Aikido, Iaido and more Mikado!!!! ;-)

Today it will be a long day: at 2 pm we are going to have a small Aikido seminar for both beginners and advanced people in our dojo.

Next Bob, the main instructor, and me we have planned to practice some Iaido.. finally, after we talked about that for ages!!!

Following, the sport center is going to have a member party, starting in the lovely restaurant called Mikado where lately I have been quite often.. and falled in love every time!

Impressed!

Yesterday I finished Kazuo Ishiguro book and I am officially impressed: really a great book, extremely well written, with a lot of things crucially important for the story not said and kept misterious long enough..

WOW!

I can only say that!

What’s next then?

Last week there was a cheap sale at the local library: several old books were sold for 10 NOK each, let’s say about 1 € (1.5 $ but not ask me in yen or chinese yuan or singaporean dollars!! ). So I bought 5 books.. it’s time to pick one up and start it.. and next probably use it to start my oven in winter!!!

Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū Kenjutsu – cont.

I finally uploaded the pictures, most of them, at least!

*** 合気道 *** 合気道 *** 合気道 *** 合気道 *** 合気道 ***

I have updated a bit the Aikido Glossary page with some more about pronunciation rules..

Tonight, if the practice is not too hard, I will add some more words, probably about direction and sides..

Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū Kenjutsu, 天真正伝香取神道流剣術

Sunday I went to take a look at a seminar of kenjutsu, Katori Shinto Ryu style, organized by the local club. A friend, who’s also practicing Aikido, is training there.. and I would have liked to start, unless both the training days crash with Aikido.. of course!

Decisions, decisions, decisions… always decisions!

But after many years doing Aikido, a few years Iaido and kenjutsu related to Aikido practice (Saito sensei aiki-ken exercises, Nishio sensei ken-tai-ken, something derived from Inaba sensei Kashima Shin Ryu) I am struggling between the interest in trying something new and the interest in improving what I know..

Unfortunately improving what I know it is not easy not being a real graded instructor in any of those sword arts (maybe Iaido.. but I will come back to this later), when on the other hand there is this kenjutsu school, with close contacts with the main instructors, Eri Kusano sensei and Såzen Kusano sensei in Norway, and sensei Yukihiro Sugino, 9.dan, in Japan.

But, but, but.. when this new interest crash with Aikido practice, my direction and my decision is somewhat well defined already.. especially lately after I received more responsability inside the club as help instructor, a role I definitively like!!!

17 – 20 september 2003

…my first and last (for now) experience in Japan..

In this period of the year I feel special vibes. I feel something terrible and wonderful happened to me not that long ago.. something unforgettable, in good and bad..

Something that helped to grow up, something that made me hating someone (and hoping, day in day out, he and his family will find the worst in their life..), something that made me loving even more Japan and Japanese people and realizing that the target of my hate is just a little person, with an insignificant life and one day I will be good enough to stop hating such a small shit..

I realized long ago, almost at once, that the betrayal I suffered had nothing to do with my idea of Japan, of martial arts, of repect and discipline, of friendship and of trust in general..

Good to learn but I do not wish to anybody to experience what I did..

In those 3 days, and the months immediately following, I discovered who were the real friends and I have also been surprised, in positive, by some people, making my connection with them even stronger.

And from those 3 days in Tokyo, even without taking a single picture (crazy for who knows me) because I was so down, I got unforgettable memories of places and people, that push me to find afterwords Japanese penfriends and improve my Japanese language knowledge… and practice even with more dedication Japanese martial arts, for what they mean for me..

Kanji memorization

This summer I started studying kanji, 漢字, according to the method proposed by James W. Heisig in his book “Remembering the Kanji I”.

I admit I was not totally convinced about using this system: you are supposed to make up a story that links to the meaning of the kanji, and the book helps, especially at the beginning proposing several good examples (PDF version of the first 200 pages is available here).

A nice talk with a very interesting person, Magnus, convinced me to try, at least (being available that PDF file!).

The kanji down here are those I learnt with this method (OK, I knew already a few of them and for some I know the most used reading). In the book there are more than 2000 characters… still a long way to go.. followed by, of course, studying the reading and the use!

Practice..

..but at a different level: not Aikido but Japanese writing, 日本語.

I practices, among other things, with the words explained yesterday in the Glossary chapter.