Being There

After about a month's absence due to various issues in life, I went to keiko at my own dojo.

We've got a typhoon here and its raining like hell. I went anyway.

It was a really kihon class suitable for all levels. There's only 6 adults and 3 kids in the rotation, loads of stretching & warming-up, plus none of the exercise involves an offensive motodachi. The only special scene being the visiting 7 Dan Kyoshi, Miss Nou from Chiba getting into our rotation for a while, and did jikeiko with everyone towards the end of the class.

Over the days I have lost the inspiration from visiting sensei. Maybe because we got 7-8 dan visitors so damn often. I've already missed Furukawa sensei from Hokkaido last weekend because of painful tonsillitis.

With the squad responsibility out of my mind, during keiko I felt a lot more relaxed and in control. I didn't get to train because of some subconscious guilt - and that certainly makes the keiko more enjoyable, no matter how basic the things we did today.

A bit of update about life: apart from a couple of logo projects for the coming month, my spare time involves meeting friends, studying Japanese (this is getting difficult if I don't revise anything) jogging, and swimming in the pool. I didn't know that I can learn breaststroke in by watching people doing it...! It's hot, sunny, and the pool is only 3 mins walk from home. From nothing to 2x25-metre in 3 weeks. Amazing.

My ex-02-boyfriend is a lifeguard, but I wasn't interested in swimming until after the broke up. Maybe the moral here is that, you're only going to miss the thing when you don't have it any more.