Zaine

I did 23 and Me and I was satisfied with the results. I'm not a scientist, so I don't have the knowledge necessary to check their work on a level that can confirm their percentages. What I can say is that, based on my own genealogical research, it matched up pretty well with what I thought. My wife was a little surprised by some of her results, but they matched after doing some digging into her genealogical history. The numbers themselves get pretty specific. When it came to "Broadly Northwestern European" it gave me a 9.5%. It also gave me 0.5% Finnish, so it gets as specific as it will allow. Furthermore, the specifics of region are there for the larger numbers. For my 21.1% French and German, it gave me the regions that my ancestors were from. If you're thinking about doing it, I can definitely recommend 23 and Me. There are other features, as well, such as linking you with other blood relatives and things that you're disposed to genetically.

I've recently been watching a lot of kata video from various competitions. Something that I have noticed is the difference of length of the kiai in Okinawan/Japanese martial arts (Shotokan, Goju Ryu, etc.) and Korean martial arts (TKD, Tang Soo Do, etc.). Okinawan/Japanese styles tend to draw out their kiai, whereas Korean styles keep it short. For the Okinawan/Japanese styles, I can attest to being taught to draw it out a little. My sensei preferred deep, guttural kiai that came from the diaphragm. The Korean poomsae I have seen seem to prefer short kiai from the throat. Can anyone help fill in my lack of knowledge?

The Reckoning of Roku by Randy Ribay

Nice! I have all the English volumes of Berserk and am excitedly awaiting Vol. 42.

Group training is a great idea! Having peers to motivate you is an awesome way to stick with it.

I wasn't aware that you are a manga reader? What other manga are you currently reading, Patrick?

that sounds intriguing! Myself i have constantly toyed with the ides of learning Japanese - mainly because i visited it before and loved it but noticed how little English people spoke there. My son loves Anime etc and would be great to take the family there on holiday but would be much better if at least one of us spoke some of the language! The Shihan of the Shobayashi school I was in was a fluent speaker and lived there for a time. It was interesting to hear her linguistic perspective on the different words we used.

The Study of Karate & Miscellaneous Thoughts on Martial Arts by Morinobu Itoman

I can definitely see stud earrings also being a problem. I have my ears gauged and wear silicon spacers so there's no risk of stabbing myself by getting hit in the head.

Interestingly, while I generally have a lack of motivation to do weight lifting, I am easily motivated to do work with hojo undo equipment such as the Chi Ishi and the like. I think that it's because I connect to the hojo undo work more directly to karate. I understand that doing squats with a weight rack can be easily traced to improvement in kicking power, but doing it with hojo undo equipment makes me feel like I'm improving my karate more, somehow.

All dojos that I have been a part of have required rings, bracelets, and watches to come off. If you have studs for earrings, those are fine. Anything dangling needs to be removed. More than a personal safety standpoint, I think this policy is also to protect the jewelry, which someone might have spent a lot of money on or have a sentimental attachment too. Rings make sense, as jams can be common in martial arts. Bracelets can be bents, dangling earrings can be ripped out accidentally during drills or sparring, watches can be broken, etc.

DarthPenguin has a lot of great tips here, and I don't think I could have said it better myself. However, I do want to offer another way of looking at this. Why do you have to lift weights? What is your goal in lifting weights? There are so many ways to work out and to get healthy. Is this to supplement your martial arts? Weights can certainly help, but it's not a requirement, there are other exercises that you can do! The best way to make exercise and self-improvement a habit is to find something that you enjoy doing. For me, that is riding a bike. I can easily motivate myself to ride a bike, but it's difficult to motivate myself to lift weights.

As someone who has both a Bachelor and Masters degree, I agree that it is comparable, if less expensive (but maybe only barely!). It's about the time and love that I put into it. I put a lot of time and love into my college degrees, sure, but I think that the love I have for martial arts is far greater. 23 years later, and I'm still trying to improve. It's a journey that (thankfully) will never be completed. Belief systems aside, if there is an afterlife, or a heaven, I hope that there are martial arts there.

Very exciting! I know this is a years long project that is finally coming to a close. I can't wait to see the efforts pay off!

Congrats! Well deserved!

Yeah that is surprising - Sensei Naka publicly cross trains in a lot of styles and produces a lot of content of him doing so. I can sort of see the logic behind some slight restrictions eg. if you are below X grade in shotokan we don't want you to cross train in another karate style yet in case you mess up your techniques but once you are past that point then it's fine (and unrelated styles like judo etc are fine). But a blanket ban is for me a red flag I've certainly heard that line a lot in the past. While I was never forbade from cross training, my sensei strongly recommended against it until I became a sankyu. To ban it altogether, like you say, is a huge red flag.

I agree with you on the white belt comments. There is no reason we should be testing white belts that aren't 100% expected to pass. I can't imagine how disheartening it would be to go into your first test and fail. It would definitely hurt retention not only in new students, but also in older non-black belt ranked students who might see that as unnecessarily cruel.

Playing at the World, 2E Volume 1: The Invention of Dungeons and Dragons by Jon Peterson

Congrats!

I enjoyed Elantris, but you can tell it's one of his earlier (published) works. His writing has definitely evolved and improved over the years. I've only read the four Earthsea books by Le Guin; how is The Language of the Night? That was the impression I got as well. It wasn't bad, just unpolished. The Le Guin book is a collection of essays and speeches she gave on literary criticism. I think it's great, but dry and specialized. If you're interested in criticisms of the treatment of SF/F books and the like, it's awesome.

Witch King by Martha Wells also A Short History of The Hundred Years War by Michael Prestwich

Having come from a line that traces through SMOKA, I can definitely confirm that SMOKA is very conservative when it comes to their approach of karate. Coffman, and Gagne as an extension, really only want to teach karate in the way that they learned it. Coffman in particular is very loyal to the type of martial arts that he learned directly from Soken. While I have my own philosophical issues with this approach (i.e. whether karate should be prescriptive or descriptive, to borrow terms from my educational background), I understand the desire. Luckily for me, my teacher viewed martial arts as a living, evolving thing and broke away from the SMOKA philosophy. My sensei leaned into the MMA-like aspects of the system, and even added ground fighting to the curriculum to make the system more rounded. Nothing so in-depth as BJJ, but enough that we weren't useless on the ground. I have noticed that the amount of SMOKA kata are greater than others, such as Kuda lineage. More than that, however, old lists from SMOKA websites indicated that the amount of kata after Shodan are exponentially larger. Mostly they're repeats of kata already learned just in the "Shorinji" style.

I don't think that this is a new worry. I hope that this fear, which I share, is just a result of me not being aware of the breadth of practice for our system(s). Just recently I've met a lot of people who are Matsumura-Seito from all over the place. It gives me hope that the system isn't as small as I originally thought.

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. also The Language of the Night by Ursula K. Le Guin

That is my understanding as well. In fact, as far as classification goes, my sensei would separate kata into Matsumura kata and Shorinji kata. Seisan, Wansu, and Ananku were Shorinji kata. According to some sources I have found, like old kata lists, from Coffman and Gagne's sites, later Shorinji kata were taught after black belt but were largely Shorinji versions of kata that we had already learned.