yamagata

Got on the bus at Tokyo Station and left right on time: 11pm. Stopping every 2 hours, we got to Yamagata Prefecture at 6 in the morning. Breakfast at a highway rest stop, then a visit to Iai Shrine; dedicated to the Father Of Iai, Hayashizaki Sensei.

Path leading back to the shrine


Niina-gosoke checking out the shrine


The photo is of Nakamura Kenzaburo performing Toyama-ryu


Various arts/sensei, including Mugairyu, Ishii Gogetsu, and others that we know and/or have trained with

Back on the bus we wound our way through the still-snowy mountains and got to Miyashita-bo by 11 am. Miyashita-san was born and raised here, and she's the only one in her family to leave Yamagata. We had a huge lunch and then rode the bus up to Hagurosan, a stunning temple at the top of the mountain built in 593 (yes, that's over 1400 years ago.)
The priests did a purification ceremony for us and then we practiced for a couple of hours in the hall next to the temple.
After practice, we walked down the 2466 hand-laid stone steps to the bottom of the mountain, walked back to Yamashita-bo, hit the bath, and had dinner.



The 300 year-old Japanese cedar are as dangerous as they are majestic. My nose hasn't stopped running, my whole head is stuffed up, I haven't slept in over a day, I walked down 2466 hand-laid stone steps through the mountains, and my allergies are not having fun.
Plus, our room happens to be right next door to the party room where everyone else will be drinking the night away.

sean moffatt

Sean's put up a bunch of images in his new portfolio.

toyoda

Niina-gosoke took us to Hashimoto-san's restaurant Toyoda, just down the street from Honbu Dojo.
The building a really cool and the food was awesome: traditional multi-course meal in a beautiful room w/a traditional balcony garden. Couldn't believe we were in the middle of 21st century Nihonbashi.

tokyo journal

With Yuki's help I've pulled the original Tokyo Journal website out of archive and given it new life.
Still not sure how much of the original I should fix; part of the charm is how old-school it is. Remember: this was end of 1994/beginning of 1995. Pre-Internet bubble, pre-internet everything just about. And in Tokyo no less.
Also, the last two months, April and May, were done under particulary stressful circumstances.
Check it out in original 640x480

seminar photos

Put up Niina-gosoke's photos from the LA seminar last week.

politics

So what is it with people getting so concerned over a piece of paper and a title? Even as they get older, all they seem to care about more and more is status, as determined by some rank or certification or pile of money.
Very strange to me, but then it seems like it's been that way for as long as people have come together and given each other fancy titles.
Well all the titles in the world won't stop your enemy's sword from taking your head off, so enjoy your certificates and scrolls and titles.

work

For the first time in what seems like a very long time, I did not go to practice tonight. Naganuma-sensei has some kind of gnarly foot infection or something, and his whole leg is swollen up.
So instead of going to practice, I spent 12 hours in the office working. Used to be I would do that 4-6 days a week, 3 weeks a month. And then...I got over it.
Don't get me wrong: my job is cool (and my dept head reads my blog -- hi hammer!) and the people I work with are cool and the work I do now is cool. But work is work; it pays the bills. If I won the lottery tomorrow, I certainly wouldn't still work every day to keep busy. I'd build a really big dojo and invite everyone over for training, all day, every day. And probably play more video games, too.

comments

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innocence

Drab and rainy day, but regardless Hiroko and I spent the afternoon checking out the area around Shinagawa Station. They have a new New York theme just on the other (Bullet Train) side of the station; NY-style deli and whatnot. It's all fairly cheesey, not very NY at all, and for some reason the water fountains are named Columbus Circle, etc. Only in Japan.
We goofed off in the bowling alley arcade, had some lunch at TGIF's, and then hit the IMAX theatre to see Innocence. I didn't really get it, but the animation was stunning.

bali photos

Put up the photos of Hiroko and mom's Bali trip.

all thumbs

Cutting practice at Akabane. Dragged Komatsu-chan down to practice and she did really well for her first time cutting. Orita-san cut her thumb when warming up, and I did pretty well considering I'm still jet-lagging. Can't wait to move so that I can cut in my own basement whenever I want.

command the chicken

From Jeremy:
Your wish is his command!

more tokyo journal photos

Put up a few more photos from dinner with the old TJ crew. I still need to dig all the old TJ website archives off of ZipDisk and put them up on the web somehwere -- we were doing the coolest stuff back in 1995!

masamune sword shop

Drove up to Redlands to Mike Christianson's shop and met Ted Tenold and Keith Larman. Niina-gosoke worked with Ted to draw and spec out the long and short swords that he'll have Howard Clark forge for him. I bought that killer wakizashi that Ted will polish and mount for me, and Niina-gosoke bought a nice tsuba set for his HC blades. He also bought a set of tsukagashira and menuki that match his Soten-style tsuba on his sword now. So when we go back to Japan he'll switch out the current fittings and send them back to Ted to go on his HC, as they match perfectly to the tsuba he bought at Mike's shop. Tony also bought a book that has Shiokawa-gosoke and Iwameji-sensei on the cover. We've only ever seen the French version of the book; the English version is quite rare. And there was even a random antique box with Niina-gosoke's mon (family crest) on it; a rarely used version of the crossed hawk feathers.
Some may call it luck, but in Japanese we call it en: fate.

seminar day four

Hot hot HOT in the dojo today. Must have been at least 100F but that didn't stop us. Niina-gosoke ran through the first seven tanjo kata that we did yesterday, and then we did the last five to finish up the set of twelve. Everyone really enjoyed smacking each other, so that took all morning. Had more In-n-Out for lunch and then we grabbed all the video cameras and gosoke ran through the 12 tanjo kata again really slowly explaining all the different details, footwork, and moves.
Then we started doing jo, with gosoke explaining the difference between the old-school Shindomusoryu and modern seitei kata. We ran through ukan for a few hours and then gosoke finished up the day by showing everyone the twleve basic patterns of jo as explaining and being filmed.
After the seminar we came back to the house, showered, changed, and went out for some Italian. Tony's daughter Madison came with us and was really cute holding Raven, Verdugo's adorable baby daughter.
Back at the house we talked smack and wound down as folks dropped out to drive and/or fly home.
A good seminar was had by all.

seminar day three: party!

Finished up the day doing wakizashi kodachi and then starting the tanjo kata. Back at the house we had a ripping party for Bill Arno's birthday among other things. William The Clean was tattooing Verdugo in the garage, adding his daughter Raven's name to his back. Big Tony was mixing Margeritas at the bar, and the back yard was jumping with veggies and dip, sandwiches, burgers, and dogs. Yours truly spent a luxorious hour in the living room with Diane cranking all the knots out of my back and legs, and Niina-gosoke enjoyed the spicy buffallo wings and beverages.
We watched the worst video ever, I bought a killer wakizashi from Ted, and then finally went to bed way too late.

seminar day two

Finished up the basic twenty kata and then after lunch had a promotion exam. Everyone was really nervous, but Niina-gosoke had already seen everyone's kata, so he just had fun hearing everyone recite the Japanese Member's Duties and Principles in Japanese.
After practice we all went out to El Ranchitos for some killer Mexican food; Niina-gosoke had a giant steak and I had wonderful chicken fajitas. After dinner we can back to the house and watched the Nami-ryu DVD. Niina-gosoke was...amused. He figured all the kids who are into anime can do Nami-ryu and play samurai and have fun, and that's cool, as long as the don't think they're actually learning anything that real samurai were doing.

seminar day one

Full house for the first day of the seminar; over twenty people. Broke up into three groups and ran through the first 5 kata before lunch. Niina-gosoke was really impressed with how much everyone has been practicing and we breezed through the first five kata quickly. Got some sandwiches for lunch and then went through the next five kata. Everyone was doing really well and we ended up finishing a bit early, giving folks a chance to get home and change before dinner.

leaving on a jet plane

Got up early to meet Niina-gosoke at Ueno Station to take the Skyliner to Narita Airport. Figured it would be crowded because it's the day before Golden Week. Turned out it was empty. Nobody was in the airport, so we breezed through. Got stopped when we first got off the train because of the swords. Seems we had to get permission (read: lots of paperwork) just to carry the swords through the airport, besides the paperwork from the Ministry of Culture to take the swords out of Japan. So we were plenty early and waited at the gate for a couple of hours, watching the people arrive in fits and starts.
Took off on time, landed a bit early (9.5 hours in flight) and Tony picked us up and took us back to the house.
Had some In-n-out burgers for lunch at the Senpokan Dojo then came back home and took a nap before dinner.

eggs?

By some miracle I managed to wake up early enough to go to Ando-sensei's practice at 10am (ok I got there late but whatever.) He had his video camera and taped me running through some kata. Really no fun to watch ones' self on tape, but it definitely helps to see what I'm doing wrong. Only one other student was there, so we practiced on our own for a couple of hours. Someone showed up to check out class (she ended up signing up) so Ando-sensei was explaining to her what's what. I remembered that we had a cutting target left over, so I cut it up to make it small enough to throw away.

After practice I came home and Hiroko and I had ramen at Doraichi. They gave us an extra hard-boiled egg, so I ate half of it. Then we went to National Azabu for some grocery shopping, picked up Hiroko's boots from the shoe repair place, and had some tea and dessert at the cool tea place.

By the time we got home, I had a small allergic reaction to something. Probably the half-egg; fairly mild, which is why it took so long to show up. Or maybe it was the dessert? It had mascarpone cheese in it, so maybe I'm not just lactose intolerant (I can take Lactaid for that) but also allergic to milk? Very complicated, this whole food allergy thing. I think I'll go get an allergy blood test again as the last one I had was 3 years ago.

When we got home we finished off season one of 24 -- It was Nina! Love it! But come one, how many friggin' times are Kimmy and mom gonna get kidnapped, tied up, and rescued? Anyway, the DVD had an alternative ending where mom doesn't die, but I don't buy it. Nina was ordered to leave no traces to Germany, so mom got popped, end of story. I sure hope they keep Nina around; she'll probably be a really cool character as a baddie. Not sure about Kimmy becoming a CTU agent though. She should go back to wearing low-cut baby t-shirts.

For dinner, Masa came over with her selection of Amway pots and pans and cooked a feast. I'm impressed. Who would have thought the whiny teen-ager who moved in with me just 7 years ago would actually grow up into someone who can cook decent food on her own? She's still got a ways to go to support herself selling Amway stuff alone, but she's really motivated and trying hard.