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10-5-02
Today I woke with the intention of going to the akido club. The Akido club started 12:30pm. Cecilia from my Japanese class called me confirming if I was going to go or not, so I was all about doing Akido. We argeed to meet at the North gate, which is the largest one at Yotsuya. The Japanese girl Yuuko took me to Yotsuya a different way than I am use to. We talked in Japanese the entire way there. It was sooo much fun. On Saturday's I discovered that the North gate is closed. So I tried calling Cecelia and no response, but we only had a few minutes until the class started. She called back and I told me to go around to the side gate. Then the girls had to change into their uniform, which are sooo cool. If you are a higher level then you wear these blue type pants which are sooo cool. I really did not change since I came dressed in what I was planning to do akido in. But I had to go to the bathroom and I used the weird shoes with the two blocks on the bottom for the first time. Using these shoes with Japanese style bathrooms makes SOOOOO much sense. Since I went to practice in my normal clothes I felt out of place. We came in when they started warmups. Then were doing rolls but they were different than what i was use to. You are suppose to roll without having your head touch the ground, this to me being a former gymnast was hard.... But then we learned this interesting step thing. I got the hang of it quickly and I liked how it flowed. Everybody their mostly spoke Japanese since it was a club that was at Yotsuya. The first few partners that I had spoke English pretty well. So it was pretty easy. I really liked how everything flowed and it gave me a feeling like when I did tai chi. Until the last two moves I was doing okay. What happens in class is the person who runs the club demostrates about 4 times, then proceeds to explain, in japanese of course, then you are suppose to find a partner *this was the difficult part* Once you find a partner you bow get on the floo and bow down and say *onegai shimasu*, which basically asking "please." The one person does the move four times, two times on the right and twice on the left and they alternate. Whatever hand that you are using in the move that same foot has to be forward. After the instructor went over all of the moves, then we got to do whatever we learned from today. Then at the end of class with a partner you do this exercise where then have to make you fall down. The girl who was my partner had a really hard time pushing me over. She kept saying "so strong." Only until the sensei showed her the correct way did she figure it out. Then you do something similiar to cracking ones back then that is that. The nest class that came after us was Buu kendo which the girls said was more aggresive. Cecilia and I wanted to watch but the other girl were telling us how they were going to eat, so we decided to go with them. We walked my the kendo again which I am COMPLETELY fashinated with. It is just amazing how aggresive you had to be and how different marital arts are over here compared the US. They definately feel more "Real." From the outside of the changing room one could see the Ping Pong club and they were stretching and doing all of these exercise for warm up. I thought it was funny. Then out side these girls were doing hiphop as were the guys. I was surprised how good they were. Then we went to Yostuya's cafeteria. I meet soo many japanese girls from the class and talked to them in Japanese. They all thought that I was very cute and I was talking about manga that I had read. One of the girls knew a little bit of English which helped, but I made sure to always respond in Japanese. After a while things that tool so long to figure out in my head were becoming smoother. After we left the cafteria, I was thinking in Japanese. It was sooo strange. Cecilia and I said goodbye. I went back to the dorm and did more japanese studying. Party started at 6:30pm and we had to attend mass. The one song seemed to go on forever and was about something about the lord, blah, blah, blah and then the other song i wanted to burst out at the lyrics, "are you are daisy, are you a rose, are you danilion?" and the manner in which it was sung was like Mr. rogers..... ugh Well it ended then we feasted. Sushi, meat, shrimp, sweet stuff, mochi, rice, fruits, etc... it was amazing to just the eyes. We made a toast then in Japanese we all introduced ourselves and the girl I went to akido with she said that my Japanese was really good. After we finished eating we played charades. Then we played a game where you had to guess the name of the song given 4 seconds of it. Some of the songs Japanese, some American. If you guess it right then you had to sing 30 seconds of the song. I ended up singing, dido, cypronite, and we will rock you. We took a group picture, and then we did not have to clean up :) I demonstrated my karate skills :P and what I learned today and I talked to Yuuka about what is popular now in America. Then I realized that I was tried and that I should probably get a decent nights sleep.
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