Saturday, July 15, 2006
Pirates!
And so, in honour of the movie, I did this quiz. I'm happy to see that I'm almost Captain Jack Sparrow.
 | You scored as Mary Read. You are very unconventional, you defy the rules as often as you can and like to take as many risks as possible. You will probably end up living happily under a bridge somewhere laughing at all the unsavory deeds you once instigated.
What kind of Pirate are you? created with QuizFarm.com |
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Last weekend, that is the weekend of June 23rd, I went to a karate camp. It took me a whole week to recover, and so that's why I'm only writing about it now. Well, maybe it has to do with me being lazy too...
Anyway, I'll try to skip over the boring parts because a lot happened in those three days. We set out on the Friday night, on schedule, and about 9 km from the campsite, one of the spark plugs blew up. After much discussion and investigation, we decided it was ok to continue to the camp and so we got there, about half an hour late, the engine banging something terrible.
That night we didn't do much and managed to get to bed early. The next morning we were woken at 6:30 so that we could go for a run in the woods before breakfast. We spent the morning training, and in the afternoon, went on a boat race at the lake. That night, we had a campfire, and the camp people put on a fireworks display for us to celebrate St-Jean-Babtiste day.
The next morning, that is, at 3:00 am, we were woken up and had to march to a field where we meditated, did tai chi and watched the sun rise. Despite being tired and grumpy, it was quite an experience. We could see Venus on the horizon and managed to see zodiacal light. We then walked back and went back to bed for an hour before breakfast. That morning we trained with two invited Aikido pros and we learned a few moves. That afternoon, we went on a huge hike around the lake upon which the camp was situated. There wasn't much running involved, which was good, but we were crawling over rocks and trees and through mud and tall grass. Sensei even got us lost at some point and made us crawl through the mud. The whole hike took us four hours, with a couple of breaks for water which one of the organizers brought us by kayak. We got back in time for a much deserved dinner. That evening, we had a campfire again and most of us went to bed really early because we'd been up from sunrise to sunset.
The next morning, that is, Monday, we did some light training and prepared for the show we'd be putting on for the parents at the belt ceremony. I got to break some boards :D. Then, we watched an extremely old video of one of the masters doing some katas. It was neat to see them from someone else than Sensei and to pick up on little details. After lunch was the belt ceremony. We put on our little show with combats, katas and board breakings. I got to show off a kata I learned with sais. Finally, we got our belts (for me a brown) and headed home.
I think that my favourite part of that trip was being in a small community where everyone was rooting for each other and no one was greater than anyone else. Despite the hard work, I'm really glad I did it because I cultivated some great experiences and made some great friends. I was sorry to leave.
Here are some pictures of the camp for your viewing pleasure, courtesy Abdo: Lac Brais, soccer field and meeting cabin, Cam and Robin training, Cam being weird, cafeteria, rowboats on the lake, the whole group, Matt in the dorm, me and James at the campfire, Jeff and Cam at the campfire, roastin' marshmellows, James and Abdo before our hike, in the woods halfway dirty, all the way dirty, combat, Cam and Adam doing a sword kata,me beating Cam up, me breaking a board, me getting my brown belt, Cam getting his black belt, happy group pic.
