Samurai Training, Part II & III

So where was I... Ah yes, Kendo.

We were taught by the woman in the above photo: she was by far the most badass old woman I've ever met.  She was no taller than 5 feet tall but she was TOUGH.  Most of the drills we did in Kendo consisted of lining up and repeatedly hitting one part of the body, either the head, arm, or chest.  And to practice this drill, we either hit the dummy, or this woman.  Who as previously stated, was a badass.  Point taken.

Fastforward one day. It's Friday! Classes flew by.  Things to look forward to in class next week: I'm the nitchyoku (Teacher's assistant!) next monday, and tuesday we have a test.  After school, I past the time by eating spicy veggie curry and then aisukuriimu (say it out loud if you don't know what it is, and you've learned a new japanese word!)  Today I also tried the above Super Lemon Soda, which tastes like a slightly sweeter form of licking batteries.

Why was I passing time? Because at 5:00, the next stage of my samurai training begun.  First I learned to use a bow.  Then a sword.  Finally, today, I would learn to just use my body.  Judo.

One thing that got me immediately excited was that we got to wear uniforms.  It turns out, wearing the uniform is a critical part of Judo, because most moves involve grabbing one of the baggy sleeves and flipping your opponent over you.   We did a long stretch process, in which we had to do backwards summersault splits (read: I can not do backwards summersault flips) and once we were warm we got partnered up with an experienced person who would run through the moves with us.  So cool!  I didn't get many pictures but in the last ten minutes I realized this ommision so I asked someone to get my picture...and they turned out cool! See below photo.

I'm already stiff from getting tossed so much ...and I have to wake up early, because tomorrow we  head off to Onuma for a reason that I don't yet know. But I'll know soon enough!

High:Judo!

Low: I got another headache on Thursday! But once again, better now!

Hero:The bus driver I had today! I had got lost and spoke to him in Japanese about how to get to where I wanted to go, and I understood his response!