I went through with my original plan but it wasn’t terribly practical. At 6:45am, I got up and did exercises. Sensei texted, too, and I spent some time answering. When I finished, I decided to go back to bed. Since I’d not gone to bed very early last night, getting up early was not the best plan. For tomorrow, I will go to bed early and wake up when I wake up. Rather than exercises, I’ll focus on kata and syllabus. We also have karate class tomorrow evening.
In one of my dreams, we had to move the shodan test to a small, outdoor concrete patio. It looked cramped and uncomfortable. I also dreamed about work but no longer remember those parts.
Sensei had scheduled a work-out for testers in the figure 8 park today. He wasn’t feeling well and decided not to come. Being ill also had him worried about COVID-19, so he texted the group he would get tested.
T offered to meet us in the park so we could still practice.T, TF, B and I met together. For her intensive Summer Honors English course, F has multiple essays due this week. She decided to sit out this one. That was probably a smart move on her part, because we practiced about three hours. We did a good amount of socializing, too. Still, we did the kata walk, and even did the syllabus walk. In addition, we went over Bo Sono Ichi and Ni. We also did the two ura katas we needed. B and T practiced Kanku. After B left, TF and I ran the Pinans again, to polish them, and T gave us tips to clean them up.
It was after 6:30pm by the time I got home, but I felt good about the practice, and it was just so nice to see TF and T, as well as B.
Good news: Sensei reported that his COVID-19 test came back negative. He even texted a photo, he was so happy. We were all relieved for him. It would be one thing to have to delay the shodan and nidan tests, but Sensei is not a spring chicken–contracting this illness at his age is pretty scary. Each decade of your life adds to the probability that you would have complications, and though he’s not elderly, he’s old enough that it is scary. Given what I know from my cousin’s experience with it, I’m scared of it, too. But, to the best of our knowledge, none of us have it.
I did not do exercises tonight given our pretty extensive practice session. For this evening and tomorrow, I need to focus on getting plenty of rest, not inadvertently injuring myself, and prepare for Saturday.
Oh, the “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones” story from last night actually read like a joke: a cook in a monastery was in a great hurry. Along with the grasses and grains he grabbed for the evening soup, he inadvertently picked up a snake, and chopped it up along with his vegetables for the stew. The monks loved the stew: it was the best tasting soup they’d had in a long time. Everyone was happy until the head master pulled a snake head from his bowl and called the cook over, “What is this?” The cook, quick on his feet, grasped the snake head and popped it into his mouth, then bowed with a “Oh, thank you, Master!”
