Welcome to Gaia! ::

That, or you get to watch CNN for 8 hours a day in a waiting room. xp

Well, you'll be there for a couple of days for the actual selection, even if you don't get picked. Take a good book and a deck of cards. 3nodding

I just got picked too. Weird.

So I had to go in for my annual evaluation for the YMCA today. I went over everything with the boss, and got signed off for a 3% raise. I also again petitioned to have another night added to the classes, which I've been getting nothing but resistance on. I had the girls in the Childwatch during the meeting which is fine because they love it in there. However, today one of the karate moms was working in there. I've mentioned her before. She's fairly nuts and I rather certain she's interested in doing naked things with me. So of course she askes me how the meeting went.

Me: "Matt fired me."

Her: "What!? He did not!"

Me: "Yeah, said since they have Bill and Rick and I can't stay for the 5:30 class that it's more cost effective to give me the boot."

Her: "They can't do that!"

Me: "Easy come, easy go."

Her: "Well what can I do? Can I do anything?

Me: "Well if we had another night of classes maybe they'd hire me back on to help with that, but Bill Z said they can't do it."

Her: "Well, we'll see about this!"

And she goes marching off to Bill Z's (the head manager of the branch) office while I'm putting the girls in the stroller and thinking about how I'm going to hear about this one. I considered fleeng via the back exit, but she came back.

Her: "He's not in his office."

Me: "That's good since I was lying."

Her: "WHAT!?"

Slapping ensued.

I'm a very bad person.

It has it's moments.

Just got a phone call. Chop-socky politics is bearing done yet again with me and my crew in the crosshairs. Time to consolidate the ol' powerbase, which for a startling change of pace, I actually have.

I'm fairly pissed. My father started our karate club back in 1990. At that time he was a 3rd drgree black belt and I was a 1st degree. Things were fine, the club was small. My father had no instructor at that time.

92 I my dad becomes a student of Jordan Sensei, who was a 5th dan (degree black belt). Dad had gotten some more black belts and really needed to move himself up the totem pole so he could keep forward progess for his studetns. I had acheived 2nd dan and could not be promoted any higher. So we changed a lot of what we were doing when we came under Jordan Sensei. It was kind of a hassle, but we reaped benefits. Years later I achieved the rank of 4th dan and my father was a 5th dan. Jordan sensei was a 6th dan.

So in 06, Jordan Sensei is asked by the Seishinkai to join them. Seishinkai was founder by Shogo Kuniba and Sensei was a direct student of his. My father, myself, my cousin (3rd dan) and another fellow (3rd dan) made a trip to a camp in Georgia and we were asked by the head of the Kai to join.

I hesitated. My father had passed the dojo to me and moved to the mountains, where he trains some students in his home dojo. Sensei had only a handful of students. I however had about 50, so joining them would mean asking 50 people to change what we had been doing for years, but the benefit is we could continue our growth as martial artists. We made the change.

This led to 07 which featured the spectacular kicking of my a**. I've chonicled this here in this thread in detail. To sum it up, after paying hefty testing fees, sweating my a** off, training to cope with the premature birth of my daughters, bleeding a bit and nearly losing a ******** eye, I am a 5th dan with credentials going all the way up to the Japanese Emperial family. And no, that's not bullshit.

But now Sensei is having a falling out with the head of the kai. So, where in the hell does that leave me and my students. I can not and will not ask them to change everything again. Are my credentials in jeapordy because of this possible move by my sensei?

Did I go through all of that just to have it all mean ******** karate politics.

Congrats!