After breakfast I drive down to Bagus and practice pencak silat for two hours. Traffic is easier in the morning, but it’s even easier when I have Katja on the bike reading the GPS. I had my troubles today, but managed to get to the Bakti Negara headquarters five minutes to nine. Bagus and I had a good two hours where we trained technicality, but also walked through the basic values and principles for Bakti Negara. Defining the framework for training and what’s important for success.

I get back on the bike and head towards Ubud again. The ride home is quicker, for the most part, as I don’t miss that many turns. I find Katja at the italian restaurant (Marzano) across the street where we agreed to meet sand we have lunch there.

A quick change in the room and we’re off to do Acro yoga. Since last time there’s a new class added to the schedule on Wednesdays with intermediate Acro yoga. It’s still Bex and Carlos that teaches, but also a girl from Radiantly Alive is there, Sheryl. We do some pretty complex stuff and I feel it’s a while since I did this last. It was good fun though and a good crowd of people. Gonna try to do this class for the next couple of weeks.

Afterwards we relax as we both have had a couple of good training today. When we eventually go out for dinner we pick another of the restaurants that Jenny tipped Katja about yesterday. Another hit. Chicken with potatoes and vegetables. And with something close to bernaise sauce. And for dessert a piece of Millie-feuille for me and creme brulee for Katja. Happy and content we walked home. We’re earlier than normal for dinner so it’s still not dark when we walk towards home. We have to do some grocery shopping. Soda water, yogurt and fruits in addition to small plastic bags. When we get home we use the plastic bags to make a homemade mix of nuts, dried berries, coconut flakes and seeds. Hopefully this will work as a healthy snack between meals whenever we train more than we can handle on the normal diet. If it works out we’ll make more so Katja can take to class when she starts the course.

I chat a little with Bagus from Bakti Negara and get the name of the village that will host tomorrow’s tournament in pencak silat. They are doing competitions in each region of Bali to select the one who will participate in the Balinese championship. The winner of each weight class there will go on to represent Bali in the Indonesian championship. Winners there will be given the opportunity in the international tournaments. Like in the SEA games recently held in Singapore, where Indonesia and Bali won the gold medal. SEA games (South East Asia Games) are organized only every fourth year, like the Olympics, so I guess there’s other international tournaments upcoming before that. I’ll go there to take a look tomorrow. Another adventure awaits.

“Adventures are stories of discomfort told in comfort.”

– Tim Camuti