Today, as we all happily realised, is hump day.  This means that it is the very middle training of the seven early starts. Hooray, going over the hill and down the other side, the end is in sight! 

Alarm went off this morning and I spent the next ten minutes coughing up a lung, before forcing down a little bit of breakfast.  Arriving at the dojo I again faced the choice between the quite damp and incredibly smelly keikogi and the really wet but less odiferous version.  Ah well, at least I have two! I think the part of the training that requires the most resolve (apart from the get out of bed part) is the moment when the keikogi that is still damp from the previous day's training comes in contact with skin - and tying hakama on to it presses it nice and cold and close.  I don't know what goes on in the boy's changing room, but us girls are often found hugging our keikogi for a minute or two before putting it on, in a vain attempt to remove the chill. Yeah right.

So we had 11 people again today - go team!  We did the usual drill of some taiso and then suburi, before off we go again.  The intervals between coughs and horrible queasy feeling are getting slightly longer.  Kirikaeshi x 2, gohonwaza x 2 then off we go again.  For the kirikaeshi - I just try to do it big and strong, fast but not so my form is bad.  Aaah my arms are sore, and anything above shoulder height they just don't wanna go, that makes this difficult.  Six kubungeiko means in total 36 minutes of jigeiko, 3 mins kakarigeiko, and 6 minutes kirikaeshi each- written like that it doesn't seem so hard - but the effort everyone puts into it makes it horrible.  Several people had googly eyes and awfully pained expressions on their face at the end of each kirikaeshi, but everyone I fought today did some really nice ippon, I think the ji geiko is actually better quality and more energy/effort than it is on a normal training.

Halfway through we finished our hump set on hump day - but did we stop to celebrate? Nah uh, no shugo for us today, no chatting, no breathers, just go, rotate, go, rotate, go, rotate, etc. I can feel improvement in all the things I've been working on, which is great, and making me want to do even better.

When we finish we gather round and sum up the training - which is usually along the lines of "yay we survived" and then Karl says "less than ... hours until the next training :)".  Then we do our warm down stretches, and at Blake's suggestion this is when we tell jokes.  Sadly I get more groans than laughs for my jokes - it's not my fault that the only jokes I can remember (that are polite enough to tell in the dojo) are super lame!

My best effort was my only knock knock joke: "Knock, knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock, knock.  Who's there?  Banana.  Banana who?  Knock, knock.  Who's there?  Banana.  Banana who?  Knock, knock.  Who's there?  Orange.  Orange who?  Orange you glad I didn't say banana?" Yup and as you can guess, I got a few groans! But Sui and Ria (age 5 and 7)  who have been getting up at five every morning to come to training with Akiyo were quite inspired by it, although still learning the art of a good knock knock joke.  (Ria: Knock knock. Who's there?. Chocolate.  Chocolate who? Chocolate Cake!        Sui: Knock knock. Who's there? Smiles. Smile's who? Ummmm... Sparkles!             and Ria's moment of genius... Knock Knock. Who's there? Ken. Ken who? Ken do!!)  They have draw us some pictures to help inspire us for the rest of the kangeiko...

Ramon is undisputed King of the joke telling - Today's effort was something about the two cows who are standing in a paddock, chewing their cud and discussing life. Cow 1: (*Ramon's best Cow voice*) "Didja hear about poor old Daisy in farmer Brown's paddock? I hear she got Mad Cow Disease.  Mad as a hatter she is." Cow 2: "Yeah I know, it's scary stuff this mad cow diesase." Cow 1: "Gee man, I really hope one of us doesn't get it, and it might be contagious, we could give it to each other..." Cow 2: "Oh you don't need to worry about me, I'm extremely safe from Mad Cow Disease" Cow 1: "Why's that, I thought all cows are at risk", Cow 2: "I'm not a cow, I'm a banana!"

Anyways, the point of this wee digression is that it is super awesome that we are lucky enough to be training with such a cool group of people, that we can know that everyone else there with us is giving it everything and the harder we each train, the better everyone else will do too, and yet afterwards we can all have a good laugh together.  This sort of thing is the way the best friendships are made.  I said to David in the car on the way home that we could have still done this with 4 people - but it is having the core group of 10 or 11 people who are coming every day together that makes this pretty much one of the best kendo experiences of my life.