have always wanted to learn and do (it’s an Aikido bokken kata). This kata is new to Shinkyu Kenpo and is one of our 2nd degree katas.

My family thinks I will have a hard time with this test. Not the physical part, but the 1000 acts of kindness and compassion, and righting wrongs & mending relationships. I can be grumpy and don’t suffer fools, and I have never been very forgiving. The “mending relationships” is going to be very, very hard for me, but I do have three people in mind. I already feel dread. This is going be good for me and something I should have fixed long ago.

The physical requirements in the UBBT are equal to or less than I already do for myself now (I am a personal trainer). As part of my custom test requirements I will be beefing up the physical requirements and adding more, such as 200 push ups a day instead of 150, and 400 sit ups with a 25 lbs weight a day instead of the 150 crunches. The one thing I will be adding is pull ups. I weigh 230 pounds, mostly muscle :), and find pull ups very hard to do for some reason. My goal is to be able to do 20 pull ups. If I reach 20 pull ups before the years end I will shoot for 30 pull ups.

I am looking forward to doing everything else and learning new things.