I saw the DRAGON BALL Z MOVIE in theaters!!!! My inspiration

The 13-year old girl changed channels after her favorite cartoon ended, and another one was starting. “Hey,” she thought. “It looks like one of those Japanese anime shows, like Ronin Warriors. I wonder if it’s any good.”

She watched. This alien flew down from the sky, kidnapped the main character’s kid, the main character tried to fight him, but the alien guy flew away. The main character teamed up with this other strong looking alien guy and they flew after him. “Cool!” she thought.

What are the chances to turn on the TV at the first moment of the first episode of a long TV series?
The girl had been inspired to start Karate because she admired the do-gooders “The Power Rangers,” but found a new inspiration: the desire to become stronger.

A few weeks later…

“Mom, can you buy me dumbbells?”
“What? Why?”
“I want to lift weights.”
“Why?”
“I want to get stronger!”
“Um….okay…”
So a few times a week, the girl, having no idea what to do, did bicep curls and shoulder raises over and over. “Some day,” she thought, “I want muscular arms like Piccolo. He looks really strong.”

That girl was me. Dragon Ball Z continued to be an inspiration for me for years and years to come. The grit and determination of the characters, not only in the fights, but also in training. Always getting back up. Training, training, training. Obsession with becoming stronger. I shared it. I reveled in it. Just wanting to fight strong people. Luckily I don’t have to protect the earth.
Roxy Shayna kamehameha

(Shayna and I posing at weight-ins before our Bodog fight in 2006).

How funny would it be for me to go back now, to that 13 year old girl listening to music in her living room, doing countless bicep curls? Say, “Hey, honey, you keep working hard and never look back. You’re not only going to live in Japan, but you’re going to be fluent in Japanese! Some day, you’re going to watch Dragon Ball Z in it’s original language! WITHOUT SUBTITLES! And you’re going to be a professional fighter. You’re really going to battle people! You just can’t shoot Ki. You have to train so hard. Never stop training.”

How excited would that little girl be? Could she even comprehend her potential? I remember it so clearly. That little girl is still me. That feeling of excitement for training and getting stronger, learning new moves, has not changed one little bit. Katsumura-san showed us this new way to hold the mount and IT WASS SO FREAKING COOL OMG I CAN’T WAIT TO TRY IT OUT IN SPARINGGGGGGGGGGG someone spar with me right now! XD

FUUUUSHION! HA!
roxy and brittany fusion1

Hahah Goku freaking provoked the god of destruction, in that movie!
Toriyama did a magical job of giving the protagonist a personality, and made me LIKE HIM, in such a short time! I love that god of destruction. He’s so funny. XD

I want to write a fan letter to Akira Torimaya telling him how much he inspired me. He really did a fantastic job on that movie. You might not understand, but he hasn’t done Dragon Ball in like 17 years. He didn’t do GT and quit on the series, but they brought him back for this movie!
It wasn’t all fighting, but it had plenty of fan service. We want to see characters interacting, and he knew that. He didn’t just make continual battles. That would have been cliché. I loved seeing Vegeta get pissed off when the god hit Bulma, and then he denied it later. HAH So many fabulous things happened I can’t begin to describe. AND I could UNDERSTAND IT IN JAPANESE. I studied so hard for that ability! Maybe 95% I understood. 😀

AND I got a free gift ! A Dragon Radar, for when I lose track of the Dragon Balls. ANDDDDDD My favorite thing ever! A PEN! It’s a dragon ball pen! But I can’t write with it at all! LOL WTF Least functional pen EVER. But IT IS A PEN and it is MINE and I’m going to show it off to EVERYONE TOMORROWWWWWWWWWW! XD

dragon radar