ouchie
The good news, Yasutoshi cuts REALLY well. Great balance, even though it's a whopping 1200 grams (my previous blades are 900 and 950). Don't notice the weight so much, but I did mess up on the placement of the menuki, and after 2 hours of practice, I busted this lovely blister.
So, back to the shop it goes for some minor adjustment. The quest for perfection is a long and arduous road...
@ hataya's
Spent the afternoon hanging out at Hataya's shop, looking at stuff with Ted and Roger. Picked up my new cutter and looked at some cool daruma fittings. Ted got some nice horse menuki and Roger ogled the dragons. Hataya-sensei showed up a couple hours later and, being Hataya-sensei, told me that he forgot to pick up the registration for my sword. Then again, being The Man, he wrote on one of his business cards "I'm still getting the registration for this" and we stuck it on the sword. Any cop who sees that will know not to mess.
kure deri*
Boss MacDaddy had a free pass from the wife, so he decided it was time for some Team Bonding. The troops gathered at Hanezawa Garden for some semi-outdoor seating surrounded by kerosene heaters and we did damage to the pork and veggie cauldrons before heading over to Muse for continued revelry. After getting my ass trounced by Fish at darts (twice) I strolled to the bar and drank OJ with blatant irreverance as the converts traders continued on with what started out as none-too-politically-correct discussions of the many ways a man and his yen may revel in debauchery in the back streets of Tokyo.
Got home at a reasonable 1:30am, though I was first to slide away and I expect unending amounts of ribbing when I go back to work.
* kure deri is an abbreviation for "credit derivatives".
Got home at a reasonable 1:30am, though I was first to slide away and I expect unending amounts of ribbing when I go back to work.
* kure deri is an abbreviation for "credit derivatives".
relax
Big turnout for class tonight. I thought maybe it was a testament to my amazing teaching ability and charisma, but it turns out that most of the regular Tuesday classes are cancelled because in November and December it's hard to use the various school gyms as they are taken for end-of-year school festivities.
So with ten people on the floor we took our time; slow warmups and basics for over an hour, and then some simple kata work.
Theme for tonight started with the knees and how much they need to bend in order to keep the hips level and centered. As the practice progressed we sort of wandered about touching up minor points, and I had one of the minor epiphanies that doesn't really help but makes it much more fun to keep trying: relax when you draw. Totally and completely obvious of course, but when I do the one out of ten thousand just-right draw I am always totally mellow, almost not even caring. I'm not thinking about it, I'm not looking at my sword or my feet or anything in particular; just looking ahead and at the moment I need to draw, the sword is silently and smoothly out, without over cutting and with no exaggeration. Feels good, and so I'm trying to actively pursue that practical nonchalant-ness so that I can summon it at will. Non-trivial unfortunately.
On a specific note, I am working on keeping my left arm closer to my body; not flaring the left elbow and rotating the left hand to turn the sword over as I draw, but more of a corkscrew kind of twist so that the position of the hand (in X and Z space) doesn't change (only moving along Y; front to back.) This keeps the koiguchi more pointed at the point of impact, and tends to keep my from chunking the cut; comes out more smoothly and directly. Also stops me from opening too widely to my left, exposing my right arm to removal by an astute enemy.
After I got home, Ted was crushed and went to sleep, and then Jen showed up fresh from her tour in Kyoto so the Kuroda Hotel was in full swing. Jen takes off for Gunma and more research but she'll be back this weekend.
So with ten people on the floor we took our time; slow warmups and basics for over an hour, and then some simple kata work.
Theme for tonight started with the knees and how much they need to bend in order to keep the hips level and centered. As the practice progressed we sort of wandered about touching up minor points, and I had one of the minor epiphanies that doesn't really help but makes it much more fun to keep trying: relax when you draw. Totally and completely obvious of course, but when I do the one out of ten thousand just-right draw I am always totally mellow, almost not even caring. I'm not thinking about it, I'm not looking at my sword or my feet or anything in particular; just looking ahead and at the moment I need to draw, the sword is silently and smoothly out, without over cutting and with no exaggeration. Feels good, and so I'm trying to actively pursue that practical nonchalant-ness so that I can summon it at will. Non-trivial unfortunately.
On a specific note, I am working on keeping my left arm closer to my body; not flaring the left elbow and rotating the left hand to turn the sword over as I draw, but more of a corkscrew kind of twist so that the position of the hand (in X and Z space) doesn't change (only moving along Y; front to back.) This keeps the koiguchi more pointed at the point of impact, and tends to keep my from chunking the cut; comes out more smoothly and directly. Also stops me from opening too widely to my left, exposing my right arm to removal by an astute enemy.
After I got home, Ted was crushed and went to sleep, and then Jen showed up fresh from her tour in Kyoto so the Kuroda Hotel was in full swing. Jen takes off for Gunma and more research but she'll be back this weekend.
and a good time was had by all.
The 8th annual Suimokai Festival "Kenkakubanrai" was enjoyed greatly. Elvis and I did kumitachi, and I also did some cutting (with only minor screwing up) and finally when it was all over I did Part One of my 6dan test. Part Two has been set for December 1, so I guess that means I passed.
The Ladies made it to the finals in the team competition and despite my best efforts to fail them, they proceeded to victory.
Finally, in the Entertainment Division, Hoshina-san and her crazies from Akihabara did some rousing dancing and won themselves a couple hundred kilos of rice, plus cheap suitecases in which to carry it home. I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me.
big class
Dunno what happened, but a whole lotta folks showed up for class tonight. Started with six, then Elvis showed up late, then a couple more until we finally had about ten on the floor. Ten is pretty tight and you have to be careful not to kill each other, but we managed. Nice cool evening so training hard feels good. Ripped through alot of basic cuts in the beginning, just focusing on blade angle and path, and then added in body mechanics, concentrating on what muscles are really doing the work. It's wierd to think how you can move your body without actually realizing what and how you're moving. For some reason we get lazy and move in really inefficient ways because we think it's easier or something. Hard to retrain the body to move the 'right' way; but it's cool to see that lightbulb go off when someone (usually accidentally) does it right the 100th time, realizes it, and then tries another 100 times to get the feeling back.
I think advancing to higher levels in martial arts just involves increasing the probability of doing something right.
I think advancing to higher levels in martial arts just involves increasing the probability of doing something right.
kimono tansu
Commissioned the lovely folks at Suruga Isho to make a set of drawered chests in a modern /traditional style for hiroko's kimono collection.
They are quite lovely, with traditional kiri (paulownia) inside the drawers, a beautiful dark finish on the front and a more natural yellow finish on the top and sides.
ishihara family
Went to the dojo in the afternoon to work on kumitachi with Elvis in prep for our demo next week. He went to the aikido class at night so I stayed in the dojo by myself and did some cutting. Was fairly mediocre, so I've got lots of work to do before next week, and not much time to do it in.
Left the dojo, walked around the corner, and as I passed Starbucks I spied Millie asleep in her stroller, mom and dad Ishihara drinking coffee at her side. Haven't seem them in a while so I pulled up a chair and ate biscuits with Millie after she woke up. She didn't remember me, was groggy from just waking up, and generally doesn't like guys. So she stared at me. The. Whole. Time.
I also linked to both mom and dad's blogs, so if you're in a Japanese reading mood, check them out.
sushi!
After work met up with Jen and Hiroko and Roland for some quality seafood and smacktalk. Roland is my hero, not just because he's now teaching at Tokyo University, but because he's buddy-buddy with my man Haruki Murakami.
We discussed the many ways Roland could work with Jen, and decided it would be best if we got a write-up of Jen's Japan Food Tour in the NYTimes travel section.
drunk jen & ramen
Hiroko too the day off to be productive, which apparently involved going to a sake-tasting party with Jenn and sampling several domestic bevvies from Japan's finest distilleries. She and Jen were right glowing by the time we met for dinner, which consisted of Ayu Ramen. Ah, the magic that is Ayu Ramen. And to top it all off, we got 5 chances at the lottery in the shopping mall housing the restaurant, and I won 500 yen twice!
robin in the hood
Robin came in from Cali last week and we had a right proper Tokyo Good Time.
We trained at Honbu on Tuesday and then went out to all-you-can-eat sukiyaki with Niina-gosoke and the crew. We tried to go to the all-you-can-eat place we usually go to, but it's out of business. We killed it!
On Wednesday I had to work late so Robin spent all day at Honbu working with Gosoke -- eight hours straight!
On Thursday Robin went down to Machida to do Toyama-ryu with Hataya-sensei.
On Friday there was no class so Robin went to the sword museum and Aoi Art and Namikawa Heibei, and then we had dinner at Lucky down the street.
Saturday we had a killer cutting practice with 15 people at Honbu -- took some good vids so those will be posted in due time.
After cutting and then cleaning the dojo top to bottom we headed down to Ninjin for some mad greasy Chinese food and then checked out the massive Yodobashi Camera at Akihabara. We looked at a mile of MP3 players and almost killed the guy who's job it was to sit on a ladder and shout with a megaphone about the special sale prices. Elvis upgraded his cell phone and we tried to get some coffee at the maid cafe but it was packed and they didn't allow photos anyway, so what's the point?
Coming back to the station we ran into Niina-gosoke on his was home. He couldn't believe we were still out shopping.
And finally on Sunday we took Robin down to the ANA Hotel, did some last minute gift shopping, ate a final rotator sushi lunch, and got him on the airport limousine bus.
Hiroko went shopping and I biked over to Honbu and did kumitachi with Elvis for a bit in prep for our demo in a couple weeks.
We trained at Honbu on Tuesday and then went out to all-you-can-eat sukiyaki with Niina-gosoke and the crew. We tried to go to the all-you-can-eat place we usually go to, but it's out of business. We killed it!
On Wednesday I had to work late so Robin spent all day at Honbu working with Gosoke -- eight hours straight!
On Thursday Robin went down to Machida to do Toyama-ryu with Hataya-sensei.
On Friday there was no class so Robin went to the sword museum and Aoi Art and Namikawa Heibei, and then we had dinner at Lucky down the street.
Saturday we had a killer cutting practice with 15 people at Honbu -- took some good vids so those will be posted in due time.
After cutting and then cleaning the dojo top to bottom we headed down to Ninjin for some mad greasy Chinese food and then checked out the massive Yodobashi Camera at Akihabara. We looked at a mile of MP3 players and almost killed the guy who's job it was to sit on a ladder and shout with a megaphone about the special sale prices. Elvis upgraded his cell phone and we tried to get some coffee at the maid cafe but it was packed and they didn't allow photos anyway, so what's the point?
Coming back to the station we ran into Niina-gosoke on his was home. He couldn't believe we were still out shopping.
And finally on Sunday we took Robin down to the ANA Hotel, did some last minute gift shopping, ate a final rotator sushi lunch, and got him on the airport limousine bus.
Hiroko went shopping and I biked over to Honbu and did kumitachi with Elvis for a bit in prep for our demo in a couple weeks.
don't talk to me about expensive
Once again, Tokyo is the most expensive city in the world.
So there.
So there.
hagi
Absolutely perfect weather, so we spent the day wandering all over the lovely and historic town of Hagi.
Went through the downtown shopping district and checked out the pottery, then into the main historical area. Several very cool old houses open to the public, and the whole neighborhood looks basically like it did centuries ago.
The town is divided into 'outside the wall' -- the merchants and townsfolk just outside the first castle wall, and 'inside the wall' -- the samurai houses and and whatnot just inside the castle wall.
The town has done a brilliant job of keeping the place looking good for the tourists. Much of the old architecture is either still around or painstakingly replicated; the first moat, the walls lining the narrow roads, the signs and doorways. There are several blocks that are national historical landmarks, and of course the castle grounds are expansive and awesome. The castle itself is no longer there, but the retaining walls, moats, and grounds and still cool to look at.
And of course we shopped for Hagi's famous handmade pottery, scoring a bowl and several small sake cups and goblets.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)