A-may-zing...

[Lark]

So, aside from me wanting to get fitter and find my profession (still in the scouting-meditation-assasination-overtraining warrior monk fantasy phase), one of my serious problems has been my eyesight.

I was born with a cross eye, and in addition to being near-sighted, my right eye isn't as strong as my left eye,and my eyesight in my right eye has been declining in recent years, which is a serious problem considering how young I am.

Now, I don't know if the system is the same as the one where I'm from, but here we have a system of rows the letter "E" pointing up, down, left or right. Your doctor flicks the switch that lights up the row he wants you to see (the E's get smaller in each row), and you tell him the sequence so that he can see how well you...um, see.

So my record was at age 9 when I read 9 out of 10 rows. Over the next 3 years, my max dropped to six rows, and stayed like this since age 12 (i'm turning 18 in a month). A year ago, my doctor suggested that in addition to eating carrots for vitamin A, I take up a sport that demands hand-eye coordination and exercises peripheral vision.

He suggested combat sports, so I took up Judo. And after getting plastered to the mat WAY too many times to count (or becoming one with the mat, as we joke in our club ), I improved my right eye's ability to 7 rows, and Doc also said that my reflexes have improved AND my left eye remains at 9 rows!

Three cheers for Judo and vitamin A! W00t!

[Kishi]

That's awesome! You made some real changes in there, very nice!

[Lark]

That's awesome! You made some real changes in there, very nice!

Yup. What a feeling it was to see my doctor take off his glasses and give me goood news instead of putting on his "Don't worry, it's no big deal" face!

Also: greetings to all the monks!

kishi, unless I'm mistaken, that's a harai goshi. Putin's favourite throw. What was that, a competition of some sort?

[mksiemens]

that's totally awesome! must be good to be moving in the right direction. keep it up!