Saturday 19 March 2016

Self Defense

Life is great when you have some cool people to spend it with :)

I've been busy, lots to do but also not a lot at the same time, and a fair bit to update on here. OK.

I've been doing women's self defense courses/sessions/things, whatever you wanna call it. It's where I basically drive over to the next town, catch up with Chantelle and we buddy up and get taught how to beat each other up - for our own protection. Lol, sounds a little off, right? Nah, there are some Kempo instructors who have decided to run a quick, one hour long session once a week for four weeks so that some women can learn a little bit of self defense if they were to need it any time in the future. It's cheap - $10 a week, and we get taught some helpful things.
Such as blocking a punch, getting out of bad situations like grabs from behind and the like you'd expect from not very nice people. Apparently I have a very good punch - I would expect nothing less after growing up with Nick! (I joke) and sometimes all I want to do is actually try it out.

See these little sessions are great, but for obvious reasons we can't have contact with the friend you're doing it with, so when you want to elbow someone under the jaw you put a lot of "oomph" into it so you know you're doing it correctly - but you certainly can't actually do it! Which is kind of frustrating. I wish there was some type of robotic thing that you could practice on that resembled those sorts of attacks from a person, and you could do it properly without fear of injuring somebody...Anyway, there was one occasion in our second week where Chantelle did actually get me in the face - it kinda hurt, but we were all laughing too much to really care.
The instructor reckons that if you put a palm heel into the attackers face, top lip/nose sort of area, if you hit it hard enough you could actually induce vomiting - which is how you know you've done a good job. It's a pressure point filled with nerves, and yeah that's where Chantelle hit me, thankfully not hard enough!
It's fun though, we've got just one more session to do this Wednesday night coming, and twice we've gone down to the pub for dinner afterwards for a debrief and catch up on how our week has been. It's nice to be spending more time with her, even if only for a few hours. When we were younger we'd do three or four day weekends hanging out, now we hardly get time, so it makes a nice change :)


I'm back working at my favourite cowshed again, you know that one I just won't shut up about? Automated system, so much fun, Cameron and Hamish, etc., etc., etc.? Yeah, that one. I'm on my second weekend there and today I'm helping feed calves too, which I'll help out with after milking for the next few weekends as they need the help - until the busy period of autumn calving is finished. They're calving 250 cows, and officially started a week or so ago - it's a short stint of calving, so they're pretty busy beavers at the moment. It's great to be back, I had a good catch up with Hamish last weekend, and now Cam. I think they're just glad to see a new face in the cowshed again - it must get kinda boring without me to chat to every so often, and I'm stoked to be back. Well I was, until I found out my favourite friendly heifer died over the summer when I was away, to think that I was so looking forward to seeing her again, but hey.
But last night Jo - Cam's wife - invited me to join them all for dinner. It was their family, Cam's parents, Hamish and his family and my neighbour, Sam - who's Jo's brother. I've known Jo and Sam's family for years - since I was about 7 or 8, so it wasn't too big a deal to join them. Jo said it was just a farm dinner thing, but it was nice to be invited and it was good to go to dinner without it being too dramasome.
It's funny actually, usually if we were invited to dinner there is a clear separation of "adults" and "kids" and I would always be sent off with the kids. Yeah I guess we aren't often going to family friend's for dinner and vice versa, it's been quite a few years! But last night it was the same, except I hung out with all the "adults", just chatting and listening - and watching the kids all going crazy outside as kids do.
So it was quite pleasant being able to just go, especially on my own without any of my family or whatnot being there too - it was like any big family and friend dinner should be - everyone talking with everyone. Much more preferable over young farmer meet ups, where you sit and if someone speaks to you you don't know where to be happy about it or not - depending on who the person is...

It's also good to be considered good enough company to be invited around for dinner, not just the "relief milker", although I won't say it wasn't a coincidence or  there wasn't an underlying reason why I was invited - I'm pretty sure there is something going on in the background that involves me. And I'm pretty positive I know exactly what it is, but unfortunately for you guys - I'm going to leave you hanging ;) for the meantime anyway, sorry! When there is updated, public information, I'll let you know. Don't try and guess!


Oh, and it looks like we have ourselves a new full timer starting in June! It's my friend Nikolai, I've known him through youth group for these last few years and, ironically, he used to work for Jo and Cam - but he moved to the Waikato for a farm job there and left me to pick up the slack with Cam and Hamish. Anyway, he's heading back this way, needs a job and we have one for him. He came around this morning for another catch up and confirmed he definitely wanted the job, which is great for me as now I can definitely RSVP to go to a wedding in June, oh and we can also start taking more bookings now too.
Fingers crossed it will all work out well.


In other news, the weather has certainly changed direction as most days now are quite cold and icy with the wind, work is continuous - although I have a few days off and get bored out of my mind sitting around at home. Jackson and Pippa are still BFF's. Oh, and Nick has a girlfriend - although he still hasn't updated his relationship status on FB yet - I'll keep you posted! hehehe

6 comments:

  1. Sounds like more holidays for you, yay!

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  2. Haha, "catch up with Chantelle and we buddy up and get taught how to beat each other up - for our own protection." Awesome, with friends like these, who needs enemies? :P
    Actually, i must say, I'm a tinsy bit surprised that they'd reccomend a palm into the top lip/nose area to induce vomitting. Because that is also (and please just don't ask me why I know this, okay? :P) the spot where, if you drive your palm into it hard enough, you snap the cartiledge in the nose, and drive the sharp point at the top up into the brain, killing them. Self defence at its best, I guess... :P

    very sad to hear about that heifer, stinks when that happens. What's kinda, not funny, but co-incidental, is when I first read that in your email, that day, we'd just lost one of our nicer little pets, rolled, broke her leg and Dad had to shoot her. Only about 4 years old, I think, considering that we have 17yo pets here, it was a pretty short life!!!

    Leave us hanging, and then terll us not to guess, you must be joking!!! So, Okay, number one guess, they're gonna offer you full time employment. Number two guess, they're gonna offer you a pay rise. Number three guess, they're gonna offer you a... No, I better not say that. You'd kill me. :P

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    1. Yeah I know that too, I think if you're tryna get away you'd hit them hard enough to release you, without any bad "I'm gonna kill you" intentions


      Haha I said not to guess but you're way off lol

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    2. Yeah, although, my concern would be, in the heat of the moment, that rush of adrenaline kicking in like its supposed to, you're first instinct is just to attack, it probably takes a lot of self control to even have the presence of mind to hit right, you're probably just gonna think, hit hard, hit fast... Haha, that's why you take lessons, I guess, to overcome that... :P

      Come on, be fair! You tell me not to guess, you know me, that instantly means that my mind is gonna guess. Like after a loud crashing noise, saying "Oops, don't look!" is obviously gonna make you look... :P
      Haha, yeah, I didn't think I'd be close, but hey. You don't know what my third guess was though!!! :P

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    3. True, I guess it'd be a wait and see if it were to even happen sorta thing to see what I'd actually do.

      Lol yep me too!

      Haha I'm kinda curious now. You won't figure it out though :P

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  3. Self defence course sounds cool! I've thought about doing something like that but it's never become anything more than a thought at this stage . . .

    We're not allowed to guess?? So not fair!! Hope the info becomes public soon then ;P

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