The Budo Odyssey: Living and Training in Japan

As of June 21st, summer officially arrived. It was rainy in Nagoya the first week, the temperature gradually rose and the rainy season ended, leaving us with muggy and sultry hot days. You really know its summer when you’re into the humidity, thunderstorms, sporadic cloud cover, followed by flash rains and then searing sunshine. With any luck, after the rain, the clouds stick around long enough to give a break from the heat. That is short lived as the temperature leaps right back up as soon as the ...

There is a common thread in most martial arts that there is a certain way to do things. A way to stand, sit, act, line up. close a door, etc. At least, there is an acceptable one. A lot of this comes from Ogasawara-ryu, a school is credited to Ogasawara Sadamune (14th century CE) who gained favor with the Ashikage shogun named Yoshimitsu and was put "in charge of etiquette".

The main documents for this "school of manners" comes from the "Sangi Itto", which later culminated into the ...

Has this ever happened to you? You're working with someone, training happily along...then you get to a point where all of a sudden you are at ends with the person you are working with? It usually starts with something like this:

"You are doing it wrong."

"That's not the way I learned it."

"That's not how I was shown."

and the dreaded:

"That's not what Sensei says..."

In my opinion, these types of "arguments" are easily ...

Tags: socratic method

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SO okay...I have a really bad case of "spring fever" (no, not that type you pervert) that seemed to have culminated on Sunday night. Today I woke up with a raw throat and a headache. Then came the the sneezing and my nose is like a fire hydrant with a plug missing. I am fairly sure I know what it is (there was a lot of pollen in the air over the weekend) and I have got the dreaded Kofunso...allergies to some kind pollen. I hate this. So, luckily today was a "day off" (meaning that I work from home) ...

So earlier tonight, this fine Saturday evening, I made a break through (almost literally) in Shinto Muso Ryu jo. We have this student in my group that is as tight as a June bug's butt when it comes to personality. He's shy, introverted and a perfect example of the Japanese school system ripping any inkling of a personality away from you. I've been with him for the last 2 months working on his kata, namely because we are going to demonstrate and I really want him to shine. He always bows to me un-necessarily, ...

Tags: 2010 shinto muso ryu, may 8th

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