More Pics:

Tsuba, Habaki, & Hamon 1

Hamon 2

Hamon 3

Hamon 4

Hamon 5 & Kissaki

....and just to prove that it is actually in *my* possession...Get the point?

A dream achieved...my REAL katana

After wanting one for 28 years, I am finally the proud owner of my own real-deal, 100% authentic katana (AKA a shinken --> literally meaning "real sword"), AKA the sword/soul of the Samurai. After Saturday's (1/31) massive "New Year's practice" with all the groups that fall under the Meishi-ha of Mugai-ryu Iaido, the only other two Japan based white boys in the organization and I dragged our asses out to Machida-shi to Hataya-sensei's sword shop.

Hataya-sensei is a shihan in Toyama-ryu, a different style/organization from the one I train in, but one that many of our people cross-train with because they are heavily into cutting. Hataya-sensei is The Man to go to if you are in the market for a sword to be used for serious training. A lot of other sword shops are mainly focused on selling the uber-beautiful 'art' swords; the ones that are nice to look at, but are too high-class to actually use for kata training/cutting practice. It is the difference between dating the stuck-up prom-queen, and dating the fun, out-going chick down the street. The prom-queen will stroke your ego, but the other girl will stroke your...>;-)

I had gone there a couple weeks ago with (kokusai-bu) Bucho and Elvis and had looked at a few swords, but he has so many, it would literally take all day to see/handle them all. Fortunately, he lists all of his available blades on his web page...I take this as a sign of Hachiman's assistance in my quest. I checked out the specs of the blades, and wrote down the stock #s of the ones I was interested in. My requirements/preferences include:
- Length: no shorter that 70cm, no longer that 73cm
- weight: minimum of about 750g, no more that about 1100g
- NO SHORTENED BLADES!! This abomination was usually done because the bureaucrat Samurai of the Bakufu found the length of their swords got in the way of their indoor paper pushing. I find any such deviation from the sword's original purpose-built design unforgiveable. This. is. Spartaaaaah!!!
- No Hi in the blade. Called a "blood-groove" by know-nothings, Hi is carved into a blade to lighten it or for decoration, neither of which I particularly desire
- a blade over 100 years old, because it is over 100 years old
- decent furniture/fittings. Not too plain, but not too guady either

Well, list in hand, I went there, and walked out the door with this blade:

Here's some pics:

The sword bag and cord that Hataya-sensei threw is as a 'freebie' --> which they call "sabisu" ~> 'service' here in Japan.

My new toy!!

With my zinc/aluminum mugito in my sword stand, a fan for decoration, and a book of Soto-shu Buddhist chants. --> The founder of Mugai-ryu was also Buddhist priest, so many of us also practice Zazen.

I finally need the second sword rack! Steel sword is on the top with the sageo that was also a freebie, zinc/aluminum sword is on the bottom (Sorry Hoss, there's a new sherrif in town...)

A close up of one of the two golden dragon menuki. They look identical, but are slightly different. This has the dragon holding a ball/jewel(?), in the one on other his hand?..paw?* is empty.
("Do dragons have large talons?")

More sword pics to follow... -->This is a also goo training for using my other recent purchase, my HD Sony camera (see below/the archives). I need to really pay attention to the depth of field of the close ups...it makes all the difference between a great shot and garbage.

New year, New Goals

Injuries to my back and shoulder seriously hindered my training goals for Iaido and (especially) Aikido, but both feel better, so hopefully I will be able to accomplish more in both areas this year.

New dojo...

Went to check out the new Kudanshita dojo on Monday. I got there too late to train :-(, plus had plans to meet other friends later, so I just bummed around waiting...

...for Elvis and the others to finish expressing their autistic..er..artistic talent through paintng the sign....

...when I noticed this at the bottom of the board:

(300)

I take this as a sign from the Good King

...to get my ass in and train more, which is exactly what I plan to do now that my injured right shoulder seems to be getting better..!

3 cuts, 1 clusterf**k

Well...after having only *half* of this video show up on Youtube, no matter how many times I tried to upload it in its entirety, I finally fixed the problem. I tried using the media-convert.com site to go from the 3GP format to WMV, but there was *no* audio for the second half of the clip. I don't know why it was doing this, maybe because there is very little audio until the very end when the camerman says, "..and Cut! (...because that sucked ass!!)" but I have fixed it by finding a free conversion program on the web, Mobile Media Converter. This fixed the problem, so now everyone can laugh and make fun of my piss-poor cutting!


The fix for this video came about from my recent interest/fascination/obsession with making and editing my own videos. When I was back home in Indy this summer, I had a friend hook me up with ordering this High Definition Sony camera:

..througn the 'net, and had him send it to me here in Japan. (They were on backorder so there was a delay in shipping. Despite it being a Japanese brand, I was able to get it about $500 cheaper in the States...the days of getting "great deals" on Japanese electronics *in Japan* are long gone. The best deals are now found on the Internet, not on the streets of Akihabara.

Of course in our brave new world of ever-improving technology, my ultimate ass-kicker PC that I built 4 years ago is now the ass-kickee. Its Intel P4 3.0Ghz Cpu/2GB RAM is woefully inadequate for editing high definition video, which is probably the most demanding, CPU and RAM intensive application for home PCs. So I had to build a new PC to edit the HD footage. I also wanted to add effects and make my vids look as professional as possible, so I had the same friend order the Adobe CS3 suite of software using the education discount they have available...saved me about $1000!! (Thanks J!) All of this has finally come together the past couple of weeks as I have gotten my new PC up and running and I made my first "movie" this weekend. Using Windows Movie Maker, Photoshop, and Flash, I put together a short slideshow of party pics of my me and friends taken over the past 5 years in Japan, accompanied to the song Good Riddance by Greenday.

With all these new toys at my fingertips, I decided to try and fix my first video, which was taken at my second ever test cutting practice in Shinjuku. A download and a format conversion later, and I am golden! So hopefully this blog will actually start to have postings and *content*...what a concept!!

10 years in Japan....

...as of July 26th, 2008. What have I learned in 10 years of being here? More Japanese...more martial arts...and here recently...and an even greater appreciation for each second of life that we have.
The irony of martial arts is that in training to learn ways to take life in a split second, it gives one a greater appreciation of our lives, our health, our friends/family/training partners, etc.

Life's short, folks...play hard!