Shut Down

There is a spy in Sakurai Sensei's dojo. Apparently some boob has been taping katas and putting them up on youtube.

Sensei was at first pleased with this, but today asked me not to add anymore. He is worried that since there are tournaments coming up, he doesn't want other dojo's watching his kids get ready. Can't say I blame him.

So.......

The videos are still up but the privacy options have been changed. If you want to be able to see the videos I am adding you must do the following.

Go to the youtube.com website and create yourself an account. Then email me through my hotmail account or find me through facebook, tell me who you are and what your account name is and I will add you as a contact and you can see the videos.

I can only add 25 people. Too bad for that but it's as best I can do on the free Youtube service.

Priority will be given to members of the Fujieda and Tsawassen dojos.

I'm not going to post my email address here. If you don't know how to get in touch with me, then ask your Sensei. Chances are he will know or will know who to ask.

More Notes

More footage from training this week.

Empi again.

Kunku dai again.

Teki Shodan

Gitte from a different angle

Kihon Gohon Kumite

Jiyu Kumite


Better than watching the Canucks I think.

Notes

Some footage from training last night. I don't know if Sensei would want me to call these textbook examples, but they're pretty darn good.

Heian Yondan

Bossai Dai

Gitte

I'd like to get up more of these before I trip ends in May. They should be able to stay up on youtube so people back home can have a look.

Hajimete

I am from what is one of the most famous places in the world for Skiiing and Snowboarding. So I am cautious to admit that the first time I went snowboarding was this past weekend in Nagano, Japan, on the same hills as were the '98 Olympics. The trip was arranged by Satomi. 7 in all made the trip. We left Saturday afternoon, staying in a nice resort and then hitting the hills on Sunday.

This is some of the local wildlife we saw as we were leaving the hotel. One of those orange faced monkeys. Never seen one before . Kinda cool.
Thats Me, Satomi and Take on the hill. They were my teachers on this day and I think I made them proud. Obviously there was a lot of falling down, but I quickly got comfortable linking J turns on some of the shallower gradients. Speed of course took time getting used to. Turning on steeper parts of the hill usually meant wipe out. But still, not a bad first day at all.
Take, on the left, is always hamming it up for the camera.

The crew.
We left at around 5pm. The trip home was long. We had to stop and try to find an open gas station in a quiet town along the highway. I got dropped off in Okitsu so I could make the last train home. Man was I tired. I hadnt slept much in 3 days. I got home at around midnight and was out like a light.

7 Steps

I did some volunteering the other day at one of the elementary schools here in Fujieda. Robyn did the same thing when she was here being that her daughter was going to the school. So I was given the opportunity to go practice english with some kids.
One of the kids shows off his drawing which I thought was pretty good. I never could draw like that.
After the classes we would hand out our autographs to the kids.

It was a fun and easy day. Hopefully that "7 Steps" song that got burned into my memory stops going over and over in my head soon. Teaching kids can be fun if not hazardous sometimes.

Budokan Bop

While at dinner with my friend Taka on saturday night, I learned that there would be a grading on sunday for people in the area looking to get their Shodans and Nidans. I'm not sure why Sensei didn't tell me, maybe he thinks I understand Japanese. Taka told me that it would be at the budokan, I think he said with his mouth full which is too bad cause on sunday I found out there is more than one budokan in Fujieda. Oh well, at least I got in a lot of nice walking. The weather here is getting nicer too, which is good.

I arrived at the Shizuoka Prefectural Budokan just in time to get the results. Everyone from our dojo who tested passes. We have two new Shodans and two new Nidans. Ikeda-san and Nagano-san (the 2 ladies closest to Sakruai Sensei) passed to shodan. Naruoko-san(Hirochan) caught up to his son, Tekumi and Chinatsu caught up to her brother Ikkie both as Nidans.
Most of us went out to an Izakaya afterwards. The food was really good, the wings were tasty and they had this awesome tasting stew, which actually tasted better before Sensei told me that it was made with intestines. Yum!!
Congrats to my Sempais. Omedeto Gosaimasu!!