The term BLACK FRIDAY certainly lived up to its name last week for me.It was the 13th of April at 4.30pm when I officially found out the bad news about my injury. I had an MRI retaken in Australia hoping that the results would be clearer and better than the ones I had taken overseas. Although unfortunately, swelling or no swelling, the same results were produced. Now, I have to go back to the doctors to see what the next steps will be.

Resting under the orange trees with Pasa.
Me and my Spidies!!
The Beautiful, cold water we went in. I think I only managed to get in there to help my knee recover, otherwise there would be no way of me going....it was ICEY COLD! Needless to say my love caught no fish:(!!! and whilst there were no fish I was still petrified a shark would come and eat me!

Well I spent a few days in Turkey after the comp, having not seen Bahri and family for along time. He was really sweet and so concerned for me and my inury, I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful bf, alhumdulliah. I had an MRI there and slowly regained walking movement. At first I could not walk up and down stairs, which meant getting to his home at the top took a long - long - long time to reach. But by the end of the week I could get there in 6 mintues.

Bahri has helped me keep a positive mind frame. At times I slip and wonder why this happened...but he reminds me it all happens for a reason and I know that it will only make me stronger and hungrier to succeed! I already want it so much more than before, ---I believe--- and clearly see my goals are possible. A mountain might be in my way, but I am a person who is willing and determined to conquer it. I will climb this mountain and any other thrown my way to reach my goal of gold at the Olympics.

German Open - The Competition Setback

David working on my leg
SWelling from my injury above...

And Brittany trying to hide her swelling from me:) She fought like a champ in both tours regardless of the fat lip she got from Mexico!:)

My German Open campagin didn't exactally go the way I planned it to, then again no injury is planned. My first fight was against Netherlands. - I was winning 4 to (-1) with only 48 secs to go and then it happened. ..........pop -pop....the first time....and pop - pop the second try, my knee just gave way.

I think its time for me to call Alissa Camplin - the Ice Queen.

DUTCH OPEN - SILVER

Gwladys Espague from France and I on the podium. My support team. Thanks (l toR) Andy, Daniel, Taeho and David
The Aussie Team

We just finished the Dutch open in Eindhoen, where I placed 2nd. The comp went from 9am in the morning till 2am the next day. ..and yes I was fighting my final at 2am! It was an extremely long and tiring day, but a successful one non the less. I learnt alot from my experience and pushed past some of the most excrutiating pain I have had in a while. My final was not the best, I tried new things, I tried to fight with two feet but one of them just didnt want to connect with anything (having swollen up in the semi) and part of it felt like a dream. At least I can take this matt time with me to the World Champs and hopefully progress past my mistakes and make the 1st place podium.

Briefly

1st fight: Won against Greece

2nd fight: Won against Germany

Quarter Final: Won against Belarus

Semi Final: Won against Sweden

Final: Lost to France

1 EPEANGUE, GWLADYS, FRA
2 MORGAN, TINA, AUS
3 SOLHEIN, NINA, NOR
3 KYLBORN, LIE, SWE

Final Korea Days

We spent the last few days at KoGAS Company team! It is an awsome team - but only guys training there. It was good because it allowed us to do our own training with them and practice basic techniques for competition. The coach, Mr Park had helped the Aussie team significantly and was vey welcoming to us.

ROAD DRAMAS IN KOREA

We had two mini buses in Korea which carted us from hall to hall and dinner to dinner. Either InDong, Daniel or Taeho would drive us to the training sessions. It was always fascinating travelling in both buses and here are some of the stories to read about....

STORY ONE - Taeho always liked to take the short cuts home – which ended up just taking longer! One evening after training he decided to try and skip all the traffic and drive in the emergency lane – a pretty good idea, because I’m sure the smell of sweat in the car for over an hour would be enough for anyone to curl over and die. Anyways – he was driving down the lane and BANG! Adam thought they hit a person and freaked out, whilst most others thought it was a gun shot. Bernie was just in complete shock! The only person to realise what happened was David (the Orthopaedist). He saw the sign travelling straight towards him, but thought Taeho would move out of the way. The sign hit the side vision mirror and smashed it into his side window! Hehe all of us back at the hotel had bit of a cackle when we found out! Not only did it take them about 40 minutes longer to get home but their secret of the smashed window was only a secret for about 30 seconds! Every day after that, there was complete laughter every time we thought back to that moment/or everytime Taeho mentioned the mirror! hehe the “classic coverup” of getting it fixed without anyone else finding out....do o do..it wasn't very effective!....:)

STORY TWO: And without fail the other bus Coach was driving had its dramas too! He accidently scraped another cars side door on parking at one o the venues! We barely even noticed scratching the very – very – very expensive black car, however since the Korean man was inside his vehicle at the time we did it, nobody could escape any blame. Hmmm I wonder how much that cost! YIKES!

STORY THREE: Kylie was hit by a motorcycle! She was walking along and out of nowhere a motorcycle roared down and hit her. Kylie was oblivious to what had happened, thinking that it was Jasmine pushing onto the road her rather than a bike hitting her! On a brighter note, I walked straight into a stationary motorcycle – I must say it has been one of my finer blonde moments to date.

Beef for 10

We were invited out to dinner with Yongin University management one evening in Korea and geeez did we eat alot!

Carmen, Kylie, Indong and I were sitting on one section of the table and ate together off one of the hotplates. As I can't eat pork we had to order beef, hehe and the only beef they served at this place was pure Australian! YIPEEE! (Kylie and Indong were actually both dieting so it was really only myself and Carmen eating the food - Kylie was the chef for us:) Anyways - Taeho kept on looking over at us eating and commenting on how much we were having. The the slabs of beef kept coming out, we just kept on eating them! I think we just needed iron and a good Aussie tasting meal!

To cut it short...cArmen and I ate enough for 10 people apparently! And Lets just say the cost of beef is 3 times as expensive as the pork everyone else ate!:S:S OOOPPPSSS!

Here are some pictures of the night:) It was a good one to which I thoroughly enjoyed!the last one is what was leftover.

KOREA - TRAINING CAMP NUMBER 16

ON the subway to Dondaemun Stadium. Be quick coz You wouldn't want to miss out on this item in subway accident! Here we have Korea's classic emergency gear...BUT ONLY AVAILABLE FOR 10 PEOPLE:) But at least those ten people get instructions:) After training at YongIn University. (I'm glad I don't have to run that mountain every morning!)
Running trail for anyone and everyone. Mainly you see old people with strange looking visors!

Its over half way through this training camp and although we have only been here two weeks I feel as though we have been away 2 months! We train every morning and every evening, and if you could believe it I am actually getting better with my running!....ohhh I hate running so much....SO MUCH...but at least I can handle 6 fast laps around a track without spewing my guts up at the end. I think if it was a year ago my body wouldn't have been able to take it!

Our main venues for this tour have been Chede and Yongin. We haven't had much of an opportunity for sparring because the Korean teams have their university games selections next week, non the less training has challenging and rewarding in different ways. China is here also and they have been my partners for most of the time. The other session we had four line sparring partners and out of a room full of Korean players each of the Chinese wanted to partner with me. There was no escaping them, it was like they leached on to me in the change over and I couldn't say no. It's good though I guess, I'm getting used to fighting taller people of different weights. Just for a bit of background info, the Chinese Women's team are all over 6 foot I believe, and that includes all weight categories!!! YIKES!

Anyways one week until the Dutch Open!:)