JAPAN TRAINING 2015 - DAY 4

07/21/2015.  1545
Omagari

It is so hot!  90 d F, feels like 95 according to The Weather Channel.  Training starts tomorrow at 0930 and the sweating will begin in earnest.  Until you train here in the summer, you really don't know just how stifling it can be.  And I'm a Texas boy.  We know heat and humidity.  I was hoping against hope that it might be more temperate.  I'm obviously delusional.  Tomorrow I get to see how my knees really are and if I'm in shape.  You always think you are ready, but about two hours in you start to question yourself.

Ran into some good folks today.  Mario and Gayle Borg from Brisbane.  Jaime Duggan and Tammy Leigh, also from Brisbane.  Desmond Tuck, Vice-President of Seiwakai USA arrived in about an hour ago.  Starting to feel like a family reunion, albeit one where the family likes to punch and kick one another.

I pretty much took it easy today.  As usual, I awoke about 0400 (damn!). Did an hour of Kundalini yoga, meditation, and prayers then hit the onset bath about 0600.  You wash first, outside the soaking tub, then enter.  This one is hot enough to take your breath away, but oh so wonderful.  Even though I shower again with cold water after I get out, I sweat for an hour.  Goodbye toxins,

Then I talked to my Sweetie on Face Time.  Already missing Terri and Jacob.  Fujiwara Shihan was in the ryokan kitchen slicing Maguro (tuna) like the expert he is. I walked the IPad in and Terri and he talked for a minute in Japanese and I also panned the camera across the beautiful sashimi he was creating just to make her hungry.  I'm bad, I know.

I'm having a little trouble making the transition between the IPad I' m carrying (thanks, Sam Parsons!) and the HP with Windows I'm used to.  I seem to have cut off the blog post fo