Wednesday and Thursday

Wednesday I took all five classes. Sensei taught two of them and I found it odd that in both he taught exactly the same techniques and openings. It was nice though because I got to work on them twice as much. In the morning class I worked with Eddy. He’s a very competent kyu who has remarkable technique. In the evening I was very tired because I couldn’t get to sleep at all the night before or catch any naps during the day, but after Alberto’s energetic class I think I perked up a bit whether I wanted to or not. Though I must say I didn’t appreciate the push-ups and sit-ups at the end. Oh well I guess I can forgive him since he’s so much fun to train with in classes when he’s not teaching.

Thursday was an interesting day I only took four classes because I was invited to a UN luncheon by a minister at Calvary church that I attended Sunday. Apparently he organized the event. I believe I impressed him in some way so he decided to invite me. After a relaxing morning class I finished my chores early and took a nap. Then I went to the luncheon. It was fun navigating the subway to Grand Central Station and then to 45th street and first avenue. Getting through security was irritating and I ended up having to call Richard (the person who invited me) down to get me past. The lunch was gourmet and the dessert was a piece of chocolate cake so rich that I couldn’t eat the whole thing. There was some informal conversation on the topic of technology in the roles of the rural community, and water sanitation, but it wasn’t too exciting. Richard also introduced me to the president of the National arts Association and told me that they have cool things going on there in the evenings like poetry readings and art displays. He said the latest they run is 8:00 so if I wanted to go I would have to either skip the last class or forgo a shower in order to make it there several minutes late. I’m not particularly fond of either idea. I invited him to come and watch a class and he suggested that one day we might give a demonstration down at the Arts Association.

The last three classes of the day were great fun. I trained with Alex, a pretty Polish girl and we had so much fun in Luke’s class that we laughed (whilst training seriously) the whole time. The next class I trained with Nephrati who can’t be any taller than five feet. It wasn’t as challenging as I thought it would be, because she was a good uke and had strong technique. In the last class I trained with a black belt named Isaic. We wanted to work together so both of us would get a workout, but Luis’s class was more of a long difficult technique class, so we had to go slow to get them right.

Tonya