Surprise!

On today's awesome list: although aikido class was only mediocre, jodo class was freaking awesome. I get there and start to put down my stuff and take out my jo (fighty-stick) and the head honcho teacher--the only guy who gets to wear all white like a crazy old stick-wielding jedi man--he comes up to me and says, "let's do it." HELL YES. Let's GO, old man. And he gave me a really great class, like a one hour private lesson really, and I got way, way better during it. I figured out a lot of the things I'd been having trouble with, and I made him laugh a lot (with me...with me) and I just felt like a million bucks. He is not only a really good jodo guy, but also a really good teacher. Like, he gave me lots of encouragement and advice: he even said--get this--he said that I was great at handling a sword, that he was very surprised I hadn't had formal sword-art training, and that if I was this good at the stuff, this good at responding to the things he was telling me to do, and this into it all, that I was probably a samurai. THAT IS FUCKING AWESOME. THE ANCIENT SAMURAI MAN SAID I WAS LIKE A SAMURAI. I AM AMAAAAAZING!

He ALSO said that if I keep going at the rate I'm going at now, I'll be a shoe-in for a blackbelt in August. Now I know that that's not the end-all be-all of doing martial arts...but WOOHOO! I could leave Japan with a black belt in aikido and a black belt in jodo! I would be so cool! I wonder how many other black belts I can pick up while I'm here. I better take up something else in a hurry. Can you get a black belt in like, tea ceremony? Or BABES?

BABES???