2 minutes to midnite

Well, not really two minutes, more like 105 minutes, but still, in the grand scheme of things, it was close enough. Stay with me...

The weekend started out well with a gorgeous Saturday. Nice weather, all sunny and bright. Had class at 11:15, a class where only 5 students were present. I hope the attendance won't drop too much for the Summer session because I wouldn't want the school merging the class with the 10am one where they are already 15 to 20 attending. Going from being 10-12 (during the Fall and winter sessions) to 20-25 could be rough.

Anyway for now, we enjoyed a semi private class. We reviewed basics starting with Cat 3, down to Cat 2, and finally Cat 1 and then we asked if we could review our KC. Instructor pinpointed stuff to correct. Always good to be corrected but then also to realize that you are working on finer points. A hand here, a strike there, finally a stance to adjust slightly...

We ended class with a session of the circle of love. It went well although I'll have to work on my hip throw. Still too robotic to my liking.

Andrew had class at 12:15 and I stayed in the room next to his class and I practiced for a good 30-40 minutes. I went over sushi no kon sho two or three times, adding a bit more flow and intent to it, trying to part with the robotic way of doing the kata, you know when you think before you make a move. I also did all my 36 self defense techniques from the perspective of both a right hand but also a left hand attacker. Went smoothly. The cold is out and I can feel my head working much better.

When I finally got back home, it definitely was a gorgeous day but I still reminded my wife that if she wanted to practice, I'd be ready when she would be. She said it was too nice a day to practice inside and that she would practice when it would rain (rain was forecasted for Sunday). I didn't mind so much as it was indeed a nice day and I got to work around the house and vacuum the remaining dirt from the bottom of the pool.

Sunday was a really bad weather day. Strong winds, hard rain all day. I had the duty of grocery shopping and got home around 2:30pm at which point I again reminded her that if she wanted to practice, I was all hers. She told me something along the lines of "I feel so lazy, my head says I should, my heart is telling me to go lie on the couch". *sigh* I told her to do as she wish but that she shouldn't complain after her next class that she didn't remember a thing from a week ago. She simply nodded.

We watched some TV from 9 to 10 and before going back to surf the net a bit, I told her she still could practice if she wanted to. I wasn't really pressuring her, don't worry, and it's probably why she replied with "hey, I feel like it now actually". It was 10:15pm on Sunday night, thus the 105 minutes before midnight. ;) And so we practiced. We reviewed everything she'd learned over two weeks. She vaguely remembered what she'd worked on, or more the sequence of things she'd worked on during her two classes, so it was easy to put it back together. We covered the basics of three punches she'd seen, three kicks, and three self defense techniques (Checking the storm, Battering ram, Downward hammer).

It was cool and lasted all of 30 minutes. 30 Minutes during which I never lost my patience (I'm known for that when she asks me to teach her something computer related). I was kinda proud of that from some weird reason. She seemed to appreciate the time spent working on it and me, well I was just happy that she cared enough to even think about practicing. Baby steps as they say, baby steps.

Today is a holiday in Canada, Victoria Day they call it. It's not a mandatory holiday and for some reason, I'm at work while both kids and mommy are relaxing at home. I will be taking a class at 7 tonight, but that's normal for me. What will not be normal is that I reminded my wife that there's a beginner's class on Mondays at 6 and that maybe, being that she's at home today, it would be a better idea for her to go to class today instead of tomorrow for this week. So, she wil be taking a class right before mine tonight and I should get to watch the end of her class. I'll try to make myself tiny and hide in a corner, cause I know she'll feel overly self conscious... :)

FM