Or, “It’s cold. It must be mid-winter training.” In the Japanese martial arts tradition, students of each of the various schools typically hold a special training session called “kangeiko” (寒稽古 in Japanese), which means “mid-winter training.” No one is certain of the exact origin of the kangeiko, but the tradition appears to have started in [...]
Before 2009 came to its sudden halt, I went along with a group of aikidoka and friends to hike Nijouzan (Mt. Nijo), which is situated in Nara prefecture overlooking Osaka to its northwest and Nara city to its northeast. Our sojourn started by assembling at 8:30 AM at the Kintetsu Abenobashi station, and from there [...]
Finally. After a year on the sidelines, I’ve finally returned to aikido! This morning, I decided to go to the afternoon 2 pm aikido session at Shodokan honbu, hoping for a small class size. Almost a year ago to the day, I broke a finger (the proximal phalanx of the left pinky, to be precise) [...]
Last night I went along with friends to dinner at the Gozanbou teppanyaki restaurant on the top floor of the Kyoto Granvia Hotel. I was gobsmacked at the high quality of the food, the surroundings, and, indeed, the entire experience. What a treat! The evening started with garlic, and lots of it. Frankly, I think [...]
In July, I gave a keynote speech at the 2009 annual conference of the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) in Kyoto, Japan, that focused on the communications barrier facing computer security incident response professionals in their cross-cultural dealings with their Asian counterparts. This was the first and, thus far, only time I’ve [...]
Anyone who’s spent time in Japan — any at all — recognizes the importance of mobile phones in today’s Japanese lifestyle. Wherever you go, whether it be on the train, walking along the street or waiting for a bus, you’ll see people around you staring fixedly into their little folding window to the world, which [...]
