Vampire Craze

I just saw a preview for the new Twilight movie, "Breaking Dawn." I started to get really excited about seeing the movie, and then are started to feel a little embarrassed. Teenage vampires falling in love, getting married...really?

But then I realized that the Twilight saga is more than Team Edward or Team Jacob for me. It's about my love for vampires in general. I have been a big fan of vampires for a really long time, and the Twilight saga is just another outlet for me to enjoy those blood suckers.

It all started back in high school when I saw "Interview With a Vampire". I loved that movie! For me it wasn't about how hot the vampires may have been or that there was a love story. It was about how badass and funny the vampires are.

Vampires are the badass-iest of the supernatural if you ask me. They are quick, smart, and strong. They are funny in that they are so out there, so confident, and witty. I love watching vampires because I like to laugh and see them kick butt.

After seeing "Interview With a Vampire" I fell in love with the tv series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." I had seen the movie, but it was too quirky. The show, however, had more dimension and character development of the vampires. Spike and Angel quickly became my favorite characters. Besides the show "Friends" there hasn't been another show I was sad to see end like "Buffy". I was happy, though, that they continued on with the show "Angel", but that too had to end.

The idea behind "Blade" was pretty awesome. I love the character and the story line, but for some reason the movies don't hold my attention. Maybe it is too dark...who knows.

My favorite right now is "TrueBlood"! Eric and Pam make me laugh and I love watching them kick butt. I hate that the seasons only last a couple of months. I need more vampire on tv.

So that is why I am happy to see the next Twilight movie. More witty vampires being badass. My favorites in the saga are Alice and Emmett. Both are pretty tough and funny. In the movies, Edward is too wimpy for my taste. Too much crying over Bella. Buffy should come kick Bella's ass.

Yes I am not embarrassed anymore that I have a love for Vampires. It's not like I want to be one or anything. I am not hoping to fall in love with a vampire any time soon (of course if he looks like David Boreanaz I might reconsider, ha).

Kissing a Dolphin

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Bahamas for the weekend to get away from my kids and chores. While the majority of the cruise was a bust, my entire weekend was redeemed when I got to swim with dolphins.

In Freeport, there is a place called Unexso that has diving tours and dolphin encounters. If you are ever  on the Grand Bahama Island, you have to look this place up. The people are fabulous, and the dolphins are amazing. 

http://www.unexso.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

It was storming, and raining, and just plain ugly the day we were in the Bahamas, but 1 hour before our scheduled swim with dolphins it finally stopped raining. The water was still murky, but the dolphins were playful and ready for me to jump in.

In the movie Dolphin Tale, they  tell a story about children being turned into dolphins so "they can play forever." This is so true to the Dolphins. While swimming with them, I would spin, they would spin, I would swim on my back, they would swim on their back, I'd go underwater and they would nudge me back up...they just loved to play. Just being around them made me feel 20 years younger.

After the free swim with the dolphins, we got to do some tricks with them. It was fun to interact with them, and get them to do tricks (kinda like playing with a puppy). 

My favorite tricks were getting them to hug me and to kiss me.

In addition to the dolphins being great, the trainers were colorful. They were not your typical G rated SeaWorld trainer. There were locals with an amazing sense of humor. They made us laugh for the majority of the trip.

I had the best time with the dolphins, and am dying to get to swim with them again. How can you not be happy when you are around dolphins?

The Problem With Taekwondo

For those of you that do not study Taekwondo, Taekwondo means the way of the hand and the foot. Very traditional Taekwondo focuses on punching, striking, and kicking. It does NOT involve grabbing, throwing, or wrestling.

The problem with modern Taekwondo schools is they try to incorporate the grappling and throwing of other martial arts. We saw how Bruce Lee took bits and pieces of different martial-arts to create something new. That is okay, I guess. I think Bruce Lee is pretty cool, but I do not like the idea of combining the martial-arts. The main reason: Tradition gets lost!

Traditional Taekwondo provides us with all the tools we need. If we can master Taekwondo, we do not need to learn how to grapple or throw people across the room. I personally think it's more fun to kick them across the room anyway. I've heard so many times that Taekwondo is not practical, but this could not be any farther from the truth. I think all the martial-arts have strengths and weaknesses based on the practitioner. If you are not good with your legs but you are great with your arms, then an art that uses more arms would be more efficient than Taekwondo in that situation. I personally prefer Taekwondo, and I know through forms that Taekwondo can teach me all I need to know. (I don't know it all...I still got a long way to go).

The forms (poomse) in Taekwondo teach us all we need to defend ourselves. The strikes, punches, and kicks alone reinforce how we can hurt an attacker. If practiced correctly and often, the basics in forms will make sure we can respond effectively in any situation. Plus, blocks can be blocks, blocks can be strikes, strikes can be release moves, kicks are kicks, and those weird moves that instructors pass over actually are great release moves. By release moves, I mean if somebody grabs you, you use that move to get away. For example, the big move in Koryo before turning to the last bar (I affectionately call this "pretty burst") is a way to get out of a hold. Forms alone teach us all we need, we do not need to add Hapkido, Judo, or Jujitsu to Taekwondo.

Still, Taekwondo schools all over the US are not teaching students how to effectively use Taekwondo. They rush through the basics and the forms to get to the "fun stuff." The commercialization of martial-arts forces instructors to keep things "fun" so students don't leave and train at the other school 1 block away. The popularization of UFC/MMA has forced many Taekwondo school owners to incorporate grappling just to keep students in the building. It's all about money and profit, which is why I HATED owning a Taekwondo school. It made me sick to go against everything I believed in just so we could pay the electric bill.

I wish there was a way for Taekwondo to get back to basics. I miss it!

Open Your Eyes, Dummy

As I am reading about barren women in the Bible and why God did this to them, I start to think about why God is not giving me what I want. I know there are a lot of ways to explain why God left these women like Sarah and Ruth barren, but as I relate it to my life I see He did it to open their eyes. God had other plans for these women and their husbands.

It's hard and it hurts when you want something so bad that you pray everyday all day. It kills you inside when you see others with what you want but you can't have it. It doesn't seem fair. Infertility is obviously not my problem, but there are other things I beg God for but my prayers remain unanswered. As I step back and relate my requests to the requests of the barren women in the Bible, I can see a resemblance.

I think God sometimes doesn't answer prayers because He wants us to open our eyes to other things going on in our lives. Sometimes when we are happy with what we have, we can miss the big picture or we can miss the little things that need to be noticed. If the childless people in the Bible were busy with kids, would they have had the time and attention to do God's work?

I know that God has taken things from me and not give other things to me that I really really want. Things that I think define me and things that I have always wanted. I admit that sometimes I get pretty pissed off at God. But as I think about why God does this, I realize that I am not being punished. God wants me to pay attention to other things in my life. He wants me to appreciate what I have, or find new ways to define myself.

I am still struggling with the journey, but I have to take time to reflect on what it is God wants me to do right now. Maybe my prayers will never be answered, and maybe thats a good thing. I think of Garth Brook's song "Unanswered Prayers" and know that there are things I am glad God didn't make happen. However, it the midst of pain and want, it's hard to see that God has a better plan.

I'll continue to pray and keep my eyes open.

I Must Be a Genius

I was getting really annoyed with people in the past. I referred to some people as stupid idiots, morons, dumb, and other similar things. But I got to thinking, maybe the problem isn't with other people. I mean, there can't be THAT many stupid people, can there? Maybe the problem is with me. Perhaps I am such a genius and shouldn't expect other people to be a genius. Here is why I must be a genius:

1) I'm one of the few people in the United States that can figure out that the left lanes on highways are for passing. They are not supposed to be for people to leisurely drive the speed limits on. They are not for the slow nervous driver, or for people to drive side by side with the people in the right lane. I guess maybe this is hard to comprehend if you are not a genius, right?

2) I think it must be hard for people who are not geniuses to remember to flush the toilets in public restrooms. It seems that this happens a lot, so I guess it must be me that is smart enough to remember to do it, and not other people being too stupid to remember.

3) I don't know if this is pure genius or incredible endurance on my part, but I seem to be the only person in my household that can get trash in the trash can, dirty dishes in the sink, and dirty clothes on the laundry basket. Maybe its just hard to find the trash cans, sinks, and hampers. Sometimes the dishes end up on the counter right next to the sink, and the same for dirty clothes right next to the hamper. So maybe others just don't have the endurance to make it ALL the way to the hamper and sink.

4) Another reason I am a genius is because I am the only person at my house that can actually put a roll of toilet paper onto the toilet paper dispenser. It's an amazingly complicated process, and I'm glad one of us in the house can figure this out.

5) At the gym, I am one of the few people that can actually remember where I got my equipment from after I use it. It must take a lot of brain power to get equipment, use it, and then remember where that equipment came from. I know that dumbbells and plates are supposed to go back on racks, and I know that the cable attachments did not come with me in my gym bag.

6) Counting must be something the smarter few of us can do, especially at the grocery store. The ten items or less checkout line is very complicated. I mean counting to ten and deciding if you have more or less is hard. I mean, 30 items can be hard to decipher from 10...right?

7) Chewing gum and walking is difficult, I admit, but chewing and keeping your mouth shut must be even harder. I am one of a handful that can eat popcorn and candy at a movie theater without chewing with my mouth open disturbing those around me. I can EVEN chew gum and not pop it when there are people near me. Yes, I know...GENIUS!

What do you think, am I a genius? Maybe you are too!

Growing Up, But not Really

As I was picking out the marshmallows from my Lucky Charms, I started to think of all the things that we never really grow out of. There are things I loved as a kid that no longer hold much appeal to me as an adult. As a little girl I loved Barbies, now I would rather dress myself up than dress up Barbie. But there are other things that I loved as a kid still enjoy to this day.

1) The marshmallows out of Lucky Charms. Yes, I buy the box, pick out the marshmallows, eat the marshmallows, and feed the yucky oat things to my dog. This is great! As a kid, my mom would make me eat the yucky things, and now I get to enjoy Lucky Charms the way they were meant to be enjoyed.

2) Bubble Baths. I love a good bubble bath! A normal bath is just gross and disgusting. Add bubble, and VOILA! Instant relaxation. As a kid I loved to make beards on my face (okay, I still do this too...shhhh!), make my toys play in the bubbles, and blow the bubbles onto the shower walls. Now I enjoy the bubbles with some candles, a book, and maybe even a glass of wine.

3) Rainbows. As a kid I would get excited about every rainbow I saw, even if it was just the light reflecting off glass or something. But now, even as an adult, I still enjoy a good rainbow. I will run out the door to look in the sky if somebody says there is a rainbow. I didn't know the Biblical story behind the rainbow as a kid, but I do now. I still think they are pretty, magical, and now I know the story behind them.

4. Chocolate...'nuf said

5. Orange and Grape soda. Okay this stuff just rocks. As a kid I was limited to the amount of consumption by my parents, as an adult I'm limited because I know that too much of it will still give me a bellyache. But they are so good!

6. Riding my bike. As a kid this was my main form of tranportation. I road my bike EVERYWHERE! That was the joy of living in a small town (Shout out: Danville, Kentucky!) But my friends, brothers, and I didn't really think of it as a chore. Riding bikes was fun. I even remember playing CHiPs with my brother. I got to be Ponch, my brother liked John because John had the night stick. Anyway, as a kid riding bikes was fun, now it is still nice and relaxing. It's almost a relief not to have to drive somewhere.

7. Going to the movies. This was a treat for my brothers and me growing up. We loved driving to the bigger towns and getting to watch the movies on the big screen and eating that awesome popcorn. Yeah, it's still just as awesome, but now I have a movie theater in my own town!!! Wooo hooo!

8. Playing dress up. As a kid I loved to dress up in my mom's clothes, loved playing with halloween costumes, heck I even enjoyed wearing my brothers clothes. It was great to pretend, change looks, or just get fancy. I still love this. I love getting dressed up to go out, and I still love halloween costumes. Its just plain fun

This list could go on...What are some of the things you still enjoy doing that you loved doing as a kid?

Karate Tournament Bull___

I have done so many different martial-arts tournaments that I can't even count them. I have trophy's that have over taken my garage, I've given some away, and I've thrown many of them away. I had fun doing tournaments because I liked meeting people and pushing myself, but I am officially retired from tournaments.

Like I said, I liked doing tournaments because I liked pushing myself and they were a learning experience. But what I have come to realize at this point in my training is that I can no longer use tournaments to measure how I am progressing. I can't rely on tournaments to tell me if my forms are getting better, or if my sparing is improving. The judging is simply not fair! The system is broken.

The biggest problem at tournaments is the lack of fair and consistent judging on forms/kata. I have been to tournaments in 5 different organizations, and it is always the same. Judges are either unqualified, unfair, or lazy.

Unqualified judges have no idea what to look for, so all of the scores are inconsistent. They pick one aspect of technique and if the competitor did it, they give them a high score even if the competitor is missing all of the other elements. Other unqualified judges might score the first competitor too high, and then there is no room to go up on the scoring so the true winner cannot score higher. One of my favorite unqualified judge is the one who looks to see what the other judges score and then copy that. The list for these judges is a mile long. I cannot rely on these judges to test whether or not I am doing what I am supposed to because they have no idea what is going on.

The unfair judges are the most common. They are the ones that just want their friends, students, or instructors to win. They will score their favorite high just because they want them to win, or even score a competitor unfairly low because they don't like that person. I've gone to these judges in the past and asked why I did not do so well and they couldn't give me a real answer because they didn't judge fairly.

Lazy judges just don't care. They like the "power" of judging the competitors, but they don't take judging to heart.  I watched 6th degree black belts center judge rings and they are not even looking in the direction of the competitor. I've seen other judges give the same score to every single competitor, and it was obvious the competitors did not deserve the same scores. Of course these judges can't be relied on to tell me if I am improving or not because they were not even paying attention.

When I judged Power Tumbling (a part of gymnastics), the judges got a score card. The judges had to make sure the competitors had the required elements, and all of the technical issues were listed on the card. Granted, this didn't help with unfair judging completely, but at least there was consistancy. Plus, the competitors knew exactly what was expected of them. Martial-arts needs to start using something like this for forms competitions.

Sparing has some of the same issues. I commend the Olympics for trying to make it more fair with the electronic scoring devices. Hopefully these can be past down to other martial-arts tournaments as well.

All in all, I am peeved and I am done with competing.

No Respect

Okay, so I wasn't the best behaved kid in the world, but I was brought up respecting adults. I was not raised in a house where I was required to say ma'am and sir, but I knew that if I talked disrespectful to my parents or any adult my dad would smack my mouth clear off my face. There were kids my age that were bratty, but not very many. Teachers, parents, grandparents, coaches, etc just did not put up with it.

After teaching martial-arts the past 5 years and being around my children's friends, I am shocked how kids treat and speak to adults. There are great kids, very respectful kids, and super polite kids, but there are also the rudest kids out there. I have crazy wild kids, but until recently they never acted like they were my superior. I guess that is the problem that I personally see with many of the kids I come in contact with or watch. They have this attitude that they are some how more important, smarter, or even wield more power than adults. I've always been annoyed by it, but I've blown it off because it wasn't my problem. I had other issues with my kids, until recently. My kids stopped saying ma'am and sir, have hardly said please and thank you, and pretty much stopped with all pleasantries all together. I AM NOT HAVING THAT!!!!

I know part of it is testing their limits to see what they can get away with, but they've hit the limit and keep pushing and pushing past. So of course I got to thinking of what could be causing this. I started to think about what was different this summer than previous school breaks. The Damn TV! When we moved to our new house, the kids got tv's in their rooms and they have been watching a lot of cable since.

Think about those shows pre-schoolers watch. My kids' favorite was always Dora and Diego. Where are their parents? You see the mom and dad every couple of shows and all they do is ask Dora what she thinks is best. Other than that, Dora is traipsing through the jungle without parental supervision. She is doing whatever she wants.

Now that my kids are older they are into shows like iCarly and Fairly Odd Parents. Have you noticed that the parents and guardians in these shows are complete morons? It is re-inforced over and over in these shows that kids are smarter than adults, and adults are too stupid for any kind of respect.

These are just a couple of examples I can think of at the moment. But I am hoping that taking the cable out of their room and giving them quality family time will change some of this behavior.

Do any of you guys see this trend and behavior?

Back Surgery: What They Didn't Tell Me

It's been awhile since I have blogged about my situation with my goals in both figure competitions and martial-arts.

I've taken the summer off from martial-arts. It's been hard and a bit depressing. I really want to kick a pad, a person...just about anything will do. I miss kicking, I miss doing forms, and I miss the workout, but I told myself I would take time off so that my back can heal. I thought that if I gave my back time that I would be able to come back to martial-arts stronger than before.

Unfortunately that is not the case. Whether or not I took time off from martial-arts, my back was going to get worse. What they didn't tell me before I had my back surgery last year was that there is a risk for developing scar tissue. This scar tissue has caused me to lose flexibility and mobility. I am in a lot of pain, AGAIN.

I spent all of July doing laser treatments and getting injections to help my joints, but this did not work. I went to a pain specialist last week since none of the stuff my surgeon had been doing worked. The specialist told me that since I did initially get better after the surgery before becoming worse, the problem is more than likely scar tissue.

Tomorrow I go in for even more injections. If the medicine relieves some of the pain, then we know that the issue is in the joints. If nothing happens with the injections, then I have to go get another MRI (yay for the wallet -- NOT) to determine if it is really scar tissue.

I'm not sure what they will do if it is scar tissue, but the specialist made me believe that it is tough to remedy.

That is where I am with my training. No heavy lifting, no high impact exercise, no bending or standing for long periods of time, and multiple doctors visits a week has meant that I cannot train for neither martial-arts or figure competitions.

The US Open

Okay, today totally sucked...or  maybe I sucked...or maybe both. However you want to look at it, I did not have a good first experience at the US Open.

Traditional Forms competition:
The competitors with points in the NASKA/ISKA circuits automatically scored higher than those of us without any points. I guess it's fair since they are working on being ranked, but I would have liked a fair shot to see how I really compared to those ladies. Though, I would not have scored well against them because the judges preferred Japanese style forms over the Korean style. In my age group, they did not separate the styles except for chinese. So, I started with 2 strikes against me. But it is partially my fault that I did not place. I had one of my worse form days ever. Yes, the judges complemented me on my kicks and precision, but when I watched the video of my form, I would have scored myself low. I am really disappointed in myself.

Point-Sparing:
I got SCREWED!!!!!! I was putting my gear on about 2 feet away from the ring next to my coaches/team. I got up to go check in when I was told that I missed check-in and my division was closed. There was one other girl in my weight class, and apparently they made sure she heard the calls to go check-in, but nobody on my side of the ring did. Her coach made it clear that I was not there and so she was automatically First and would move on to Grands. I told them I did not hear the calls, and nobody near me heard the calls. Center Ref said he called 5 times. Whatever....Thankfully one of my coaches helped to contest and the only solution that made the other coach happy was to have me spar out of my weight class.

I am already 20 pounds lighter than the top of my own weight class, which I think is a ridiculously large weight class to begin with. But now I had to spar girls who outweighed me my at least 30 pounds and were at least 6 inches taller than me with a total reach advantage. All I wanted to do was spar for the experience, so this was my only option because OTHER people don't want to work for 1st place.  I may have lost to that girl in my weight class, but at least it would have been fair.

My first fight did not start off so good. The side-kick I was counting on to keep my opponent away was not effective because the girl outweighed my side-kick and her arms were longer than my legs. One bloody nose and really sore face later I yelled at my husband to come coach me. Once I finally got somebody to coach me, I came back from being down by 3 points to winning by 6 points.

The second girl I fought was even bigger and meaner. There were times the center ref called stop, and she would continue pounding on my head. I was hurting. My eye was throbbing and my face was feeling even worse. My husband finally came back to coach me (he was coaching my son), but by then my face hurt and I was too scared to be more aggressive. Still, I only lost by one point.

I was disappointed that the fighting was mostly hands. I guess I expected it to be at the most 50 percent hands and 50 percent feet. But punching to the face (especially my face) seemed to be about 80-90 percent of the fights. As a Taekwondo-ist, this was not fun to do or watch.

I learned some stuff, like I should not do traditional forms and should do creative forms instead, and that I need to invest in hearing aids and a face mask. At this point I'm not sure if I will continue to compete. I'm glad I did the tournament. I can cross it off my bucket list.

At least I can say I got 3rd at the US Open. Not too shabby!

Dieting is Not for Me

Ok, maybe I am a quitter and I really hate being a quitter, but I don't think I am cut out to have abs. I'm not lazy, at least I don't think I am lazy, but I just can't diet enough to have abs.

I am starting to think that our body is either designed or trained to react certain ways to food, and that everybody's body is different. I keep reading how protein shakes and chicken breasts fill people up so that they do not get hungry as often. I keep reading how people perform better when they have whole grains as opposed to white grains. But this was not the case for me. I was starving 30 min after eating chicken breasts, 5 servings of veggies, and a cup of brown rice. After being on the diet for a week, I had no energy. I could barely make it through a 90 second sparing match. I was hungry, tired, and lacking any sort of concentration or focus. I was not a happy person.

I gradually added back in "bad" carbs and red meat. I did this gradually because I did not want to gain a ton of weight super fast. But I ended up losing weight anyways. I feel so much better, I have more energy, and I am a lot less moody. So I started to think about how I used to eat when I was a competitive runner. I remember we would carb load before races, and our coach even encouraged pizza parties the night before state meets. This is how my body was trained. It was trained to perform on carbs and fat.

After using "white carbs", red meat, and fatty foods for fuel for so long, I don't think that my body can perform on anything else. It is used to having these foods for energy. Now, I am not making an excuse. I am going to continue to make healthier choices and try to integrate more whole grains and less white grains into my diet. But I need, at least for now, to have food that I like and that my body likes to use.

What does this mean? I am not going to do the figure competition in August. I am going to continue the weight training, eating protein (just adding more red meat, and not eating quite so much), and trying to cut back on bad carbs. Maybe I'll do a figure competition later when I can make changes to my diet without feeling like crap for months.

I am still going to do the US Open, and I am going to focus on more martial-arts competitions in the future. In fact, I just got done kicking paddles in the front yard...I love love love my paddles.

Egg Salad

Today I had an egg salad sandwich. I made egg salad with 3 egg whites and 1 whole egg mixed with a tablespoon of fat free mayo. I didn't eat all of it, I gave about 1/4 to my 5 year old for a sandwich. He devoured it. I love when my kids like things like this. I put the rest on whole wheat. I had some fruit with my sandwich and this seemed to tide me over.

Now I need to find a good protein snack besides more eggs (twice a day is enough for me). I don't feel like grilling or making anything big and I don't have any left overs. Looks like its time for some peanut butter and an apple.

I lifted shoulders, did some lower back, and finished with some abs this morning at the gym. Then I did the stair master (the stair mill was occupied the whole morning) for about 30 minutes. I have tournament training tonight, so I did not what to kill myself on cardio.

I have lost my ability to do taekwondo forms at the gym because kids are out of school, so I have no idea how I am supposed to get in practice for the US Open. I thought about going outside, but the grass in Florida makes pivoting impossible, and the hard ground is hot enough to cook my feet. I wish my gym had racquetball courts.

I'm going to cut my apples for my snack. I'm feeling a little more motivated now that I can actually eat and enjoy myself.

Such a Bad Bad Girl

I was down to zero energy, I was hungry, and I was gaining weight. I have to admit I was ready to just give it all up. I can't live like that for 3 months, and I was really sad that I lost my flat tummy. Before I started I had a flat tummy, it was squishy, but it was flat.

So, I decided to eat! I'm not going crazy or anything. I am still sticking to whole grains and making sure I get plenty of protein, but I am also eating a little more sugar than I was. Everything I researched said to cut out sugars and processed grains such as white bread and white rice. As with any diet to lean up, I read that I needed to eat low fat foods. This means lean protein such as chicken and fish, and of course nothing fried. Well, this wasn't working for me...obviously!

The first thing I did was to cut out the protein shakes and actually eat! This alone has given me a little more energy. Maybe I am getting too much fat, maybe I am eating too much sugar, but I feel a lot better.

I hate chicken and fish for the most part! Don't even get me started on turkey burgers...YUCK! So today I decided that I am NOT going to limit my protein to these sources. I am going to eat some chicken, but not for every meal. Fish will be a once a week thing I choke down. But I am going to eat ham sandwiches on whole wheat, real hamburgers made with beef, and steak...yes real red meat steak. I'll have bacon after I compete, not a big deal, but other meat I need.

If I am going to train, I am going to need carbohydrates. Maybe its just a Paula thing, but I need them to function. I was dying last week at taekwondo without having bad carbs in my system. I know that on most low carb diets people get moody and lose focus and concentration. I was totally lacking brain function as well as body function. I was training, but I was losing endurance and speed. Not a good thing when you are training for sparing matches.

Here is my new plan. I am going to eat my protein to build muscle, I am going to stick to whole wheat bread, but I am going to allow myself to have rice and pasta occasionally. I may need a couple crackers to help me through a taekwondo class, so I am going to eat them, but first I will make sure I eat the good carbs. Fruits and veggies are never an issue. I eat those all day long and enjoy them. So first protein, then produce, then good carbs. After I eat the good stuff, I'll eat to fuel myself without going overboard.

Tonight I was really bad though. I had pizza. Let me tell you, the pizza was delicious! I enjoyed it :-) Now back to dieting...

Week 4

Week 3 of getting ready for the US Open and Figure Competition was bust! It was my worse week yet. I was supposed to be training hard for both and eating clean for breakfast, lunch, and post-workouts. Well it was such a crazy week that I don't feel like I really had time to figure out the lunch thing. I barely got any Taekwondo training in. I am not happy with the way my stomach looks and I am feeling weak and tired.

So, I'm starting week 4 as of yesterday. This week I am going to continue to train and all 5-6 of my meals need to be clean. By clean, I mean that they need to be high in protein, lots of fiber, complex carbohydrates, low sugar, and low fat. I am really struggling with the protein because I am so picky with meat. I also have to find ways to add more time to train for Taekwondo. I am losing the space I was using at the gym to practice forms, and I really don't have a place at home.

Today I ate pretty good. I finally found some quinoa, now I gotta learn how to make it taste good because as is is nasty. The problem is, I am really hungry right now. I know I am getting enough calories and protein, so maybe not enough fat...I have not idea. My morning workout was legs and swimming. I'm getting a little stronger with my legs, but today my back was really bothering me, so I was limited on going low on squats and presses. My swim went well, nothing out of the ordinary. Because it is Memorial Day both of my Taekwondo schools were closed. Luckily, Jim was home and held paddles for me to kick for about an hour. YAY!

Dog Beach

Today I took my dog and kids to the Ft De Soto dog beach for our first dog beach experience. None of the major beaches in the Tampa area allow pets on the beach, so I was happy to learn that not only was there a beach that allowed dogs, but a beach FOR dogs.

The dog beach is part of the Ft De Soto Park which is near St Petersburg Beach. I had never been to Ft De Soto, and now that I've driven by, I really want to go camping there. Camping on the beach! The dog beach is on the north beach and there is free parking. Because it is a holiday weekend, the beach was packed, but there was still parking available on the grass across the street from the beach parking lot.

The beach was UGLY! I don't think they ever rake the beach, so its not the pretty soft white sand like the surrounding beaches. It's kinda a grayish broken shell yuckyness. But hey, its for dogs, right? The beach was small, full of people and dogs. Dogs that were just running around greeting people and other dogs. I'm a dog lover, so I thought this was awesome. All the dogs were under voice command or on a leash, and every dog and person was really nice.

Dogs crack me up! They were all so cute and fun to watch. I witnessed at one point a line of dogs waiting to pee in the same spot. It was like a doggy bathroom line. That was great. Dogs were playing with owners, other dogs' owners, and with each other. Fetch, sniff, and chase all over the beach and in the water. It was a blast!

My dog, Titan, is a very social dog. He loves all dogs and people and he loves to swim, so I thought that he would be really happy. I think maybe it was a bit too overwhelming for him because when we first got there he was scared of the other dogs. Eventually, he was able to ignore the other dogs and just enjoy swimming, digging holes, and playing with me and Faith.

Cross, my 5 year old, is as much a dog lover as I am. So he had a blast petting and playing with hundreds of friendly dogs all day long. He was in the water the whole time just playing with the dogs. I had a harder time keeping up with him than I did Titan.

Cross with a random black lab

Christian, my 7 year old, could care less about the dogs. He got excited about seeing some really cute puppies and pugs, but he was more interested in playing with other kids. He turned out to be an awesome sand dollar hunter. He was finding sand dollars for everybody at the beach. He came home with 3, plus one for his sister.

Faith, my 9 year old, was scared of swimming in water that dogs had pooped and peed in. She still had fun playing with Titan and all the other dogs. She liked to throw frisbees and balls in the water for the dogs to jump in and fetch. She liked watching the dogs chase her shadow, chase each other, do the back scoot in sand, and other silly dog antics.

Overall, I had a blast! It was a completely different beach experience, and I was happy to get to have an outing with Titan.

Asleep on the floor board on the way home

The Florida Aquarium

During spring break back in April, I took the kids to The Florida Aquarium in Tampa. My pre-schooler had been obsessed with sharks, so I thought it would be cool to take him to see the sharks. After seeing the aquarium prices, I was disappointed that would be our only big outing during spring break. It ate up our budget! Still, I wanted to go because I thought that if the ticket prices were so high, this was going to be an awesome aquarium.

When we first got to the aquarium we saw lots of ducks and turtles...much like my backyard. This was not to exciting. My 7 year old loves turtles, but they are not that exciting to watch. Then we saw some river otters. They were very cute. We stayed to watch the otter show, but we were extremely disappointed that the aquarium worker just talked about otters while she fed them. There wasn't seating, or even very much room to stand. So we were struggling to even see what she was trying to point out about the otters. What a major bummer.

We looked at some fish, more ducks, more turtles, and FINALLY my youngest saw sharks:

On the second floor there was a window in the floor that looked down into the hammer head shark tank. Really cool, and really cute to see my son face plant onto the window because he saw sharks.

 After looking at some fish, we made our way down to the saltwater area. It was really cool to look at all the different sea creatures. Nothing big, but some odd, ugly, beautiful, and strange looking creatures. It wasn't anything we hadn't seen at other aquariums, but I enjoyed looking at them again. We got to touch starfish in the touch tank, and that was a new experience for us. But then we saw BIG SHARKS! My youngest was so happy and in awe of the scuba divers swimming around with them. I've never seen him sit still and listen for so long. He loved learning more about sharks.

He's banging on the glass, trying to make the shark mad...ha

But then, that was it! We were so upset that there was nothing more to see. It took us 2 hours to do the whole aquarium. It took all day to do the Chattanooga Aquarium, I guess I was expecting more out of an aquarium in Florida.

Outside there is a courtyard area with playgrounds, water, and water play. I thought this was probably the coolest thing about the aquarium. Unfortunately I did not know about how wet the kids could actually get, and I did not bring bathing suits. So, they only got to play for a short time in water playground area.

We got excited that there was going to be an penguin show in the lobby. I love penguins, and thought that it would be fun to watch even if penguins aren't really known for doing cool tricks like a seal or something. Well, we waited, made sure we had a good spot, and waited some more. Finally, a man came out with a wagon and two small penguins. Don't get me wrong, the penguins were adorable, but they just stood in the wagon with their heads in the corner.

In this case, you do not get what you pay for. I am very upset that we spent so much money on The Florida Aquarium. I wish we had gone to the Clearwater aquarium to see the dolphin, Winter.

Making it Work

This has been such a crazy week, and I have been very worried about keeping up with my workouts. I know that if I took 3 days off, I would lose motivation and be stressed about losing my gains so far. So I had one choice: Make It Work! I am really happy with myself for working so hard so that I could get in my workouts and keep up with my eating plans.

Monday was a crazy day because I had a doctors appointment in the morning and I had to leave early for Taekwondo in the evening. My appointment was mid morning, and I was really tempted to just forget working out because I also had to pick up and drop off the pre-schooler in the morning. Instead, I stopped by my old gym on the way to appointment and got in my weightlifting workout. After my appointment I knew that I did not have enough time to swim even though I usually swim on Mondays. Instead, I parked my car at my son's preschool and ran in the preschool area. I got done with my cardio just in-time to pick up the preschooler. In the evening I arrived a little early to Taekwondo so that I could practice my form before I needed to get ready for demo team.

Tuesday was a scary day. My daughter fainted at school and I had to pick her up, take her to doctor's and keep and eye on her all day. There was no way I could workout in the morning. I was really bummed about this until I learned that the YMCA childcare opens at 3:30 in the evening. Once my daughter rested, and my son finished his homework I rushed them out the door. I got there with 1 hour before my youngest needed to go to swim lessons. So, I lifted weights and then swam laps. I cut my lap time down so that I could get the kids ready for swimming. Once swim lessons started I walked around and swam around in the pool for a bit. Not much cardio, but still something. When I got home after dinner I practice my Taekwondo while my boys took showers.

This morning I felt so exhausted after the past two days that I have had. I just wanted to crawl back in bed and sleep while the kids were at school. Instead, I forced myself to get my big breakfast and then went for a bike ride. The ride felt good. I came home and started to do abs. My body won...I fell asleep on the floor once I finished abs. I guess my body needs time to repair.

On To Week 3

Week 2 was awesome! I did better than I had planned for this week. I had only planned on working on my breakfast meal, but I ended up working on my post-workout meals as well. I am feeling like I can handle this for years. I am even getting better at separating egg whites. My Taekwondo training is coming along. I feel like I need to train more, but I'm just not sure how, where, or what. Still doing my weights and cardio and am feeling so strong.

Today was the first day of week 3 and I am not happy about chicken breast. I have never really been much of a chicken eater, but this weeks concentration is on eating the right lunch. I need to eat lean protein (like grilled fish or chicken) and veggies. I can add brown rice or quinoa on higher carb days. I don't even know what quinoa is, so I am interested in trying it. I love veggies and do not mind eating all the broccoli, carrots, and snap peas in the world. I like vegetables. I do NOT, however, like fish, white meat chicken, or beans. Beans are the worse, I can't even choke those down. I'm going to experiment with fish. I really want to find ways to get this protein and enjoy it like I do my eggs and protein shakes.

I'd appreciate any ideas or recipes for grilled/baked chicken or fish. Nothing high in sodium or sugar allowed!

Thanks...here's to week 3

Twiggy

It's only day 3 of this week and I am already considerably more exhausted than I was yesterday. I seemed to have endless energy yesterday. Today, all I wanted was a nap!

I started the day off with 3 egg whites and one egg scrambled, a banana, and oatmeal. That is just over 20 grams of protein, and I am wondering if I need one more egg. I'll research that tonight.

My morning workout started with weightlifting for shoulders, biceps, and triceps. I was checking out my arms and flexing in between sets, and I cannot get over how skinny my arms are. I have almost no muscle tone left! My arms are quite Twiggy! I am concerned that I will not be able to build them up. On the positive side, I was lifting heavier than I did last week. I still felt like super woman in the gym because of my gains in strength. I know I need to hit delts and triceps harder, though.

After weights I practiced forms again for technique. I felt stronger and like I am getting my core strength back. I don't feel like I am going to fall over all of the time...just some of the time. I wish I had a bag at the gym or somebody to hold paddles for me. I feel like I need to work more on speed and footwork, but it's hard to do without a target. Plus, I know once kids get out of school, they will be using the courts and I will not have anywhere to practice at the gym. I've gotta start brainstorming on this one!

To finish my workout I ran for cardio. I hate running! Now my knees hurt, but it is such great cardio and it is also a great leg workout. Speaking of legs...mine are looking HUGE! I read that when you start to build muscle that you can get a lot of water retention because muscles need water. Hopefully it goes away soon because I don't think I can get pant over these tree trunks.

After my morning workout I chugged down another vanilla protein shake. It had 20grams of protein plus the protein in the 7oz of milk I mixed it with. Again, I really need to do more research on how much protein I need before and after a workout. Last I read, I need 1gram of protein for every pound I weigh throughout the day. I'm not sure how I should be dividing these up. Especially since I get a least 2 workouts a day.

This evening my Taekwondo workout involved practicing my competition form. I decided to do a Taekwondo form, but it is one that is not required in my organization, so I am having to work extra hard to get it down right. I love the form though. It is a lot of fun!

I'm gonna stop blogging and start figuring out my protein intake so I can get rid of my twiggy arms.

It Taste Like Cake Batter

This morning I had 2 egg whites and one whole egg scrambled, oatmeal, and a half a banana (the other half was bruised). I think I still need more protein because this is my pre-workout meal. I am going to add one more egg white. My post workout "meal" was a vanilla protein shake made with milk. I need my calcium, so I used milk. It was yummy...it tasted like cake batter!

For my morning workout I lifted legs. I can feel myself getting stronger as I go through the moves. My back really hurts when I do squats, so I don't think I am going low enough to engage my glutes. I am seeing definition in my legs now, but my butt is still squishy and saggy. Good news was seeing my quad definition through my baggy Taekwondo pants. I haven't seen that in a really long time.

I worked on forms after doing legs. I am not sure which form I should compete, so I just worked on technique on the forms that I already know. I am thinking about learning a Karate form just for the US Open. I hear that karate forms do better in scoring than Taekwondo forms. If I do a Taekwondo form, it will be my favorite: Dahlee Hyung Sa Chung.

For cardio this morning I swam laps. I felt really strong. I don't know if its the muscle I am building, the breakfast I ate, or a mixture of both. I wasn't fast compared to some other swimmers, but I just felt like I was moving through the water so much better.

Tonight I went to Taekwondo class at Fast Kicks and we worked on forms and did Hogu drills. I loved it, but I felt really clumsy and slow on the Hogu drills. I haven't really trained for sparing in 2 years. I am really nervous about my ability to be ready to fight by July 2. I guess I have to start somewhere.

Well, on to tomorrow...more cake batter!

Starting Week 2

For week 2 I have decided to work on my first meal of the day and start training for the US Open (open Karate) in addition to continuing my training for figure competitions. I am feeling good after week 1 and I am ready to get started on this week.

I started today with my first breakfast of my "diet". It is not a diet to lose weight, but a diet to fuel my body, help build muscle, and keep me lean. My first breakfast was scrambled eggs (the only way I know how to cook an egg), oatmeal, and an orange. I like all those things, but it took a long time to prepare and I will quickly get tired of eating that. So I need to do some serious research on breakfast for figure competitions.

This week I am going to get serious about my Taekwondo training. I have been going to class off and on since I moved to Tampa almost a year ago, but because of my back injury I have not been consistent. I am blessed that I have to different schools I get to train at. One of them is about an hour from me, but the owners are some of my favorite people in the world. I trust them with not only my training, but also teaching my children. It is a family atmosphere, and I get some AMAZING traditional Taekwondo training. Check out one of my favorite places to be: Family Martial Arts Center

The other school I get to train at is only 30 minutes away, but it is hard to get there with my crazy kids in tow. So I only get to go when their dad is available to watch them. This school is amazing and the instructor is a genuinely great guy. I love the training I get there because it reminds me of my old Olympic Style days. We do lots of paddle drills, which is my favorite thing in the world. In addition, the owner is an incredible martial artist and I have a great deal of respect for him. I am grateful to get to train here: Fast Kicks Academy

So, here is to a great Week 2!

Week 1 Frumpy

I am by no means overweight or obese, but since my back injury I may be "fatter" than I am used to. I mean that I no longer have the muscle tone I used to have when I was teaching aerobics and training for martial-arts competitions. Just a couple weeks ago I was complaining because my shorts didn't fit, but when I weighed myself I was lighter than I've been in a long time. FAT! Fat takes up more space than muscle. If you want to see a gruesome picture, Google images of 1 pound of fat versus 1 pound of muscle.

Now that I've decided to train for figure competitions, I have been checking myself out. My guns are now just straight sticks, my glutes are droopy, my hamstrings are dimply, I have no idea where my quads have gone, and my back is squishy flesh. As far as abs are concerned, I never really had a good mid-section. Nope, I prefer to eat pizza, pasta, bread, rice, chocolate, and cookies. Good news is that I still have decent shoulders, bad news is that I have got a lot of work to do.

This brings me to the end of Week 1. I decided for this week that I would start training for the figure competitions. I was pretty happy with the cardio that I had been doing because the cross-training has been good for my injuries. The only change I made to cardio was to add one more day of cardio. I had already been weight training, but not with any goals or focus. This week I started lifting harder and focusing on building muscle.

I didn't start training for the US Open yet or start the diet for figure competition because I am breaking into these things a little at a time. But after my first week I am noticing big differences in strength. I am starting to look a little less frumpy, and I am starting to feel some muscles tightening up. While I was running yesterday morning, I could feel a big difference in my strength.

I finished Week 1 stronger and even more excited about my goals for the US Open and Figure Competitions. On to Week 2...

Hold Me Accountable

I have finally set some goals for this year. If you are reading this, please follow this Blog, follow me on Twitter, and/or friend me on Facebook. I need your encouragement. I need you to hold me accountable for my goals, and YELL at me if I get off track. I am writing this to ask for everybody to help me stay focused on my goals.

US OPEN
One of my goals that I have "re-set" for myself is to compete at the US Open (open Karate tournament) in July. I know I said I was going to train for this awhile ago, but then my back started to act up and I really did not feel like moving, much less training. But I am tired of laying around waiting for my back to get better. The doctor cleared me for any activity, I guess I just have to push through and ignore the pain. Which really sucks! Anyway, I've got 8 weeks to get ready for probably my biggest martial-arts competition yet. I don't know if I will be able to fight, but I am going to start preparing for it. I am going to plan on competing in sparing and traditional forms.

FIGURE COMPETITION
For those of you that have never heard of a figure competition, it is like a body building competition, but with smaller more feminine muscles. There is more to it, I know, but that is just the easiest way to explain it. Anyway, I have been told many times that I should do this, but I have always been so focused on Taekwondo that I blew it off. But now I really want to do it. I found a couple of shows in August that I plan to go to. One is the Florida State Championships in Orlando. I have my work cut out for me, especially when it comes to dieting. Still, I am very excited about this.

 I am nervous and excited for both. Keep me in your prayers that my back heals and that I do not get any more injuries on my journey.

Pass-a-Grille Beach

On Good Friday I took my family to Pass-a-Grille Beach, which is just down the road from St. Pete. My parents were visiting from Indiana, and I wanted them to experience the beach without the big crowds. Mission accomplished!

Faith and Christian with Grandpa

Faith with Grandma

Pass-a-Grille is a beautiful beach that is kind of hidden in a quaint little neighborhood. I think you have to be looking for it to find it, and it can be confusing because you have to drive through part of a hotel complex. But like I said, the neighborhood is quaint with the cutest beach houses ever. After driving through the hotel, you have to be on the look out for the side roads that take you down to the beach. Thankfully the parking takes credit cards because I never carry cash.

The beach itself is not at all touristy or crowded. This can be a bad thing because there are no restrooms or snack bars. The restrooms being the biggest issue if you have children. But other than that, this beach is calm, beautiful, and big. There is a volleyball net, and lots of soft white sand. Because it is not crowded, there is plenty of space to play catch, frisbee, or even wiffleball or football. Not that we did any of those things, but I saw the possibilities.

Everybody had to bury Cross

Mom and Me

The water at this time of year is almost perfect. It is still a little chilly, but once you get in, it feels wonderful. I even got my head wet this time! We enjoyed playing in the water with the kids (not my 9 year old...still too cold for her). We saw some huge stingrays...HUGE! And some regular sized ones. This really freaked out my 7 year old. Luckily the water at Pass-a-Grille is pretty clear, so you can see the bottom and watch out for the rays.

About as far as Faith would get in the water

Christian and Grandpa wresting in the water

Cross in the beach bag

This is one of my favorite beaches!

Love Affair with Water

Today while swimming laps I was bored out of my mind, but I was so relaxed and so comfortable in the water. I love the water and I always have. It makes me think of the Brad Paisley song: "And so began my love affair with water." As a kid I loved to go swimming. I would swim anywhere (pools, ponds, lakes). My favorite part of vacations with my family was staying at hotels with pools.  In college I began life guarding because I loved being at the pool. I didn't like cleaning up barf and poop or yelling at kids who ran on deck, but I loved being able to jump in the pool at random times during my work shift.


As a grown up, my most relaxing moments involve either the beach or floating in a pool. We used to have a pool at our old house, and I would escape to the pool and just float on a raft or stand in the pool. The water just relaxed me. Now I am living in Tampa and I still cannot get enough of the water. I love going to the beach. The sounds, smells, and feel of the beach is therapy for me. Recently I began to swim laps as a way to cross-train. I don't really like swimming laps because staring at the bottom of a pool for 30 minutes is boring, but the water is relaxing. It's like a drug.


In my favorite book ever, Memoirs of a Geisha, the main character Sayuri is told her eyes are blue because she has too much water in her. I was thinking of Sayuri during my swim this morning. I love water. I love being in water, near water, or just floating on water. Yeah, I do have a love affair with water!

Treasure Island

This past Monday my kids were out of school, so I decided that a beach trip was needed. Hey, a beach trip is always needed!

Since my goal is to hit as many different beaches as I can this year, I wanted to try a new beach on Monday. Getting to Clearwater Beach and St. Pete Beach is pretty easy if you just follow the signs from the interstate. I figured that getting to the other beaches would be just as easy, so I set out without directions to get to Madeira Beach. Well, I got off the interstate where I saw the Madeira Beach sign and that was the last sign I saw. I drove and drove and drove, but never got to a beach. Frustrated and lost, I made up my mind to just head west because I knew I would eventually run into the gulf somehow. And that is how I mysteriously ended up at Treasure Island.

It was a cute little community of older hotels and gorgeous homes. It looked nothing like the more touristy areas of the suncoast. I have to say that I really liked it. We finally found a parking lot, and I was really disappointed that the parking kiosk only accepted cash. I never carry cash, but I was able to dig up enough coins to make enough money to park for the day.

The next obstacle was to find food for the kids and me. There were not many choices near the parking lot or beach. My only options were Waffle House or the gas station. Let's just say we settled on lunchables and a bag of chips from the gas station. There was a snack bar in the public restroom area, but that did not smell appetizing, and I don't think they served actual lunch food.

After parking and getting food it was time to go to the beach, yay! Once past the public restroom building I got my first view of Treasure Island Beach, and it was absolutely breathtaking. The water was blue, the sand was white, and the number of beach goers was small. There were a lot of the natural beach plants and palm trees.

The sand was not soft or powdery, though. It was a lot of broken shells. They were not uncomfortable to walk on, just not soft and relaxing like powdery sand is. My five year old said that there were so many shells on the beach so the treasure could stay hidden. The rough sand did not stop my kids from building sand castles and digging giant holes.

The water was really calm on Monday. Gulf tide is usually small, but it was non-existant on Monday. The water barely rolled onto the beach and seemed more like the bay than the Gulf. It made boogie boarding impossible, but that did not stop my 7 year old from trying. The water in March is still chilly, but it is gradually warming up every week. I call it "tourist water" because the northerners have no problem getting in up to their necks. I made it to mid-thigh on Monday...not too shabby.

The biggest complaint I have about the beach is that the restrooms are so far from the water. This is a problem when you have kids with little bladders. I had to pack up all three kids for the huge trek up to the restroom several times on Monday. It was about a 10 min walk up to the restroom (going 5 year old speed).

Still, it was a gorgeous beach, and I am glad I stumbled on it.

Why Cross-Train?

Whenever I start an activity, I always want to push myself to be the best I can be. For me, this usually means daily practice so I can get better fast. However, I am learning that any constant use of a joint or repetitive impact on an area of the body is going to cause pain and injury. It's why runners have runners knee and tennis players have tennis elbow. By taking away the constant and repetitive impact and motion, I am hoping to prevent further injury to my body. My solution to this is cross-training.

The main reason I believe cross-training is the answer is cross training helps to balance out muscle groups. For instance, having really strong quads from running but weak hamstrings can cause knee and back problems. Same is true for any part of the body. I want to prevent injury by keeping all my push and pull muscles balanced. In addition, I think it looks better if I have a balanced body. It just looks odd when a person has big ole legs but an iddy biddy upperbody. Or lets not forget tennis players that have huge forearms but skinny upper arms. They look like popeye!  I understand that not many of us are going go have perfectly proportionate bodies, but cross-training helps to balance it all out. 

In addition to balancing out my muscle groups, I also find cross-training useful because my body adapts quickly to any workout. I don't know if it's because I am awesome at finding ways to make a workouts easy or if it's because I've been a competitive athlete for 23 years. Either way, no matter the workout, my body quickly adapts. I've done some amazing classes and types of exercises that I thought I was going to die the first couple times I did it. But after a week or two it is no longer a challenge. Cross-training at least keeps my body somewhat surprised while doing different activities, but at the same time it allows me to at least get better at the handful of different activities I use for cross-training. It's hard for me because I am not patient, and want to be the best right away. I am still struggling with this one.

Finally, cross-training helps me because I am easily bored. It is difficult because my attention span does not match my endurance level. My brain tends to quit before my body. Cross-training allows me to mix up my workouts so I don't get bored. If I were to run everyday during the week, by the third day I am dreading the workout. But if I only have to run twice during the week, then maybe it will feel fresh to me every time I do it.

These are my reasons for cross-training, now here's to hoping that I can actually make it work! I'll keep you updated.

Swimming for Martial-Arts

As I was swimming laps yesterday I was trying to think of all the ways that swimming is beneficial for martial-artists. I have heard of people doing "Aquando" and practicing kickboxing in the pool. I have even done forms a time or two in the pool. But I'm talking about real swimming...laps.

First, the whole breathing thing while trying to swim freestyle/front crawl is a challenge. Unless you have really poor form, timing is a huge issue for breathing. Yesterday I was trying to swim fast enough to get my heartrate up, this meant that I was breathing hard. Unlike running or other cardiovascular activities where you can just breathe every time you need more O2, swimming requires you to breathe in and out at steady pace. Breath control is great for any sport. You learn to control your breathing so that you can fully utilize your oxygen intake. If an athlete breathes to shallow and quickly pushes that air back out, then they will not be getting enough oxygen into their lungs. An athlete should learn to control breathing so that they can take full breaths in and slowly let it back out. In swimming you have to do just that. You breathe in, put your face back in the water and slowly let the air out until the next time you turn your face for air (every 3 strokes is normal).

Second, martial-arts is a high impact activity. We jump, fall, kick and strike people/bags with force, or we get kicked or struck with force. It's fun, but sometimes our body needs a break from all that impact. Running, plyometrics, and jump rope are all typical tools for a martial artist to condition with, but they also add more impact into our routine. All of the impact causes us to be in pain so that we can not train or we just don't want to train. The older I get, the easier it is for my joints to yell and scream at me after a workout. In addition, the more time you spend doing high impact activities, the more chances you have of developing over use injuries and even arthritis and tendonitis. I have been doing martial-arts for 19 years...that is a lot of flying side kicks on heavy bags! Swimming is a non-impact way for a martial-artist to add cardiovascular conditioning. Plus, the water acts as therapy as you push your body through it.

Third, swimming is both a cardiovascular activity and a strength building activity. Building muscle is a great way to protect your body from injury during the high impact activities of martial-arts. Plus, building muscle helps to build power and posture for amazing kicks, strikes, and stances. Swimming utilizes back, shoulder, chest, arm, glute, and leg muscles. Plus, it helps build the core muscles martial-artists need for balance and power. Thats almost the entire body! In addition, I use mostly legs in Taekwondo, so adding more upper body strength is always a smart thing to do to balance out my body.

I am going to try to swim at least 2 or 3 times a week. I am hoping to gain strength and endurance while I try to heal my body.

St. Pete Beach

It was such a beautiful day in Tampa and I really needed to get out in the sun and enjoy some sand between my toes. Being new to Tampa, I decided to go to one of the three beaches that I actually know how to get to so that I didn't waste any precious beach time trying to figure out where to go. I picked St. Pete because it is usually busy enough so that my kids have other kids to play with and I can people watch. The other active beach that I know how to get to is Clearwater, and Clearwater is just a pain to get to when coming from Tampa.

St. Pete is a beautiful beach, even in March. There is not a lot of sea weed on the beach and the sand is the famous white sand of the "sun coast." There are a lot of shells on the beach, so whenever I go to St. Pete I make sure to step with caution so I don't end up with cuts like my pore hubby did today. My daughter, however, enjoys the shells because it allows for some great shell collecting. The shells usually look great in bowls, arts and crafts projects, and even the fish bowl.

St. Pete beach was pretty active today. I think it is spring break for a lot of the northerners who did not seem to mind that the water is actually freezing! I was amazed that they could completely submerge in that frigid water...brrrrrrr. The spring breakers also meant that there were plenty of kids for my children to build sand castles with and play catch with. I envy my 7 year olds ability to make friends quickly with every kid he meets. He had a great time getting to know a 7 year old Canadian. My 5 year old had a blast digging in the sand with his shovels and plastic trucks.

I enjoyed a day of playing catch, chilling on a blanket, shell hunting, and people watching. I missed the t-shirt shops of Clearwater and some other Florida beaches. I love to walk through the bigger t-shirt shops and explore the fun beachy stuff. However, the t-shirt shops at St. Pete beach are few and far from the beach. They are not a convenient to the beach and neither are concession stands. It was really disappointing today because I really wanted a volleyball and a drink.

Still, I while I will continue to explore the beaches of Tampa this year, I will definitely be returning to St. Pete beach.

MOSI

Today I took two of my children back to the Museum of Science and Industry here in Tampa. The first time we went through the museum last October the whole family had a blast. Today was my third trip and I have to say that I am really disappointed in the museum.

The museum has a lot to offer. Three floors in the main building are full of exhibits that are interactive and interesting. Then there is the other building that has the planetarium and the "Kids in Charge" area. In addition there are a couple of IMAX theaters.

Like I said, the exhibits are interactive, hands on, and fun...the first time. Here is the disappointing part, except for a small exhibit on the bottom floor, none of the exhibits have changed since October. There are rooms where you can experience a tornado in a basement and a room where you can experience and earthquake.  Then there are lots of other exhibits that are hands on and educational for natural disasters. The problem is, once you've done it once, its not worth doing again. The earthquake is nothing like the earthquake ride at Universal Studios, so you really don't even want to do it again. Even my five year old was bored with it the second time around.

The third floor is still a really cool exhibit about the human life cycle. Very cool the first time. I have no desire to walk through it again, and my kids REALLY did not want to see it again. This exhibit should not have lasted more than 3 months. MOSI really needs to rotate its exhibits more to keep their members excited about coming back. I would not have paid for a membership if I knew this would be the only exhibit.

The small room on the bottom is the only thing besides the IMAX movies that has changed since October. Today was a very small and boring bug exhibit. I thought it was gross, but the kids thought it was cool...for 5 minutes. As far as the IMAX goes, the IMAX movies seem to change often, but never to anything worth taking the family to see.

The planetarium would be cool, maybe. I don't know because every time I am there, there are never any shows. I do not think 1 or 2 shows a day is enough, but what do I know?

The kids in charge area, though, is amazing. Lots of interactive things for the kids to do. They can learn about physics, music, home economics, and airplanes in a very playful, hands on area. I love it. This area is totally worth the membership. For a couple bucks there are bounce houses and giant slides for the kids to play on as well.

In the end, I say if you are visiting Tampa you MUST check out the Museum of Science and Industry. If you have kids and live near Temple Terrace, you should get the membership. If you don't have kids, don't waste your money because you will be bored after the first visit.

Enjoy!