I am ten ninjas...

.....not really, but in an effort to find some hobbies and generally force myself to spend less time shopping. anyhow... I decided to take classes in Arnis, a philippeno martial art. The lesson was in the courtyard of a local community center, which was pretty warm. I discovered how much harder exercise is in 95% humidity when we started with some 'conditioning'. Running up around the complex, including up a hill was ok... sprinting up a huge flight of stairs outside was tougher, but I managed that bit ok. Also managed about 5 minutes of the situps and other excercises before I had to go and throw up.... Think I still need to acclimatize a little more.


The rest of the class was pretty good fun. Arnis is a pretty satisfying martial art, it doesn't have any real philosophical background, so there isn't any chi centering or breaking bricks. It is also one of the only systems where you start training with weapons (1-2 sticks to start with) first and empty handed combat comes once you've mastered everything else (1 stick, 2 sticks, 1-2 knives, combinations of the above). This was particularly fun and meant that after half an hour I was swinging a stick around and having fun. Perhaps it is a sign that I've watched to many movies, but I found my self occasionally making swoshing sounds when I swung the stick....

Still, it was v.good fun and I'm definietly going to continue....