The LandPhil be honest, be honorable, be kind, be compassionate, and work hard.

Last week Tano asked me if I was interested in going to kenpo with him. The instructor that he was taking classes from in Pasadena had moved to a studio in Diamond Bar, so Tano wanted to start up again. He invited me to come with him. So, last night we drove out to the studio and attended.

It was in the back of a little industrial park. The kenpo studio was behind a hula dancing studio. So, the entire night there was hula music and drumming. Not exactly conducive at some points, but I actually didn’t notice it most of the time. There were three of us that were there for the class. Myself (a newb, no belt), Tano (orange belt), and some other guy who’s name I did not get (green belt.) Turns out the third guy used to work as a security guard at Caltech. Small world.

It was a lot of fun. It didn’t seem like I did a lot of work, but I was sweating pretty good by the end of it. I learned 3 (of the 10 yellow belt) techniques, the first blocking set, we went through all the punchs and kicks (and boy did my hips hurt after that. We didn’t even do that many!), and a whole bunch of footwork. Clearly that will be the hard part. Learning the moves for the techniques was not particularly difficult, but moving my feet presented problems.

We’ll be going Mondays and Wednesdays for sure, possibly on Fridays too. Definitely something to look forward to at the end of the day.