Month: March 2017

Karate Hurts, As it Turns Out

hyperbaric oxygen therapy MelbourneThree karate classes in, and I’ve come to realise something important: martial arts hurt. I mean, I’m basically taking one very solid part of my body and smacking it really hard against someone else. The human body is a tough object, as it turns out, specially when your fist is colliding with someone’s face. That’s bone on bone. And now, I’m walking around the place with my fist in a bowl of ice.

I really enjoy the lessons- they’re dynamic, and I feel like I’m getting fitter- but the recovery period is intense. I’d make it to classes monthly if I wasn’t so afraid that I’d forget everything. Weird thing was that I asked Sensei, and he recommended some oxygen therapy in Melbourne. Really didn’t see that coming, since he seems so…spiritual. I thought he’d recommend an hour of meditation a day along with some herbs, maybe a bit of incense. Or I could focus my chi or something. That’s the impression I’ve got during my lessons, but I’m starting to think that was all a bit of show. He just straight up told me that oxygen therapy was the bomb and that it really helped the recovery period. Not something to get hooked on, but good for those stubborn injuries, so I’m told.

I guess all that incense and meditation was for show, so…not sure how I feel about that. Still, I enjoy the lessons, and if a bit of hyperbaric therapy is going to make the aches and pains ease up a bit, I’m willing to give it a go. Sometimes I leave the lesson feeling like I got hit by a train, depending on who gets picked to be the practice dummy. If I’m going to make use of Melbourne’s hyperbaric medicine, oh so modern, it might as well be then.

-Kyle

Formal Chats About Aluminium

ute tray drawsNone of my family do formal. I definitely don’t do formal. I grew up in the country, and even going to church there meant t-shirt and jeans. I mean, people might have given you a look if you showed up in flip flops, but they were mostly old, and we only did it on really hot days. So shoes were about as formal as we got, and only then. Mostly it was work boots for work, then wear whatever you want when you got home. Rinse and repeat.

It’s basically the same now that I’m in Melbourne, since I work for a plumbing firm and all, but now…we’re going to a work function. Yeah, awesome. Whatever. Some big event put on by the local council, the boss thinks we might get a few contracts from it, so we all have to dress up and go along and talk about under body boxes while wearing bow ties. Oh, there are gonna be bow ties. It’s fully posh and all that, so now I’m going to have to spend hours on Me-Straw looking up how to do those things up. I’m borrowing all the formal wear from my mate Dave, who laughed himself silly for a good few minutes when I told him what it was for. Probably gonna have to comb my hair as well.

Man, when I took on an apprenticeship at a plumbing firm, I didn’t know it would come to THIS. I guess everyone there will be a tradie as well, so it’s not like we have to get into weird conversations about taxes and land prices. So long as we’re talking toolboxes and utes, I’m fine. But scrubbing up just isn’t us, not at all. Our family just never learned how to do it. Maybe we just dodged a lot of weddings and funerals growing up, I don’t know…

Anyway, there are four of us going so we’ll all look stupid together. The best way of doing anything, to be honest, and we’ll have a laugh about it afterwards; maybe Shazza can give me some tips on how to do up a waistcoat. Or we could find a corner and talk about under tray draws for the entire evening.

-Mike