Newspapers and Blessings

Talk about a hectic day. It started out benign enough. I just had to walk the 502 steps from my place to the new dojo to entertain an inquiry. I grabbed the opportunity to get an overdue haircut and then as i got back, i got a message that our club was featured on the Lifestyle section of Manila Bulletin today. I grabbed our copy at the office and to my surprise, this is what popped out:

Yep, thats me right smack on the middle of the top picture with a weird mouth pout and my belt ends tucked up my waist because it was swinging up to my face during training. I swear. I gave those guys different pictures. It was supposed to be Sensei Okazaki's pictures but they grabbed these from the gallery of iskf.ph. I do admit to being a little thrilled but i wish they got the better pictures haha. The article is very well written. Some of that is from the press release my friend Rezza gave me writing tips on. (the whole article is easier to read online at http://www.mb.com.ph/20080402120775.html)

Then i had to get it copied for the dojo and prepared the invitation for the blessing that evening. I was stressed because i didnt know if anybody was coming. Luckily the juniors and some seniors were there. I picked up the priest, went through with the blessing and then brought the priest back before joining the party. During the trip to church, i explained how karate isnt just a sport but something with a deeper martial arts aspect where we foster discipline and other virtues that hopefully will lead to becoming better human beings. He liked it and he said he was going to come over and train with us. Imagine that! Were going to have a priest in our ranks!

These are photos of the place we are now renting before construction began.

A month or so later. This is how it looks like when we had it blessed.

Not bad, oui? :)

I missed the double points of shopping at shopwise during the first wednesday of the month because i was so busy but i think getting all these things done today was well worth it.