"K" heads

So the fitness industry here in the UK has gone mad for kettle bells and crossfit training. I for one am relieved the boot camp fad is passing and this more functional and unquestionably long lived influence is taking grip. Martial artists and fitness guru's worldwide will recognise the importance of both of these schools of thought when it comes to training where power (speed x strength), fitness and pure strength are equally important. For me I am just happy, ever so ever so happy that finally a way of developing all round strength and fitness is being promoted without the capitalists getting involved trying to sell expensive kit or courses. The general public are being reminded that compound resistance movements (like using kettle bells, sand bags, tornado balls etc...) or a series of repeating exercises thoughtfully put together can provide a fully exhaustive training session. Thus handing over the responsibility of building fitness to the individual rather than steering them like blind sheep through the money making grips of gym memberships and/or equipment they may never use. Empowering people to take responsibility for themselves and being accountable for their own actions is the only way I see forward. If we constantly give people pillars to rely on we stop them growing and flourishing themselves, far better to share information and advice so that people can make their own informed choices. Power to the people!

City lights

Urban life: scratching around looking down trying to find a quid or ten to buy some food and pay the rent before it all gets spent.....on fluorescent strip lighting curtain shut tightening and a bit of petrol to get about.....and yet more food and yet more rent the cycle goes around.....

Small Victories!

This morning it rained heavily, the sky was grey and even through my full waterproof clothing I was damp. Despite my moist gloom the invisible inscriber made me laugh out loud as i squelched through the subway by my home, I saw he had visited since yesterday and left his mark. The crap graffiti is cordoned off as it is being sprayed with an anti-tamper lacquer of some sort. Yet the inscriber had left some messages in chalk on the floor....Haaaa......I think I'm in love!

Theres a bloke up my Alley

For the past year or so I've noticed him. I'm not sure how i knew he was a "he", intuition of some sort as until this morning i had never seen the invisible inscriber. He writes on stone walls and pavements in chalk and on painted or tiled walls in a black or blue marker pen. Sometimes he uses colours if he illustrates his prose, but mainly its just writing. There is a subway close to my house which i walk through often and there particularly his pen flowed like it was possessed....literally. Most of what he writes has a heavy religious lean and I've seen his characteristic style of writing on the streets all over town but mainly in the subways. I conjure up images of what he may look like in my mind and the situations under which he may be writing as the text just goes on and on and on, sometimes I stand reading his words for 10 or 20 mins at a time. I always thought he choose subways because they were sheltered and some of what he writes and draws must take a long time so he could need protection from the elements. Ive also wondered why in all this time and my heavy footfall around town I've not seen him yet....perhaps he has to write under the cover of darkness in case he gets seen. Some of what he writes could be controversial although its harmless, thought provoking and extremely interesting stuff. Yet because I had him pegged as a shadow, shrouded in mystery and religious misunderstandings I have become as equally in awe of him as intimidated at the prospect of crossing his path. Alas, I am only human and my curiosity took a knock when the council started to block paint in an industrial grey colour over such profundities as "I learn best when there is pain within the teaching" Luckily for us all the inscriber was not defeated and came back to re write over the communist bland-over job. Weeks passed and he was building up his messages to us, in fact this time as the background was grey and uniform it lent it self even better to his illustrations and he started using more colour and pictures. The council had seen enough free spirit, and in a final act of totalitarian bigotry repainted over his work in an indigo colour and got some "artists" to graffiti the whole subway in a deep indigo and fuscia. The inscriber cannot use his pens to write over the walls now, they are too dark in colour, plus knowing him as i do (?!) he wouldn't write on art. And although I am a fan of GOOD graffiti, this most definitely is not, and so rubbing salt in the wound. So there it stands daily for me at least a reminder of the society we pay to be part of in more ways than just financially.
Today I cycled under the rail tracks as a deviation from a cycle route I usually take...and there he was crouching on the ground in broad daylight dressed in dirty ripped clothing with a huge block of chalk in his hand writing on the ground in his familiar neat scribe. He is African although I couldn't place his accent when he spoke, I asked him if he was the guy who wrote in "my" subway....he seemed a little unsure, although I knew there could only be one and that he was probably thinking "who is this nut- nut?". He went on to tell me it didn't matter that they had painted over it, as long as it had been there for at least 24hrs then someone would have seen it and although "they can delete it from the walls they cannot delete it from your mind" He thanked me for reading it, I thanked him for writing it, and we moved forward in time....

Do you want anything from the shop?....

The Kalika of foods, she too is often misunderstood; It may seem that the depth of the velvety smooth sweetness would be a transparent guise as in the natural world e.g- the enticingly colourful labia of the Venus fly trap (An apt deadly example). Yet there is some truth to the physiological benefits of the cocoa: an analgesic, antioxidant and as an opiate to name but a few, however it has been calculated that one would need to eat 12kg of an average quality chocolate at once to induce a marijuana like "high"! Not to mention the more habit forming traits and other psychological spin offs regular consumption can illicit, which are less easy to quantify such as the overpowering drive to source and consume chocolate, the orgasmic like satisfaction when it touches your taste buds and the feeling that often, quite often actually, nothing but chocolate will do!

A wise man once told me....

Last week whilst dragging my bike from the bike store at the gym I was stopped by someone who made reference to its extreme full suspension engineering. He was impressed how it responded as I demonstrated the frame flexing as well as the forks on hitting curbs and juts etc.... Modestly I protested that none the less, my overall speed of journey was slow as I spent so much energy bobbing up and down rather than propelling myself forwards. To which he replied “Life is not the race Kirstin”

Ground and Pound

Having spent many years punching and kicking opponents in the head in competition and training for kickboxing bouts I have crossed the paths of a number of martial artists. I have trained with them, been trained by them, travelled with them and socialised with them. They are my sparring partners, instructors and friends past and present. It is a fact that martial arts are political. The main debate centres around whose techniques or systems of training are better. 'Better' in the world of martial arts means more effective in a combative situation. A martial art is a system of codified practices and traditions of training for combat with the objective of physically defeating other persons and to defend oneself or others from physical threat. So it stands to reason that over the passage of time, pitting one artist's wit against another would be the ultimate answer to these debates. These competitions have been documented from as early as the Greek Pankrations in 648BC. More recently the popularity of mixed martial arts has increased exponentially with the spread of skill and knowledge within the sport growing alongside. And whilst from an outsiders point of view, particularly as I've been in that ring a number of times, i am able to appreciate said skills.....i simply cannot condone the blood thirsty and totally unmartial element of 'ground and pound'. I don't care what discipline you come from, there is no way to verbally defend that technique from a sporting nor martial perspective. No where in martial arts promotes the lack of respect nor humility as this technique so openly flaunts. In a combat situation you may need to apply a submission lock or deliver an effective strike or combination. But you do not need to straddle your opponent on the ground and smash them unintelligenty and repeatedly around the face wearing nothing more than a skin of leather over your fist and claret everywhere until they nearly lose consciousness.

Women are like teabags....

....You never know how strong they are until they're put in hot water
(Eleanor Roosevelt)

Or perhaps dissected more vividly by Marge Piercy:


A strong woman is a woman who is straining
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tiptoe and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing "Boris Godunov."
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels, she talks about
how she doesn't mind crying, it opens
the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles, and
she goes on shoveling with tears in her nose.
A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating, I told you so,
ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,
ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,
why aren't you feminine, why aren't
you soft, why aren't you quiet, why aren't you dead?
A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head, she is trying
to butt her way through a steel wall.
Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole
to be made say, hurry, you're so strong.
A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to say, and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.
A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.
What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us. Strong is what we make
each other. Until we are all strong together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.

Running with wolves

I’m dog sitting my best friend's two Jack Russell’s this week. They have been joining Pepe (my huge greyhound cross breed) and I on our daily runs around the Sussex countryside. On a couple of occasions I’ve invited Rocky (a friend's whippet/staff). And spending time with this group has been the most pleasant surprise.
Each dog has his own character which is displayed in a diluted version within the running pack. Running minimises character traits down to necessary displays only as most of our energies are being used in the running....this is certainly true of longer distances as we tire.
I am pack leader. No question. The absolute autocrat of our group. I know it and it feels quite natural, I expect to be obeyed and on the rare occasion I am not it surprises and frustrates me.
Next in line to the throne is Pepe, he is a cool customer. Doesn’t feel the need to assert his authority, the strong and silent type, completely comfortable in his ranking and in himself. When challenged he either reciprocates or sprints off instigating a game of chase. Otherwise he canters gracefully alongside me, only occasionally deviating from our course for a particularly juicy sniff and pee.
Rocky has enough character for 10 dogs and he is next in the pecking order. As he tires he tends to stride out in front, leading us all but regularly looking back or running into the pack for assurance. Before this stage he is totally random, manically trying to engage with anyone mainly Pepe. He charges, nips, barks, pounces, chases, spins, humps and trails him, constantly sprinting between him me and the point of our diamond formation pack. He is overflowing with life juice which totally saturates his muscles. Normally it takes about 4 miles to run it out and for his behaviour to reach a level plateau.
Next is Champion, aptly named as his legs are tiny yet he stays tight showing little sign of fatigue. As Rocky pelts assault after assault into Pepe’s flank Champion charges vocally after them both, otherwise he is consistently 3ft behind me. He is always in position, ready for action but too little to have confidence in his power. A great team player and back up he is always game.
Bringing up the rear literally and in rank is Hercules. Fat boy. He struggles with any speed or distance and trots panting about 100ft behind us. He avoids any kind of interaction too exhausted to risk further energy expenditure. He is able to blend into the background so gets overlooked by stronger members of the pack and he likes it this way. He doesn’t enjoy the rambunctious nature that Rocky brings to the pack, whereas Champion loves it and Pepe tolerates it.
I love being part of this pack. I particularly enjoy being in the middle of it which is why I prefer Rocky’s participation. When he is not with us I lead us, this means the feeling of being encompassed by dogs is lost. Rocky forces us all to engage with him, the spin off to that experience is I reap energy from the pack, they lift me. I feel free, joyous, like I could run and run and run. I have my music on and it’s never loud enough, the wind never blustery enough. My senses become totally wide open and I want more and more. I feel completely free, ecstatic, alive, pleasured and complete running with the wolves.

Most palm trees look the same

A good friend of mine (alias "bom bom") takes these amazing pictures of Brighton on her travels. The new bandstand in all its glory: I must walk, run or cycle past this 4 or 5 times a day, every day, every week, every month of each year i spend living here. This is by far the most eye catching light i have ever seen it in, so naturally i get to wondering what the hell else I've missed as I've sweated and panted my way around 'Town and Down' all this time. Training runs can be so challenging there is only one way to go, and that's within. But i do plenty of less demanding outdoor frivolity and for that it would be possible to dissociate and appreciate. Someone once told me they thought Brighton seafront needed palm trees and more green life to make it less shabby and more attractive....there's not one other seafront you could capture this exact shot from....most palm trees look the same.