Not much to say about this morning. after a good nights sleep we’re up and about.

We repeat what we remember of GM’s system and preparing for training. We got time for a haircut, luckily. My hear is growing to long and we have borrowed a machine from GM to take care of it. Katja buzz me down to “number zero” and I get a trim of the beard as well. All sleek and with a minimum of air resistance when we train.

We continue adding stuff to the system in the next two hours. Sometimes we mix the basic with the classical and vice versa, but I think we do alright.
After training we went out looking for Bulalo, the bone marrow soup, but to no avail. We ended at another eatery and got some food before we now are enjoying a coffee at Bo’s coffee. Seems like a manager has entered the building. A completely different atmosphere here today. We are mentally walking through the system and are swirling fingers in the air and repeating the patterns. We enjoy this training immensely. Not just the training, but the complete experience. The friendliness of the whole family, the neighbors and kids in the street that want to talk, the food, the smells and noises, and the quality of GM and his son and assistant, Getchin. All in all this makes a package it will be hard to leave. But we will move on the upcoming Monday. We have booked us a hotel in Puerto Galera for some days on the beach. It’s a boat ride out from Batangas and easy accessible. Cydel will drive us to the boat, and we have made arrangement for leaving behind a lot of luggage at GM’s place. This will make for even easier traveling for a week.

We got back and repeated a bit before we started the real training. Another two great hours passed by in a blur. We get to film GM and Getchin doing a lot of the system. It helps us from one day to the other, and it’s gonna be good as a reference later. Today’s videos include the first 20 of the 30 disarms, a largo to corto drill and a sinewali drill (or two).
There is bad weather brewing here in the Philippines now. One island has issued a typhoon warning and there are fallouts where we are. This evening has given us more rain than the complete stay so far. As the rain died down we walked down the street in search of a restaurant that would serve us Bulalo. We had gotten a tip from GM and found the place a bit down the road. People around here are genuinely nice and most greet us with a “good evening” or a simple “hello”. The more bold ones starts conversation, and it’s mostly about how proud they are of the Philippines. They want to know if we like it and if we are getting treated well. Before coming here I was a bit unsure of the whole country as it’s claimed to be a hustlers paradise. As far as our experience now go we have been tried hustled a couple of times by taxi drivers in Manila, but no real bad experience. We have a lot of positive energy about the country and it’s people. The friends we have made here are absolutely amazing. The way Gerald took care of us in Manila and how we have been treated here in Bauan. Ahh, but we’re out to dinner, weren’t we?

We got to the place and had great Bulalo, but the entertainment was under pari. A singer that couldn’t carry a tune if it was strapped on her back in a bag, and a guitar player who was out of sync. I missed my niece Emilie and her boy Sindri. I’m looking forward to hearing you two live. For those who want to hear what I’m talking about you can do so here

Now we’re back at the gym and doing a stretching routine again. Man, this hurts! Good thing there is a bowl of freshly cut fruit and strawberry yogurt at the end of it.

Failure is the mother of success.

– Confucius