if i drive, i can get places
went to workouts with wren-sensei on tuesday and thursday, and to heath-sensei’s dojo on tuesday. working with the kids always impresses me. while there are some things you cannot really do with them, it is very surprising just how much you *can* do. even most of the mental aspects. oddly enough, some of the stuff you can’t really work on is more physical, because their bodies are just too young, and they’ll have to relearn how to do stuff at puberty again anyway.
heath-sensei has really hard workouts, which is kind of a intriguing contrast to his more laid back, informal style. less of “hai, sensei!” and in fact, even less use of “sensei” and bowing a lot and what not. i’m not certain how i feel about that. i think a surfeit of formalism can be irritating and stifling, otoh, i think a good amount of it helps grow the proper (imo) atmosphere of mutual respect.
meh. hopefully i will be able to keep working out on my own to prepare for the tournament 🙂
yesterday walked around lake anza in tilden regional park. maybe a mile, maybe a tad more, no longer than that. flat, just around the lake. but quite pleasant nonetheless. saw a heron, and a cool turtle, and many ducks. and although the lake does have a (pay) swimming beach, carl-sensei was saying that it is really kind of grody and he wouldn’t really swim in it, so i don’t feel bad about missing my chance to swim.
today, i was hunting down a place that nim said had good guacamole. i’m not certain i found the right place, but the guacamole was pretty decent. anyway, i wanted to do something else, so i looked up hikes, and found one that was approximately 5 minutes from there. the phyllis ellman loop trail in the ring mountain (“mountain”) preserve. nice and short. 3 miles total, 600′ elevation gain, took me 1hr12. wonderful views of both bays. saw a snake that slithered away when it saw me, a happy lizard, more dragonflies than in the rest of my life total, and some amazing california wildlowers. that is all.
Edited to add – here is a snap from working out with Wren-Sensei and the kids, and a couple from walking around.
Kids messing around
Turtle at Lake Anza
View from up on Ring Mountain
