shirogane festival

More Tokyu Hands shopping with Hiroko in Shibuya. Is there anything they DON'T sell? Then walked to Aoyama for some toy shopping, and headed home. It rained a bit in the evening, and once it stopped we darted across the street to Shirogane to stock up of festival foods before heading home to eat. Curry, grilled squid, meat-on-a-stick, chicken, scallops and shrimp...all the traditional goodies. Stuffed ourselves silly whilst watching a couple more episodes of Kimmy-Is-An-Idiot, er, I mean 24 Season 2.

cutting videos

Amazing how both Niina-gosoke and my dad are on the same wavelength. Both insist on seeing cutting videos. So this morning I met Kiyokawa and Ohtsuka at Tokiwamatsu Elementary School in Shibuya (we were hoping to be able to use their gym for Monday classes, but looks like only Tuesday is available), then we went to Azabujyuban, met Iwata-chan, had lunch and shaved ice with anko, and came home to cut.
I didn't soak the targets well enough, so we had a tough time cutting, but in the end we got some decent clips. So let's see them! I hear you ask...well Ohtsuka-san provided the camera but brought the wrong cable, so I couldn't download the clips onto my machine for web-posting. Gimme a couple more days.
In the evening Hiroko and I cruised to master's Kushimasu in Ichikawa (our old hangout) as Packy was in town. Been a long time since we've gotten out there. Meat-on-a-stick is still tasty as ever, and Hugh's son Toshiki is a monstrously big and vigorous 4! We played "Big Jump! Little Jump! BIG JUMP!" and "Up! Down! UP!!!" for a couple of hours, until he petted a passing poodle and was quickly perplexed by a precocious itching all over his person. Mom went "Oops. He's allergic to dogs...if only HE knew that!" and bundled him off to home for a shower and some skin cream. We chatted up Packs and the gang for a bit before hitting the route home. Nailed the schedule just right and made it back in almost exactly one hour.

tessen & jutte

Gosoke is teaching me all 23 kata for tessen and jutte. Gone through about half of them, plus the 12 uchidaryu tanjo and 24 isshinryu kusarigama. In the evening we had a meeting about the national tournament; getting busy but should be lotsa fun. Decided that the Saturday before the tournament we (me and all the folks coming from the U.S.) will go to Yoshida (Toyota's awesome restaurant) for a traditional million course Japanese meal.

basics

Otherwise known as kihon. No matter how much I practice, it's never enough. Cracking skulls in kenjutsu, and trying to jam 24 kata of tessen and jutte into my head in three days!

happy birthday to me

I am 32 today. Which is good because I still act like I'm 15, so at this rate when I'm 50 I'll act like I'm 25 or so. Works for me.
Got my haircut and then Hiroko and I went to Chai for the 90 minute Thai massage special. After having our bones turned into butter, we had too much Chinese food and walked home in the cool breeze to watch a couple more episodes of 24 Season 2. Kimi is still a complete moron. Her boyfriend Bruce "Miguel" Lee comes in a close second.