YES! I achieved it

I waited until the living room was empty of kids, and I entered it to proceed to do my 280 punches in Sanchin dachi. Within a few minutes, I had an audience of 3 of my children watching me as I counted up. They kept track of how long I was taking, and questioned each other "What is she doing? Why is she still counting? How high is Mom going to go?"

I ignored them as best as I could, and kept up the speed, power, and technique of all of my punches. Well.. another 2 children joined in asking the others "How much longer is Mom going to be doing this??"

I managed to finish the punches, and in voice that was interrupted by my breathing deeply, I explained that I needed "space" to do 280 punches, and kicks. I told them that I didn't mind if they watched, but that they had to be quiet.

"It took you 3 minutes to do all of those punches Mom!" crowed one of my daughters.

"Oh.. and that's another thing.. please do not disturb me as I'm counting by asking me questions, or telling me what time it is.." I asked them. I proceeded to do 280 front kicks.

The noise brought down the fifth child... he came walking in the room asking "What is mom doing?" to the sound of the other 4 kids going "SHHhhhh.... don't bug Mom.. she is doing a Karate New Year thing. She's been kicking for about 5 minutes now..."

AArgh! I didn't want to know.. I didn't want to hear how long I've been kicking! I just wanted to work towards the goal of doing 280 kicks. My left leg was getting pretty tired by the 200th kick.. it's doing better, but it's injury is still there weakening my movements. All of a sudden, I see one of my daughters come stand in front of me holding up both of her thumbs, and standing there with a goofy wide open big grin. I know that she was trying to be supportive but I lost count. I think that I was on 270 maybe it was 280 I wasn't too sure so I did an extra 10 kicks just in case.

I walked away from the living room, and went to do dishes. It was near impossible to be able to focus with this audience of commentators, and I couldn't see myself doing my kata in that.

Again, I waited until the kids had found other things to do, and then I went to the dining room and started my Sanchin Kata. I was on the 8th one when my teenaged son walked up to me to ask me who was the director of the Spiderman 3 movie. He was standing in my kata path. He didn't notice that mom was in the middle of a kata, he was standing there looking at the DVD casing, and trying to figure out who the director was... I didn't answer him, I just kept on with the kata. My son looked up at me in surprise, and said "Hmm.. I guess that this would be more of a Dad question.." and he turned around to go walk to his father's bedroom. I had to shake my head at that whole scene.

I was only able to finish 14 Sanchin kata. My left leg refused to do anymore stance work. It complained loudly enough that I conceded and chose to be gentle to myself in the New Year of 2008. Oh well.. I'll work towards finishing the last 14 kata throughout this year.