Body, Mind and Spirit

Another week is gone...maybe its been two.  The days and weeks are starting to blend toegether and I have lost all sense of reality.  My body mind and spirit are all off in different directions and I find myself floating around Aizu once again.  I am not grounded....this is making my Kyudo practice increasing difficult- a martial art that demands complete balance in body and mind.

 Amongst my daze I am still enjoying everyday life.   On Saturday we attended the Tohoku Free Blades Ice hockey game!  Now hockey isn`t exactly popular in Japan but the bleaches held about 150 people and the place was packed!  They has the music selection down to a tee- with many of those cheese 90 rock hits we all love to here in those ten or twenty minutes intervals between plays, there were horns, drums, numerous other noise makers and of course the chants including- GO....LETS....FREEBLADES!  We tried to start our own chant (lets go Freeblades, lets go) and correct their grammar but the Japanese fans wouldn`t have anything to do with it- hee hee.  In all honestly, it was much funner saying it their way anyways (funner was used intentionally to illustrate the humor).  However, we did manage to successfully execute the wave.  It took the entire game and one drunk Japanese man to befriend us but with only 8 minutes left in the game we managed to have the entire arena complete a `the wave` or in Japan I like to say `Tsunami`!
While at the game I couldnt help but think about my cousins and Grandfather- such avid hockey fans, what i couldnt do to have then join me in Japan, after all the everyday things we take for granted at home seem to have a whole new meaning in this strange land.

 
Then on Sunday night I hopped on a train and joined a few guys for a game of basketball.  There were about sixteen players, and of course I was the only girl.  I don`t think I will every tire of the stunned look men seem to get when they see a girl show up on the basketball court.  I swear was I was running down the court with some sixteen year ninja:s- lightening fast and with some serious basketball skills.  Luckily three of them were on my team.  I would like to think i was once that fast, but i doubt it.  It has been about a year and a half since i had last stepped on the court and I was once reminded of the freedom that it offers;  the complete trust in your instincts with no time to ponder, debate or analyze your every movement...  If only like was more like a
basketball game