Inspiration

Last night at Judo Practice, Ginger, because of her Red Hair/Freckles, see South Park Episode Season 9, 11th episode. (She even refers to herself as such) I'll also refer to her as the Bionic Woman. She's really cool and for the life of me, I can't remember her real name. And her real name doesn't really matter. She is just one amazing gal. She showed up to judo practice last night and excused her absence.

Now I sometimes miss judo practice because I'm sometimes lazy. Pure and simple. She missed practice because of cancer. Yep. She got some tumor removed from her calf and excused her absence because of cancer, and finally her stitches are disappearing. Thing is she only missed 4 practices (2 weeks worth) and she got herself to judo practice as soon as she was able to do so.

If I had cancer, I'd milk it for all it's worth and probably feel sorry for myself and not do anything. Just seeing her in practice is cool, and not only that she trains hard. She's the wind beneath my wings. Amazing.

I also find it inspirational that my sensei travels from the next county to practice and coach. He lives in Everett and takes the bus to and fro practice. Mind you the bus stop is 10 blocks away and only comes every hour. So we end practice at 10PM or so, and he walks and takes the 11 O'clock bus back to Everett. I never knew this, and only last night he needed a ride since we closed down dojo later than usual as after practice a half dozen people were still doing circuits. There's also people from Lakewood, Tacoma, Snohomish County, the East Side that practice here regularly. It's quite the commute.

I like my dojo, since we have a fairly international flavor. Random folks stop on by and later on, I'd learn that some of them were champions at one time or another. The thing is, you'd never know it. There is an air of simplicity and humbleness that prevails. It's also cool as I get to see folks from Zenyu, Ippon, Emerald City, UW, Snohomish judo clubs practice stop by Budokan all the time. We've had random people from Brazil, Germany, Japan, Denmark, England, Italy, Hungary, Russia, Morocco and San Francisco (yeah it's a different country. ;) come by the dojo to practice and hang out.

Anyways, the point is that people come far and overcome hurdles to get to practice. I simply have to get off my ass and drive 10 minutes to the ID to practice.

So, yeah, next time I think that I can't make it to practice, I can just reread this post and really have no real excuses.