Breakfast

I have heard it is healthier, being human, to awaken in the earlier hours of the morning, sometime around dawn. Just after sunset is the coldest time of day, luckily for me it's summer.
At 6:30 this morning 6 relentless Aikidoka, not including our Sensei, could have been seen through the activity room window at the local swimming pool. Windows slightly steamed from their exertions, rolling backwards and forwards, throwing each other seamingly without effort. They smile as they do so, 'how peculiar' one may think.
All in all a refreshing and inspiring experience. So much so, I would be happy to start each and every day at the break of dawn, if it meant I were able to practice Aikido every morning.

Lunch

Acupuncture can perhaps be traced back to 3000BC, believe it or not, where (somewhere in China) needles of rock were used - unlike today's modern and sterile needles and low voltage-shock system. I told myself how lucky I was that the practitioner was using sterile needles as opposed to those ancient devices, and still it felt moderately uncomfortable to have a dozen needles inserted throughout my body. Had she told me before hand that three of the needles would be inserted into my skull, I may have had second thoughts.
The voltage started low, and after twenty minutes was amped up. On the verge of painful, but not quite, and somehow... relaxing.
Perhaps a good method for helping my body to adjust to the new morning Aikido classes, I just pray it thanks me rather than punishes me for the treatment I received at the hands of my friendly chinese acupuncturist!