Hello again, I’m still doing well here and I’m rather anxious for classes to start, although I am starting to have some fun. Yesterday (Wednesday 9/20) I woke up late and found out that my roommate had returned at 5am. This wasn’t a problem cause I found out cause he told me. I slept right through it.

There wasn’t really anything planed event-wise till the evening, so I proceeded to sort out the remainder of my text book issues and figure out where all my classes are located. I now have a proto type greek text from the copy center. I guess there aren’t that many good ones around, cause the teacher decided to write her own. Honestly, I wish more was available from the copy center rather than the book store. It was $12 dollars rather than the $120 that some of the texts run. Finding classes took up a large portion of the afternoon, and involved a surprising amount of walking.

After those were done, I preceded to the piano practice rooms and played for probably a good 45 minutes. I might get that parasite eve theme down yet.

The real fun came later though with the all night at the ARC event. They opened the gym for demonstrations and instruction from 8pm till 4am. I had originally wondered what there would be to DO till 4am in the gym. This was not a problem. They opened the rock wall, had numerous martial arts demos and opened the entire gym for use. I left at about 9:30 and, of course, took the opportunity to climb while the wall was open and staffed with belayers who knew what they were doing. I even made it to the top of the overhang climb, after which my fingers would not close and the muscles in my forearms felt like they had been inflated. It was a very strange feeling.

The martial arts demonstrations were fun to watch and I took the opportunity to talk to the Capoeira (capWAY(t/d)a) people that were there. I see now that didn’t mention I had registered for the Capoeira class at my last visit to the ARC. (I did.)

After that I found an open gym room with punching bags on the wall and interlocking pads over almost the entire floor. While I was working on the bags, the Capoeira guy I had been talking to showed up. I think he was probably a fairly low rank but he was happy to share his knowledge. I ended up talking to him and getting what was pretty much a private intro to Capoeira.

Capoeira is so very different from karate, its mind boggling. Even kung fo fits closer to karate. Capoeira does not have any real blocks, they are seen as a last resort and dodges are encouraged. It’s done to a beat and movement is continuous and continually circular (as opposed to kung fo which is circular in small pieces). All and all I was impressed by the fluidity of motion and the ease with which the moves chain and combo.

After I had learned more from him than I could absorb then and there, I practiced katas and met a Tae Kwon Do guy who was doing likewise. We talked about our arts and ended up tricking, this guy can do the wushu butterfly kick perfectly. I stated throwing aerials and forward handsprings and a girl that was there started doing backward handsprings and roundoffs. It was awesome.

I returned from the ARC a bit after 2:30 and I am seriously sore this morning.

Lucas