I don’t remember what I did on the first day of 2009. On the new year’s eve for 2009, I invited two of my friends for a pizza party at my place. My housemate at that time brought his friend as well. Five of us made pizzas together, drank wine and eventually headed off to the local karaoke place for some fun. We came back, 2009 started, and we drank more wine.

It was a hot summer night in Australia, where I was at that time. The heat, food and wine made me sleepy; I couldn’t keep my eyes open after about 2.30am. We called it a day, and I went to bed.

I don’t know about you, but I usually wear only a boxers if it’s too hot to sleep with other garments on. That was the case for this time as well.

The sleep was great. In fact, when I woke up in the morning, I felt as though it was the freshest and most beautiful morning ever.

I went to the kitchen to grab a cup of water. My housemate was up too. He asked me whether I remembered what I did earlier in the morning. I had no idea what he was talking about. He told me he heard a door slamming noise around 4.30am. He went to check what it was. Then he saw me coming into the house. I had nothing but a boxers on. He talked to me and apparently I did reply to him and went back to my room.

I didn’t remember anything when my housemate told me about this in the kitchen. I wonder if this start of 2009 made a good indication for the year, which was a good year for me overall.

Since the feeling I had when I woke up on the first day of 2009 was great, I wanted to feel that feeling again for the first morning of 2010. However, I came back to the northern hemisphere in September, 2009; it would have been too cold for a sleepwalk with nothing but a boxers on. So, I chose another fun activity to kick off 2010.

On the new year’s eve for 2010, I went to the martial arts gym where I used to train in the first half of 2007 (i.e. Purebred Kawaguchi, also known as Redips), for a new year’s eve sparring session. It was nice to see my old team mates; I hadn’t seen them for more than 2 years since I flew to Australia in July, 2007.

If you know me, perhaps you know that I’m a massive fan of this submission technique called triangle choke (For those who are interested, see this video by Rener Gracie. His explanation is to the point and hilarious). I welcomed the year 2010 while attempting to set up a triangle choke on my sparring partner. The sparring finished before I made the choke work, but it made a good start for the new year.

The reason why I think I made a good start for 2010 is because not only the whole sparring session was fun, but also one of my goals for 2010 is related to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Submission Wrestling, which I practice. I will write more on my goals, projects and the like for this year in another post.

How did you start 2010?