pizza dinner


pizza dinner
Originally uploaded by renfield

She eats her thin-crust NY style. Well taught.

napping


napping
Originally uploaded by renfield

Comfortably? After a full day of errands and playing, she finally konked out so I rolled her down to Starbcucks for a break in the lovely sunny weather. That really must be hell on her neck.

recently she likes wearing everything backwards


recently she likes wearing everything backwards
Originally uploaded by renfield

Jacket's on backwards. This is her latest thing. REFUSES to put it on the correct way. No idea how she comes up with this stuff.

diaper hat


diaper hat
Originally uploaded by renfield

After taking a shower,she wanted to put her diaper on...her head. Yup. Also note that her bathrobe is on backwards. Real big these days.

letters to walken

"While Artist-in-Residence at Cornell's arts dorm, I was expected to come up with stimulating art-related programs for the students to participate in. 'Letters to Walken' allowed them the chance to write their yearly Christmas letter to Christopher Walken."

korean feast for tmg


korean feast for tmg
Originally uploaded by renfield

All hail the mighty Ton-sama! This place defines ghetto: widescreen TV on the far wall playing Korean dramas or Korean soccer, mom in the kitchen, daughters waiting tables, crap service (they spend more time watching the tv than they do serving customers), greasy walls, smoky air, rickety stools and folding tables, and we were the only table that wasn't entirely Korean (we did bring a Korean though, to ensure that we ordered properly.)

AND: huge slabs of thick porky goodness, killer chijimi, best chapjae this side of Seoul, piles of kimchee on the grill to soak up all the meat drippings, kalbi so tender it melts...seven of us ate and drank until we popped for the grand total price of 21,000 yen. That's like 30 bucks a person for you Americans. Quality!

calpis


calpis
Originally uploaded by renfield

seminar

Strong turnout at the seminar: 40 people, plus Hoshina and Hashimoto and Salty to help teach.
After running through all the basics with the whole group we broke up into four blocks. I got the three 5dans.
I immediately announced "I am going to now ruin your kata", and proceeded to do just that.
We started with a basic mental exercise: for the zagi kata, is the enemy sitting butt on heels, or up on his knees? The difference in distance is about the length of the thighs, and this changes the dynamic significantly. Same thing with where and how you are sitting, too. So for example in shin, assume he is up on his knees, drawing overhead, so attack low, under the exposed right armpit. Same for ren, only he goes low so you go high. Now for sa and yu, you are sitting so he attacks on that line, but as you come up on your knees you actually clear off that line to the side, turn, and attack. Thus sa and yu and just like enyo.
More fun: musogaeshi, ryoguruma, and munazukushi are all the same footwork. Exactly the same.
Say you have your left foot forward, right foot back. Put all the weight on your left foot, then bring your right foot up to be next to your left foot. Simple.
Now do the reverse: both feet together, simply open up the right foot and move it away from the left. That's munazukushi.
Now turn right so that your right foot is forward, left foot back. Face 180 degrees to the left and bring your right foot to your left foot. That's musogaeshi. The fun bit here (the martial artsy stuff) is that the left leg, which is theoretically holding your body weight, is also turning 180 degrees, whilst the right foot moves up to come next to it. Easier said than done. But if you can figure out how to do that, ryoguruma and enyo become simple, and you start to get the difference between koshi-wo mawaru and ireru; you stop turning or rotating through a series of 180 degrees and simple face one way and then the next instant face another way. It is a much more economical way of turning that, if you are not careful, is so easy you end up overturning, especially on the second cut of ryoguruma.
After the seminar we did a quick hanseikai. So great to have Hoshina around, as she never misses anything and has been training forever (years longer than I have.) She pointed out one really key thing: we should standardize on practicing basic cuts for beginners, right foot forward and practicing yose-ashi. No real point in switching between left and right until you figure out those basics.
Expanding on that we decided we'd write up a short list of things all beginners should learn or at least recognize in their first month: kissaki agari and sagari, te-no-uchi, etc. Basic stuff but it's amazing how much things are different between groups.

scissors


scissors
Originally uploaded by renfield

She loves playing with scissors and watching Totoro. Here she multitasks by doing both at the same time, whilst wearing both new dresses we bought yesterday.

faceplant


faceplant
Originally uploaded by renfield

Close up of the reddened forehead, day after the faceplant.