On Saturday Richard and Norie got MARRIED! Craziness! It was the first wedding I'd ever been to in my life... and it was REALLY nice. They chose a really good place to get married at! (Celes Takadanobaba, for the curious ( Read more... )

Here's pics of us at the Zen-Kanto tournament three weeks ago. First, me. My opponent was hopelessly better and stronger than me (current champion, black belt, years and years of experience), and I lost pretty bad. Oh well. :-/ I still have a whole lot to learn about the art of defending. My offense is pretty good but ( Read more... )

I have lived in Yokohama for four years now. (Has it really been that long???) In that time, Yokohama Station has been constantly under construction. But that's nothing-- Roo-G claims that it's been under construction since he was in middle school. He's 28 now. D: The whole station looks like a construction site, but nothing ever changes ( Read more... )

The All-Kanto Karate Tournament has come and gone. It was my first time to work staff at a tournament.... and it was EXHAUSTING. I had to be there at 8 but couldn't go home till 9. (PM, of course). But it was still an awesome experience. Made some new friends, reconnected with some old, watched a ton of martial artz action and got all FIRED UP to ( Read more... )

The deadline to enter the next tournament, held on February 15th, is this Sunday.... and I'm not entering. -_ ( Read more... )

Here I am writing the post I never ever thought I would have to write. I debated for a long time whether to Friends-lock this one or not, just cos I'm so ashamed. I lost yesterday........... to a white belt. There are no words ( Read more... )

Yesterday Ryuuji and I made an apperance at jishu tore. Three hours of me plus 9 sweaty Japanese men. I kicked the mit so many times my toenail polish fell off. We did kumite for an hour and some guy that I hate kicked me in the neck. It sucked. It got me thinking ( Read more... )

So on Saturday Ryuuji and I joined a bunch of our dojo peepz and moseyed on down to the Tokyo Municipal Gymnasium to watch duderz and dudettez kick the crap out of each other for nine hours at the Zen-Nihon Karatedou Senshu-ken Taikai (er, the 38th All Japan Open Karate Tournament ( Read more... )

Long story short: I came home from the tournament not with a trophy but with a fat, busted lip. But I don't regret the experience even one tiny bit! I had a great time, and RYUUJI WON YEAH ( Read more... )

Every now and again I have a major karate breakthrough. TODAY was one of those days!!1 ( Read more... )