Thursday, May 20th, 2021
Today, another picture perfect day with almost no Cicadas as yet, so I worked outside most of the day, brought a big step towards normalcy.
The dojo has reopened with an unmasked indoor class. As of today, there shall be indoor, unmasked classes for fully vaccinated members every Thursday from 19:00-20:30! All but one came in a Gi and we did the regular warm up exercises and stretches as well as tumbles!
The latter was a frustrating experience as I found to my dismay that my body appears to have forgotten the motion. My favorite backward rolls barely worked, and I was reminded of my first few months on the mat, when I felt like a beetle turned onto its back. Strangely enough the standing forward tumbles were the only ones which I could do, but no more than four. My back is very sore now and I feel I may have pulled a muscle. I guess I shall need to revert to my habit of gettingto the dojo early to work on my tumbles without observers.
We are not quite at open hand practice yet, but used small Jos and in essences practiced ikkiyo, a technique I could perform reasonably well before the pandemic seemed rather foreign today. And all of us got a decent work out! Falling and getting up are clearly far more exerting than katas. After thirty or so minutes I (and Sensei who was my practice partner tonight) were drenched. Once the Cicadas are in the park in full force both Saturday and Tuesday class will move to the dojo. Next the Monday class will be added, and then we shall see about Wednesdays. It was exhilarating to be back on the matt and see people’s facial expression in full.
The gym has also announced that fully vaccinated people will no longer need to wear a mask when exercising. I am not sure how they know who has and who has not been vaccinated. At the Dojo we need to fill a new waiver form and attest that we have received our shot at least two weeks before showing up for indoor practice. I have received no such request from the gym.
Interesting question about continued mask wearing, I know I will, as I do not want to be a “break through” case. I will mask up, when in spaces with people I do not know since there is no way of telling who did and who did not receive a shot. It is bizarre to encounter unmasked humans in indoor settings. Something inside me still wants to scream at them to put their f’ing mask on.
On the way home from the dojo I passed a couple of restaurants and people were inside and unmasked. Unimaginable scenes only a week ago. However, in our county numbers are looking really good. Over 50% of the population is fully vaccinated and well over 70% has had their first shot. Nationwide 29k new cases have been reported over the past twenty-four hours to bring the total to 33.8 million. Over the past week new infections decreased by 20% from a daily average of 40 to a daily average of 30k. This shows that the vaccines are working.
As the USA reopens scientists are looking to history to understand how the pandemic will end. They predict it will end like all other pandemics by becoming endemic.
The human immune system will simply learn how to fight it, like it did with the cold or the flu.