Merijn has bought a second race bike. Not only that, he also bought new gear. This means I can join in. Yesterday was a typical Dutch day regarding the weather and we were racing the dikes. The ride was exhilarating.
Bend down over your steering wheel and just go with the rain on your head.
As a person and physiotherapist I love people who make something out of their lives. It’s even better when it has to do with movement, like with Angela. I applaud people to make their handicap their strength.
Cows have cattle bells.
Russians made kettlebells.
They made it popular in the good old US of A. So Mike Mahler is one of the people that made it commercially viable. He invented a lot of exercises with them.
And then there is me. I have a lot of aching muscles.
This weekend I went to Leuven with two friends (Paulina and Marieke) to visit two other friends (Inge and Marcio). Back in 2005 Inge decided to take Marcio (a handsome looking guy from Fortaleza) back to the Netherlands. In Nijmegen I trained with Marcio just before I left for Papua New Guinea. It was really nice to work with a guy who could not speak a word of Dutch and use sports as a way of communication. I have some fond memories of those times. Now in 2009 Inge and Marcio live in Leuven Belgium.
It was fantastic weather during the weekend in Leuven. Good for Marcio, because he was invited to host a few workshops on capoeira during the time the center of Leuven was “car free“. He’s making quite a name for himself. I was invited to join the demonstrations. After three hours of capoeira on the streets of Leuven I had:
- bloody feet
- red face
- an energy level of a sloth
- loads of fun!
Today I drove to Leusden (Amersfoort) to a training facility of the Dutch police force. Somebody from the OCA management arranged for us (OCA employees) to take the physical skill test police officers can do to prove their fitness. For males the time is set at 3 minutes and 19 seconds. It took me 2 minutes and 50 seconds to get to the finish. If you give it your best you’ll have wobbly legs at the end for sure.
Back in PNG I did some kickboxingtraining with some Southern Highlanders. Why is kickboxing big in PNG? Because they have Stanley “the Headhunter” Nandex. And what do you know, I trained with his tribe back in Mount Hagen.
I just read on a blog from a friend of mine that he won another title!
This weekend was completely dedicated to acrobatics. I must have done 15 new tricks with very experienced acrobats over a period of 14 hours. It feels so good to work with my body and see how easily it picks up these exercises. I tried playing music in the past and it takes so much effort just to learn a little. With acrobatics I find it easy to pick up the movements.
I should ask somebody to take some pictures or make a clip or two.
I definitely don’t have the direction sense of a pigeon nor do I have the spatial orientation skills needed to understand I was rather close to a recreational area where I’d been several years ago as a student. It’s called “Berendonck” (Dutch).
So only when I started running did I find out that I have a lovely escape from the “slums”.
I’ve started with acrobatics again. How I love this play with balance and bodies. It is most satisfying when you work together to get a technique spot on.