Oct. 8th

Melissa: So today Braden and I went to the Kyokushin Dojo here in town. It was a lot harder to find in the dark and the rain then it was in the broad daylight 0_o, but we got there! We arrived just as class was starting so we just sat down and watched the warmup, and then afterwards the Sensei came over and talked with us. He seems really nice. His name is Nakamura Sensei and he's a 2nd dan black belt in IKO Matsui. He told us that since we're coming from another style, even though it is a kyokushin style, we'll need to start out as white belts, which is okay with us, it'll just be great to be doing karate again. It seems like so long since we did any real exercise (unless you want to count dragging over a hundred pounds worth of luggage across japan as exercise :P). The warm up was pretty basic, it consisted of a traditional kyokushin warm up with stretches, ankle rotations, hip rotations, etc etc, then they went over all the basic movements (which is called Kihon). After that the lower belts reviewed various movements and techniques while the higher belts pounded on punching bags to prepare for a tournament they're going to this Sunday. The last half hour of class was spent practicing Kata (Kata consist of many karate movements put together in a sort of choreographed way). One big difference I did notice between this dojo and our dojo back in Ellensburg. We didn't see a single pushup o_0. Oh the horror! Lol. Oh well, Braden and I will have to do some on our own to keep up our upper arm strength, hehe. So we got all our paperwork to join the dojo. Unfortunately they're not meeting again till next Friday because Monday is a Japanese holiday and the Sensei will be gone on Wednesday. Which is sad, cause we are so looking forward to starting, but I guess another week of waiting won't kill us. Now we're back home and starting to dry off. We wore ponchos which kept our upper bodies dry, but our legs and faces got soaking wet. I'll be so happy when the sun comes out again. It's much funner to explore the city when it's not raining!

Braden: Hello everyone! This is my first entry. Me and Melissa decided to do posts together whenever we make a post. So I will also be posting from now on. Today was kind of a downer. I took the Universities Japanese class placement test and found out that I suck at Japanese. I only made it to 2nd half Intermediate level, so I'll have to start out with a lower class than I expected. It's okay though, I guess, because I know how important the basics are, and I want to completely master them (Even though I'm thinking I did bad mostly because of my lower Kanji level). We bought of bunch more things we needed for our apartment like rice and a pot to cook it in. The most interesting part of the day was going to our Karate dojo and checking out the Japanese IKO Matsui Kyokushin. The warm-up was extremely routine and quick moving, as if they had done the same thing thousands of times. I talked to the Sensei (which was really hard because he had a very slurred and relaxed accent). We talked about the entry fee and how the payments work. They do automatic withdrawals so we'll have to make a bank account by the next time we go. I don't mind starting over from white belts again. I always kind of thought that would be nice while at the dojo back home anyway :D. Nakamura Sensei is going to give us our dogis as a present, which is pretty nice, even though I think it's just fair since the entrance fee is a hundred dollars.... Well, until next time!!