Kicking People and blogging about it

So what will this be...

• Some guy who thinks he's the awesome butt-kicker god of all things karate?
• Mr. "OMG my k4r4t3 is teh 1337saws?"
• Another failed blogging attempt?

...maybe

But none of those are my intent in beginning this. I am a lifelong martial artist, and one who, in my travels, has realized something that a lot of other people have. No one style is really that much better than the other. There are better instructors, better situations for a style's techniques, power/speed/accuracy/damage advantage to some style's kicks/punches/throws over the other... but it really comes down to each individual fighter's application of what he's learned.

Here is the beginning of my post.

I've seen 3rd dan black belts who've been doing martial arts for 10+ years step into a kickboxing ring with a guy who's just got into the sport... you know who won? No, you don't. And neither did I until I watched the fight and neither did any of them until one stood over the other. But it's dang sure not a clean sweep of black belts with their arms raised when the bell rings.

Here, I intend to blog my personal attempt at getting back into fighting shape and stepping into a few rings. I've got experience fighting, everything from light-contact point-sparring to full contact MMA, so there's a decent amount of knowledge here... I'm also a married father in my late 20's working in the software development industry. For the past few years I've done a lot of sitting on my rear. Sure, my muscles remember what to do and I still think like a fighter... but ol' dad's not in any shape to climb in a ring any time soon ;)

Thus, it's a great time to begin cataloging my efforts. With any luck, I'll have a text/picture/video journey for anyone interested to take a look at that starts at "please don't make me run around the block" to "hey, I'm a competitive fighter again."

What's the goal? TBD. There are a few options here in the Austin Texas area - my pipe dream is to test my mettle at a few Olympic TKD trials. Maybe I'll do a little full-contact along the way as well. All that can come after I'm in good enough shape to call myself a martial artist again.

Anyway - Welcome to Kicking People.