46 = 23 * 2

Duh! You knew it right?

But for me this easy mathematical expression means quite a bit more..

First of all this post was supposed to be posted on 30th July 2018 but that summer was quite bummer, and several things, of the bad kind, happened, starting with BBPV. Then followed by other ridiculously depressing news that so far I have refrained from writing about here (I will, eventually). But since I am going through unposted drafts, here we are 🙂 …

Anno bisesto, anno funesto!

Leap year, sad year!

It is a typical Italian saying, but we are not the only ones thinking that the weird things happen… some weirdest than others! and just judging from these first few months, who can disagree with me, right? Movies, series, video games, mobile phone apps, books have anticipated situations similar to what we are seeing out of the window nowadays. Who would have believed it? Of course nobody could have except maybe for politicians (Trump for example?), green environmentalist nuts, I-know-it-all average Joe (Trump for example?), conspiratorialist (Trump for example?), end of the world visionaries with too much time on their hands ((Trump for example?) that now say to everyone that would listen to them that they knew it, it would have happened, this is the slope where humanity has been rolling down for ages, and they knew it! And of course they could not stop the roll because of the momentum acquired by the added mistakes of all other people!

So much blabla around these days that I decided to stick mainly to crude numbers from the news (just read that UK PM after dismissing the pandemic as exaggeration has tested positive to the virus.. karma? or just merely stupidity? Nor for me to say..). On other hand, I am an engineer and I believe in numbers. So far:

Covid-19 – Humanity: 1 – 0

2018 Aikido seminars

The past year has not been a very good one with respect to Aikido practice, traveling and my health. Bad luck or major call from above, or just the end result of a not so health oriented life, it does not really matter how you call it, but the end result led to a period off work for sickness (never happened before in my life!) and a quite major health discovery that has already required major changes in my lifestyle. Then when I thought things were starting getting better, a problem with my left knee reappeared, most probably because of bursitis, and then again I was obliged to skip practice (also because a demanding new job) for too long.

I am not yet sure how 2019 Aikido year will be: Friday I had to discard my plans to travel to Germany for first year chance to practice with Jorma Lyly sensei because exhausted by the previous 4 days in the road (2 in Germany followed by 2 in Italy with 2 nights of 3 hours sleep). Friday I slept about 15 hours, and the thought to get on a train to and from Germany was too much.. a pity..

But now a look at last year, that started very promising but then, it just wasn’t..

6 – 7 January: Trondheim, practice with friends at TAK (1)
13 – 14 January: Trondheim, practice with friends at TAK
19 – 21 January: Dusseldorf, weekend seminar with Lyly sensei
26 – 28 January: Sofia, weekend seminar with Kuribayashi sensei
2 – 4 February: Tikkurila, weekend seminar with Endo sensei
9 – 11 February: Stockholm, weekend seminar with Endo sensei
16 – 18 February: Dublin, weekend seminar with Irie sensei
17 – 18 March: Ho Chi Minh City, weekend seminar with Irie sensei
6 – 8 April: Prague, weekend seminar with Nevelius sensei
13 – 15 April: Bratislava, weekend seminar with Noel sensei
11 – 13 May: Trondheim, weekend seminar with Lyly sensei
24 – 27 May: Stavanger, 10 year anniversary of Jushinkand dojo, with Nevelius sensei and Martucci sensei
1 – 3 June: Sochi, weekend seminar with Kuribayashi sensei
8 – 10 June: Krasnoyarsk, weekend seminar with Irie sensei (2)
16 – 17 June: Amsterdam, weekend seminar with Tissier sensei
(3)
17 – 18 August: Duisburg, weekend bokken seminar with Lyly sensei (4)
7 – 9 September: Oslo, weekend seminar with Kuribayashi sensei
19 – 21 October: Prague, weekend seminar with Noel sensei (5)

Kein Risiko, kein Spass

Kein Risiko, kein Spass

A child of 45!

That is what most of people and myself in primis think when getting to know me!

How could I disagree with that??

always all natural

• all children almost at once like me: we think in the same way, of course!
• I sleep on the floor: futon on a very rough handmade base
• my room has no door, I live with 2 cats and 2 house mates
• I work to maintain my “life hobby”, Aikido.. nah, let’s say it loud and clear: my life, Aikido!
• my savings are not much more than … monthly balance.. no future planning (except for Aikido seminars), living the moment.. totally incapacity to answer the question: “what you want your life being in .. 5 years? 10 years? after retirement?”.. what life?
• I have no girlfriend.. as a matter of fact I almost never had one
• I got no children and already given up on any thought of a traditional family: enjoying every second with my closest friend children
• I have never owned a car, a motorbike, a scooter, a dog or cat, never lived with a partner, never been married (reinforcement to my being weird concept)
• I do not do very well with changes…
• fashion? Sorry, what’s that? I cannot dress properly, not like a 45 y/o man or not even as a 30 something y/o normal person.. I am still a jeans and T-shirt person (like the girls I usually like..). Next week I will go to a wedding in Italy and I am still unsure what I will wear, what I want to wear, where I can buy it, if what I have planned to wear will have the effect to be removed from all contact lists of the people attending the wedding, or just the will not open the door. I hope there is a children table!
• I listen to more or less the same music I have been listening in the past 25 years
• I fall asleep in front of the TV (PC) and then get up in the night to switch off the lights.. or I do it in the morning when I go to work!
• I get grumpy fast like a little child not allowed to do what he wants, that very moment, but also I forget my anger equally fast, most of the times
• I trust people, like a child.. I got burned quite a few times, but I keep trusting people.. maybe I am a stupid child, or just got a shorter memory than most.. or just I do not want to change (see above, not doing well with changes!)

My biggest fear is becoming a child of 50 that talks to himself (and even answers from time to time), unable to be socially acceptable in any ways (I mean, worse than now!) and being content about that or not even realizing it..

Being still a few years of neural degrading for reaching that point, I hope (at least!). I hope Aikido will help to keep some neurons alive!

And just for the final irony, I discovered today is world kissing day… ironic for a guy child, I mean, that has not kissed that much in his life (but enjoying it every time!) and probably has the record speed of being unmatched on Tinder..

..but at least tonight it is time again to fly to an Aikido seminar and especially to many friends I missed a lot lately.. and in particular celebrating 10 years of knowing a crazy fantastic person from Prague..

flying to…everywhere…

The return of a nightmare

This morning, 4 am, I woke up, suddenly, in pain: the weight of the duvet on my right knee was enough to send jolts of pain through my nervous system.. and after a few hours, when it started swelling and the slightest touch was equivalent to deep pain, dark thoughts of “The Return of the Watermelon Knee” jumped in my mind and during the day the thoughts became unfortunately reality.

right knee swelling

Besides being in the Netherlands with almost no access to the Chinese products that cured me last time (yeah, no cure from what I got, RA is the only companion for life I will ever get), and not even the first round of pain killers that had proven very useful at the worst time of the swelling period, I have a very busy week in front of me preparing 3 even busier weeks when I will travel for work around Great Britain to give hands on training to different hospitals.. standing and talking activities.

I wish I could find a laowai friendly hospital that could prescribe me again the Tibetan herbal tablets I got then in China and used for a really long time. The only solution is scavenging among the bags of medicine I brought back from my short life in China and see what I manage to put together for a fast hopefully good effect.

leftovers of the magic Tibetan cure

I consider myself having a pretty high pain threshold but today I cried actually twice. I had forgotten the full inflammation pain and the return of it has been a quite traumatic awakening. 

In the next days I need to contain this pain and manage to control it. From next week I got pretty important work tasks that will require me standing most of the day when not walking pulling heavy cases. 

I wanted challenges right? Here they are… be careful what you wish for…

The first challenges were biking tobanf from work but especially walk three flights of stairs to get to my room at home. 

Habits are also painful. I always step into my hakama first with the left foot and I always mountvmy bike from the left side, therefore passing over the right leg… that is bending my swollen and inflamed right knee: the sudden sharp pain pain was definitively a good call to pay more attention!

my hakama

After the ice and evening rest I try to follow the other two rule of the recommended R.I.C.E. procedure: Rest – Ice – Compression – Elevation. 

knee elevation on the loft ceiling of my room

If I were a bat I’d probably be certainly better tomorrow… since I’m not I’m more curious about my weekend to come in Prague…

The Seventh Day…

…he rested.. I mean, I rested, finally! Yesterday.. yeah!

During the weekend, feeling quite tired at practice in Belgium with Kuribayashi sensei, and going to bed relatively early Saturday night after the dinner event, I realized that I have been practicing quite a bit this month. Every day since last Tuesday (no practice on that day). At least, a bit for my own self, nothing compared with my aiki-bro Aikifreak. More or less like the Stavanger days, but there I was teaching most of the classes and it is quite a big difference, especially here in Amsterdam, between being instructor or not.

19 training days this month and my condition is far from optimal. The elbow inflammation and the probable knee bursitis are following me from last months in 2016 to now. But it was ages I did not practice that much in a month, and none of these days was a full teaching session.

A couple of weeks ago I had a bike incident, smashing on the frozen tarmac after misjudging the height of a step and try to “jump” with bicycle and all, I had landed on the same knee already in pain and for some strange Aikido reflex I had managed to not smashed the left arm on the ground when I bent the handlebar:

bike handlebar re-work

An accident due to 80% stupidity, 10% iced road and 10% bad luck..

Funny thing is that after the crash both knee and elbow seems to improve.. Fight fire with fire?

…but the not traditional healing method did not really stick, and nowadays I have started thinking to get back to some more traditional cures, that wouldn’t require to crash again my poor bike..

In the close future I see some more very active weeks coming and I am quite happy. I have planned to attend interesting seminars where I will meet amazing people on the mats and have more chance to test my body and mind. Last Aikido year had been fantastic. I have hopes and I trust this year will be equally great.. but I have to improve my own condition. Learn how to recover faster as well.

Tuesday’s are my days of rest but unfortunately it’s almost sure I work overtime every single one. But I also promised myself to stop on the way home at Bukowski bar, my oasis in Amsterdam. Often alone I sit in my spot, have an occasional chat with the people working there, check my Instagram or social places or write my blog… like yesterday night….