"All of sat together for dinner last night, ravioli and garlic bread, green beans, brownies. We played a wild game of soccer that afternoon, but it was more like paddle ball, cuz we kept chasing the ball from going out of bounds. I can't tell you how gorgeous it is here, we don't miss the snow. Most are sunburnt already. :) It's after breakfast." Ruth
The first session with Abbey and Susi was good, dynamic warmup, a lot like what we do, inchworms and high knees. Scott Fuji and Simona ran a lot of that one. Then time for our session. Everyone but those two is in the other group. We did ankle pops, which is like popping off the ground with force. We did a little kicking. I was very fortunate to get help from Simona. Everyone is very nice--she asked me to stop calling her ma'am. I told her I couldn't help it. :)" Ruth
"I got to play piano after dinner, Abz can rock too, she played some tunes that Mark and Megan could jitterbug to. :) then the crew walked the beach to look at the stars, but a whole crew of kids and their chaperones were out with lanterns looking for crabs. The sound of the ocean and the feeling of the sand under my feet is something I don't know if I could ever get enough of! It's amazing to be here, and personally, with this group of people. We're learning and getting a great opportunity to grow as martial artists! Plus, IT'S HAWAII!! Anyone who complains is crazy!" Ruth
"We played cards in the guys' cabin, It's awesome, all the 5 guys are in one, all 4 girls in another. Only Mr. R. is housed with the coaches. I did have to extinguish the life of a HUGE millipede, or centipede, I'm not sure which. Ugh! It had to go to its new reincarnation. It's seriously 4 inches long. Viet had a gecko on his arm at breakfast. He said it tried to sell him insurance, so he put it outside." Ruth
Everyone said We'd have a hard time adapting to the time change, but here it's easy. There's so much to do and see! :) The wild boar in our cabin was an unexpected twist, but he didn't hurt anything. I'm so grateful to have this opportunity. I met Omar this morning, who Mr. R told me, won the US Open this year. He's from California. And we met Louis in our shuttle ride. So I'm surrounded by greatness, not only in my own team, but also in the coaches and instructors here. If I rub them enough will some of it transfer over to me? Hee hee! We have options this afternoon for archery and rock climbing. I'm heading over now to watch Susi and Abbey go session #2, :)" Ruth
"Abz and Susi doing their first scenario sparring drills where they set up mock situations to see how you respond. Looks hard, but good." Ruth
"Susi in her gear. They set a scenario, you have a scoreboard that they set with an imaginary score, now you figure out strategy." Ruth
"I officially have made it through two days of Hawaii weather without becoming a tomato from the sun. The food here is some of the best crap camp food I have had and the lunch guy made Mark and Ryan our slaves to go get food for us and make us salads which is pretty cool, because I was not the one picked to be the slave. We have only had one training session so far and it was a light training before dinner which was awesome because I was able to get all the junk out of my legs from sitting so much that day and on the plane the day before. Another cool thing about the training was Mr R kicked out and his training partner was Luis Reyes who is the National Team member for fin weight..you could see the best out there demonstrate the drill." Austin James
"Everything is great here. Here is a little of our Abbey sparring." Mr. Rosbarsky
"First practice done, feel really good about sparring. Love the view, soaking up the sun and having a blast." Marcus Maximus
"Lunch of meatball pubs, fresh tropical fruit, green salad, and potato salad. then to situational sparring, the women's seminar, and open match sparring 2nite at 8." Ruth
"A view RIGHT from camp. The scenery is awesome, the breeze is fabulous! The flowers are everywhere." Ruth
"A little pool time, then beach time after the scenario sparring. Everyone thinks they fought better! The coaches are super nice and it was helpful to go thru scenarios where they set it up, like the other person is up 2 to 0, you've got 30 seconds to make up the points, or sudden death overtime. So that was good! Very skilled athletes here, FAST!" Ruth
"Ok, for the rest of us, we finished our 2nd seminar. A lot about timing and kicking on the motion and kick on the close. Also discussed long kicks and strategy. We're heading for a little lunch now. It's 12:30 Hawaii time." Ruth
"I miss u! Learning tons. I will have some great stuff to improve on for the black belt test." Susi
To see a slideshow of pictures sent so far CLICK HERE
