While I was studying for quals, I made up a list of 20 things that had to be done after quals was over, then spent most of spring break attempting to get those things done. Today, I'm finally feeling a little bit better since only 6 of those 20 things are left on the list and only two of them are difficult to do. (I apparently was supposed to have ( Read more... )

Bujinkan tonight was basics as it is every January. Monday was bo (staff) basics, and today was 5 kata basics for 1 hr and bo for 1/2 hr. bo started with us practising a basic strike - grasp the bo with both hands holding it horizontal with your knuckles facing outwards. The hands stay in that basic position except for coming slightly off the bo ( Read more... )

Back in NJ. Happy to avoid the blizzard that is raging in Wisc ( Read more... )

I had a really good time at Bujinkan today. I shared teaching duties with two of the other black belts which was a nice way to go about things since it gave you some breathing space to think up new techniques (I'd rather not teach at all, but I am the highest ranked person there so oh well). And for the first time in a long while, I feel like I ( Read more... )

My dream this morning was quite long and involved. Me and a bunch of other people gained super powers from these sketchy experiments in ghettos that altered the space surrounding these experiments (a good way to discover them was to accidentally stick your hand through a wall where they were happening). I ended up coordinating a bunch of these ( Read more... )

Bujinkan on Saturday had a really good theme. The idea of attacking hard, then soft, then hard, then soft again. So like, first was a hard block to a right punch, then you gently used the right hand you used to block to follow the fist back to their chest, while stepping back to avoid the second punch (people automatically pull back their opposite ( Read more... )

Although 'caresses' is a weird way of putting it, I was happy that today's theme for training was being as soft as possible, which is something I will, no doubt, always need to work on. What shocked me was when the sensei told me that I was being very disrespectful and had not been doing his techniques for the past month, but had instead been ( Read more... )

Dreamt I was training here in Minnesota only in a much larger place than we do, and that the teacher, E.'s wife was sitting on the side and when he corrected me I fixed it immediately and when he (to my dread) kept talking, his wife told him off that I already got it. (You can tell what I really want to happen, huh ( Read more... )

Really frustrated by training tonight. Not because it was anything hard, but because E.'s teaching style drives me insane. I get where he's coming from. He teaches the way he wishes he were taught and the way they teach in American schools which is repeating information a million different ways in the hopes that one of those ways sticks. The ( Read more... )

Several years ago, Jack told us a story about how he demonstrated something perfectly to one of his sensei - something he'd worked very hard to master. And that sensei (I can't remember if it was Hatsumi or not) replied with something like, "Good, now throw it away. Forget it." I remember chuckling a little at the story because it was hard to ( Read more... )