There will be 28 days in February

First things first, let me wish you all a very happy new year, if only a bit late. May 2007 be healthy more than anything else. Seems the more I grow up, the more I seem to hear about people getting ill left and right and the more I realize that our good health is something we often underappreciate and take for granted. With good health, everything else comes together fine, be it happiness, prosperity or just about anything else, really...

As for our karate life, well, I have not posted since Christmas day because well, there was not much to post about. I did not practice once over the holiday season but I feel it was a good break. It allowed me to heal whatever was bugging me in my left shoulder and I feel new and rested, although a bit bloated, even though I didn't overindulge in food too much. Okay, okay, maybe once or twice, but not too much. :)

We had our first class back last Saturday. It went well, mostly reviewing what we knew before the long break. Say what you will, the human brain is made to forget, although I felt pretty good with how it went. I had no real blanks on my forms and was even able to do Cat 3 fairly confidently. We did learn something before the class had even started. On one of the 28 days of February, there will be a test for 2nd kyu for those of us at first kyu. We'd heard it would be after the holiday break but to get some sort of confirmation that we will have January to get our body back into shape and get our mind to top speed was nice. I will be ready for that test, whenever they say that the time has come.

We were supposed to have a semi-private bo class in the afternoon but when our instructor failed to show up some 5-10 minutes after the supposed start time of our class and we called him, we learned that he was still sleeping and his groggy voice told us he was sick (although he admitted having completely forgotten about the class). He lives some 25 minutes away from the school so we told him not to bother and Andrew and I ended up practicing on our own for 25 minutes. I actually was not too mad to not have that class as I was more looking forward to getting some free practice time more than being scrutinized by one instructor on our first day back. That way, we got to get reacquainted with our bos without having to pay for a private instructor.

Surprisingly, I did not feel as sore on Sunday, or today, as I thought I would, even though our instructor took us through the squat on tiptoe routine and had us do a good bit of abs work. Glad to be back too...

FM