I’ve never been much of a fan of my own birthday. Anyone who’s known me for any length of time knows that. But DAMN if there isn’t something magical about having a day all your own, eating cake and shit… It can be loads of fun. Well, today happens to be my lovely wife’s birthday. So, I’ll keep it short and sweet, since today isn’t about me and my propensity for being wordy as hell. Happy birthday to my beautiful wife. Although time marches on, we’ll never get older as long as we stick together! ☯
Yesterday’s post was pretty morose and depressing. I’ll be the first one to admit it. So I thought I would turn things around a bit and write about something a little more positive. My wife’s birthday is coming up in a few days, and I was trying to decide on something nice that I could get her. Given the current state of the world, going out for a night on the town is still out, although we’re getting closer to being able to do so. I found myself looking at alternatives and trying to think about things she may have mentioned she’d enjoy having.
I came up with an idea that would unfortunately require that I tell her what her gifts would be. This is mostly because I would need her input to ensure I got something she would specifically want. My first thought was to get a fire pit for the back yard. We’ve been talking about having one for a while and we avoided getting one because we believed we would likely be selling the house and moving in recent years. Since that’s no longer the case, we agreed to get one. Although I wanted to get one that connects to one of my propane tanks for ease of lighting and use, the small wood-burning pit is still wonderful and serves its purpose well.
It only took a few minutes to bolt the whole thing together, and we had the chance to blaze it up last Sunday when we had a friend of mine stop by for a coulee of cold ones. The photo above is of the shitty fire Nathan and I lit yesterday so I could snap a photo. I was out of wood and all I had were small brambles. It was pretty much out within ten minutes. But Sunday’s fire was mint, and lasted for the better part of an hour.
During my teen years, I spent countless evenings on local beaches with a fire burning, a few of us with some acoustic guitars and snack, crooning to easy music and simply enjoying the peaceful bliss of relaxing by a fire. There’s something soothing about the crackling flames and the warmth it projects while you connect and chat with good friends. I predict we’ll be making great use of this bad boy throughout the summer.
You may have noticed that I said “gifts.” My second thought was to get her a chaise lounger for the backyard. This could mean that on afternoons when she isn’t working, she can sprawl on the deck on her lounger, read a good book and even light a fire. If she chose to do so. But since it’s for her comfort, we’ve been shopping around to try and find something she’ll really enjoy. Sometimes, looking for what you want can be half the experience. ☯
The title is a saying that Sensei always used to have. He’s always been a firm advocate of maintaining only one style and never branching out to anything else. Although I’ve always been prepared to agree that one needs to study consistently in one style in order to properly learn, I’ve always been of the opinion that one needs to allow oneself to at least TOUCH on other styles, other techniques and other training methods, in order to add some variety to one’s overall martial arts toolbox.
Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to train with a variety of schools and dojos, learning what i could from different styles. After all, if the techniques you’ve practiced for decades don’t work in a specific situation, what would do? Give up? Let yourself be injured or killed? Doesn’t sound too ideal, to me. With that thought in mind, I’ve always been quite open to studying and training with other styles.
With that in mind, one of the biggest sore points in my training, especially in the past ten years, is the fact that I moved out to the Prairies for my job, which took me away from Sensei and his dojo. Although I’ve had some opportunities to train in other schools since then, I’ve been sitting at my current level for a very long time. Rank has never meant all that much to me. I believe that some white belts can have wisdom and skill that some black belts never achieve. Especially if you’re in a style/dojo that graduates black belts in two or three years.
But my thirst for knowledge never ends, and my ambition to climb stems not from wanting another gold bar on my black belt, but from wanting to learn new techniques and methods and to know the answer to that ultimate question that all dedicated students ask, at some point in their martial arts career: What’s next? It was the driving curiosity behind that question that had me set out to try and find a solution to promoting to my next level.
In 2019, I had a comprehensive conversation with Sensei about my training and how the flow of my life and career had gone. We agreed that it was unfortunate that I had spent the last decade out west, as I might have climbed a couple of ranks within that time. But he agreed that if I was willing to put in the time, money and frequent trips to New Brunswick to train, I could see my next rank within the next year or two. Then, we had a second child. Alexander was the unexpected blessing to our lives that would require an increased presence within my home and wouldn’t make it appropriate for me to be running across the country four or five times a year for the next two years. I had to adjust my plans.
In 2020, I started calculating ways to stabilize things so that I could make my continued learning possible. Just when I felt there might be a glimpse of hope in my efforts, COVID-19 struck and locked the world down in a way that hadn’t been seen since before my lifetime. I was once again at a standstill. I wanted to continue my training, but only if I could do so without having it be at the cost of my familial obligations and finances.
I recently found a school of Uechi Ryu karate in Alberta. Although it would be several hours’ drive, that would be far better than a few thousand dollars for a flight to New Brunswick and being away from my family for extended periods of time. I reached out to this dojo and asked what the thought might be on helping someone promote to their next degree. I’ve been in open exchange with the dojo since last week, and it will be interesting to see if this is the path that allows me to continue my black belt path in this style.
I often say that life rarely cares about one’s plans. I don’t really need to prove that statement. A look at how my life has turned out in the past three years is a documented testament to that very fact. Although Sensei may likely disapprove and believe that stepping into another dojo in this fashion may dilute the teachings that were imparted on me, I need to be realistic of the facts. Sensei has closed his dojo. He no longer teaches. Continuing on my journey with him would be contingent on conditions I may not be able to meet. But you can’t keep a good karateka down. It’ll be interesting to see where life takes me, in this respect. ☯
Last autumn, I decided to step up my at-home karate game by making and installing my own makiwara. You can read the post here, but I have to say that I was pretty proud of the accomplishment and I did get SOME use out of it before the winter hit and training outside was no longer optimal. My son Nathan was quite helpful with drilling the holes and installing the bolts that hold the 2×4 wooden planks together, as well as binding the cord and making it stable. Although many makiwaras are floor-mounted, I had no such place to appropriately install one. So Nathan and I dug a 3-foot deep hole at the corner of our backyard and placed the post into the hole, filling it with dirt and yellow clay.
In case you haven’t read the previous post (or any of the others where I’ve used the term makiwara), a makiwara is a hard, stable striking surface that’s usually made of wood. Depending on your style, background and training methods, they usually have a pad or designated striking area. In Okinawa, they usually scoff at the use of padding with preference for striking the bare, wooden surface. If you’ve ever seen photos of an Okinawan karate master’s knuckles, you know why this can be a problem. I built mine so that the top, striking area is wrapped in nylon cord. This allows for a harder striking surface than a punching bag, while preserving some of the bone structure in my hand.
The results of my punches!
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I was in the middle of a rather spirited boxing circuit in my garage. It involved a full minute on the punching bag followed by 45 seconds on the makiwara. That was one set. I did this for 30 minutes in total with no breaks in between. Somewhere around the 15-minute mark, I was striking the makiwara and the entire post shifted sideways and the dirt and founding around the bottom collapsed. The next couple of punches basically had the makiwara bouncing up and down as I struck. I had uprooted my homemade striking post. It was now useless.
Strength depends on the foundation.
Because I’m not a big of giving up, I put some thought into how I could repair it and ensure the same thing wouldn’t happen again. Just to be clear, I’m no Hercules. I have no illusions that my strikes are so powerful that nothing can withstand them. But even though water is the softest stuff in the world, single drops will eventually penetrate stone, if continued on a consistent basis. I had to recognize that prolonged use of the makiwara would always result in some level of damage, in the long term. The question was how to prolong its existence.
Nathan and I went to a home improvement store and purchased a bag of “Post Haste” concrete. Basically, this stuff is designed to harden and set within half an hour. Perfect. We followed up with a trip to our local dollar store and bought a plastic, 10-galloon bucket to mix the concrete in. $8 for the concrete and $4 for the bucket. Probably one of my cheapest repair projects. We were good to go. Nathan was excited and was itching to help me repair the makiwara and wanted to be involved in all the steps. Great.
The stuff!
I started by removing the makiwara, which unfortunately came out of the ground far too easily. This spoke to how unstable I had it, in the first place. I then used a shovel to scoop out the excess dirt and yellow clay and set it aside. I followed the instructions on the bag and placed two litres of clean water in my bucket, followed by emptying the contents of the concrete bag into the water. I was surprised that the water came to the surface, displaced by the density of the cement powder. I used an old wooden staff to start mixing the concrete.
Nathan measuring exactly 2 litres as per instructions. See, men CAN follow instructions!
It was tougher than I thought and it started getting too dense to move the stick. I had Nathan add a bit of water to help with consistency but when the stick came free and moved, I splashed myself with concrete. All over my left leg and all on and in my sneaker. Bloody marvellous. I would need to hose all of that off before going inside, as I really didn’t want to try running concrete through my washing machine. It gave Nathan a laugh though, who was quick to comment, “Haha, Daddy messed up…” He’s such a GREAT helper!
Nothing like cement all over oneself to add to the weight of the world…
Now that I had it mixed at least to some level of consistency I felt would work, I had Nathan hold the post wile I poured the cement mixture all around the post into the hole. It was rough going and didn’t pour nicely since it was so thick. I had to scoop it out with a small dowel and pat it down to ensure that it filled all the cracks and crevices within the hole. It also didn’t help that Nathan’s idea of holding the post steady included allowing it to slip at an angle every few moments. Kids…
Set in stone.
Once I managed to get the concrete poured properly, the hole was filled almost to the top, which would be topped off with yellow clay at a later time once the concrete cured completely. Within about five minutes, the concrete had set and hardened enough that the post could stand on its own without being held. Despite having made a mess with the water and splashing myself with concrete, I had managed to repair the makiwara and it would only require some quick finishing touches once the concrete finished setting the following day.
The finished repair!
As of yesterday, the makiwara seemed to be firmly in place, with the concrete doing its job and holding it strongly. I added the bracing to the rear and replaced the yellow clay over top the concrete. Although I have my eye injections today and didn’t have time to test it out, I can’t wait to reef on this bad boy and see how strong it’s become. At just $12, it was a much cheaper alternative than finding a different means of striking a stable surface. Only time will tell how long the repair, or the makiwara, will last. ☯
I’m not going to lie… I’m stoked for the continuation of this Netflix series! When YouTube first released Cobra kai, a continuation series based on 1984’s the Karate Kid, ill admit that I was a bit sceptical. I was even more irked by the fact that if they were going to release a series picking up 30-odd years after the fact, that they’d focus on Johnny Lawrence as opposed to Daniel Larusso. Those fears were quickly put to rest with the inclusion of both characters.
Cobrai Kai focuses on showing how during the original film, Johnny was at the top of his game, winning trophies, being an alpha dog while Daniel was a down-on-his-luck new kid who unfortunately crossed paths with Johnny and paid a physical price. This is where Mr. Miyagi comes in and trains Daniel in the way of karate so that he can go on to the All Valley tournament and win against Johnny, albeit with an illegal kick to the face that even i didn’t agree with. but it’s all in good-natured 80’s fun, so it works.
Some three decades later, Johnny is seen as single, having fathered one estranged son, living within limited means and down on his luck, while Daniel is the owner of a multi-location car dealership franchise, appears to be wealthy and is happy in a successful marriage with a teenage daughter and young son. The first couple of seasons focus on Johnny reopening the Cobra Kai dojo and beginning to teach students, which prompts Daniel to do the same.
The end of Season 2 shows both dojos coming to a head as their students square off against one another in school and a non-literal bloodbath ensues, with one of the main protagonist characters becoming severely injured. Season sees both dojos come together against a common enemy from the past (I’m trying not to provide TOO many spoilers) and combining their students into a singular class. The upcoming Season promises the return of a key character from The Karate Kid III, which although not universally well-received, I thought stood well on it’s own merit.
The Karate Kid III saw Daniel continue his karate training with Mr. Miyagi while facing a new opponent who forces him to defend his title in the All Valley tournament. It shows the return of John Kreese as Johnny Lawrence’s disgraced Sensei and a new character, Terry Silver, as the antagonist of the entire ordeal. It’s an inspirational movie that sits well with me, from a martial artist’s standpoint. Season 4 of Cobrai Kai will apparently see the return of Terry Silver.
I know that I usually try to focus my posts on informational content, but the nerdy boy in me can’t help but write about this. I grew up on the Karate kid movies (as well as the ill-fated and ill-received Karate kid Animated series, which only ran for 13 episodes after The Karate Kid III) and absolutely love how Cobra Kai allows me to dip my toe in the waters of nostalgia. It also provides that minty hint of inspiration to continue working hard at my own martial arts training, especially since one of the main characters, played by Mary Mouser is Type-1 Diabetic and uses an insulin pump. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend it. ☯
I decided to put out a brief video clip of my two boys, imitating their daddy! The first part is Nathan, doing a horse stance with a double-handed downward strike. The second part is Alexander having a pretty fair go at the punching bag after watching me on it for about 30 minutes. What’s interesting is that both boys were just a bit older than 1-year old in their respective clips, and I never formally taught them any of what’s seen in the video. It just goes to show that some skills can be inherent. ☯
One of the better aspects of returning to social media, is the fact that I’ve had the opportunity to reconnect with some friends I’ve been out of touch with for decades. Considering the fact that I graduated from high school twenty five years ago, it’s no surprise to learn that many of us have changed and taken a direction in life that may not have been assumed, at the time. One of those people has a tendency of sharing little nuggets of wisdom and motivation on his Facebook feed, and I wanted to share one of them with you, today. I don’t know what his source was, and it’s translated from French, so bear with me…
Life is like a camera… ZOOM in on what’s important… CAPTURE the food moments… DEVELOP the best ones and DELETE the rest! If you don’t get the results you wanted or wished for, RELOAD and RESHOOT.
I felt the comparison, as well as the thought behind this was nice. I feel it sends the message that although there’s good and bad in life, it’s important to acknowledge that you should focus on the good and capture those moments that make you happy. I don’t know, maybe I’m just feeling wistful today. Happy Saturday, everyone! ☯
I like to think that I’m pretty good at paying attention to detail. After all, my professional livelihood has always depended on that very skill, so I usually make a point of noticing things even before I technically need to. However, something seems to have happened that I wasn’t even aware of. I appear to have exceeded 300 followers! I’m sitting at 303, to be exact.
When I started authoring this blog, I did so for two reasons:
To share pertinent information about Buddhism, Diabetes, Martial Arts as well as Health&Fitness as I knew of it; and
To grow my ability to write, research and express myself.
I like to think that I’ve easily accomplished those two goals. In the past two and half years, I’ve met some amazing people who write some amazing blogs. I’ve made contacts and helped to share the knowledge I’ve gathered from 38 years of managing Type-1 Diabetes and 32 years of studying Buddhism and karate (although the Buddhist aspect didn’t come along until a few years AFTER I started karate). It’s been an amazing and in fact, and unexpected pleasure in my daily life to start authoring this blog. And now that I’ve started, I don’t expect I’ll ever stop. It’s just too much fun and I find myself unable to shut up, so it works for me.
A big thanks for everyone who reads, comments and enjoys my blog. You keep reading them, I’ll keep writing them. And yes, I’m well aware that “300” is not a number worthy of celebration. But if it was enough for the Spartans to hold off the Persians (albeit temporarily), I’m comfortable knowing I already have an army behind me to keep this thing going. ☯
Happy “May The Fourth,” everybody! And may the Force be with you! It’s no secret that I’ve long considered myself to be a nerd. And proud of it, for that matter. I think there’s a lot to be said for enjoying and finding inspiration in fantasy, science fiction and make-believe. And I’m one of the more hybrid fans, who won’t subscribe to a specific “camp.” What I mean by this, is that I’m a huge fan of Star Wars, Star Trek and all the other brands of fantasy and fiction including J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan, Brian Keene and Lee Child.
I spent the majority of my childhood, immersed in books. I escaped the cruel world of Diabetes, hospitals and illness by walking the road to Mordor with Frodo, travelling the stars with Captain James T. Kirk (and later Jean-Luc Picard) and learning about the One Power with Rand Al’Thor (That’s the Wheel of Time series, for you muggles!) What was particular and special is that Diabetes didn’t seem to exist in these worlds, which as a child, was one of the most appealing aspects of it. That, and a genuine love of reading kept me occupied whenever I wasn’t in karate class or studying.
Star Wars Day, or May the Fourth, started in 2011 as a way for fans to celebrate, well… Star Wars. Ironically, George Lucas had nothing to do with creating the so-called holiday but has since embraced it. I grew up on the original trilogy (Episodes IV, V and VI) and absolutely loved the use of a light sabre. It was actually one of the inspirational thoughts behind my study of Kendo. And there’s no denying that Jedi robes can easily be seen as something akin to a martial arts uniform. The Jedi Temple very much resembles a monastery, especially since they refer to themselves as the “Jedi Order.”
I know that not everyone has been a fan of the prequel trilogy or the newly-minted closing chapters of the Skywalker Saga (Episodes VII, VIII and IX), but I’ve loved and enjoyed every one of the movies, television shows and spin-offs. Except for Solo. That was a poorly-filmed piece of shit that cost me time I’ll never get back. But that’s just an opinion. I think that everything before, during and after the original movies painted a fantastic saga, and the books are even better. For example, I’ve read a book trilogy from the Old Republic days about the rise of Darth Bane and how he developed the “Rule of Two,” where there are only ever two Sith: A master and an apprentice.
I sincerely love that over four decades after the first movie was released, Star Wars is still hammering along has continued to the next generation of viewership and is adding more depth to the story. I’ve recently started watching The Mandalorian and it’s quite good. There are more plans in the works for different shows and features as well, and this nerd couldn’t be happier. Never discount a bit of sci-fi and fantasy. A touch of imagination and indulgence can go a long, long way. One might even say it can transport your imagination to a galaxy far, far away… ☯
When I was a child, my father and I sat through the original Christopher Reeve Superman movies. That’s plural, because by the time I actually sat down to watch them, I was about the same age as Nathan and they had just released Superman III, with the original Superman movie being released a few months after I was born. Now that I’ve effectively deepened my legendary status in nerdom and properly aged myself, I do have a point…
As long as he behaves himself, Friday nights are usually the evenings I spend with Nathan. My wife generally takes advantage to try and get some extra work in so that she can have her weekend, so Nathan and I will usually watch a movie, crash on the living room floor with sleeping bags and enjoy some snacks. As I mentioned, it’s all contingent on him behaving himself throughout the day. But everything had gone reasonably well yesterday, so we sat down on the couch and discussed what movie we would watch.
Much like the joke about couples never being able to pick a restaurant, Nathan is notorious for never making a choice but declining any offers I make. Last night, I asked if he’d like to watch a Superman movie. He nodded enthusiastically and I started to search my streaming services for one we could watch together. None of the original Christopher Reeve movies were available, so I opted for 2013’s Man of Steel.
Comparatively much more violent than the originals, considering the actual fights, punching and battles scenes involved, some may argue that such a movie wasn’t the most appropriate for a 6-year old. But I was then caught by surprise as Nathan learned a significant number of important lessons throughout the movie. And I’m going to share those lessons with you now. I should probably point out that sitting through an entire movie is something of an amazing accomplishment for Nathan. So, there’s that. Moving on…
If you’ve never watched Man of Steel, proceed at your own risk, as there will be spoilers. That being said, I have a great appreciation for the movie, since it steers away from the typical depiction of the all-powerful and invulnerable Superman in favour of a hero who actually feels and who can be affected/harmed by significant opposition. The movie starts by showing the birth of Kal’El, followed by his being sent out amongst the stars by his parents before the total destruction of Krypton. Although any Superman fan is well aware of Krypton’s destruction, it made for an interesting piece of the story to actually SEE some of the storyline, rather than the typical movie with the red and blue suit stepping into the frame within the first fifteen minutes.
As Superman’s parents place him in the rocket and say their heartfelt goodbyes, I glanced over at Nathan and noticed he was red-faced, red-eyed and had a single, fat tear rolling down his cheek. I asked him if he was alright and why he was crying. he responded, “I’m sad…” When I asked him why he was sad, he explained that those parents had to send their baby away and they would never get to see him again. He also pointed out that the baby would never get to know his parents. I was caught off guard with the emotional and mature response he provided. I don’t mind saying that it was extremely uncharacteristic of him.
As the movie progressed, there are a couple of scenes that reached Nathan and we discussed them. The first was when Clark Kent is working in a truck stop restaurant as a bus boy and tries to intervene against a trucker who’s harassing a female waitress. When the trucker confronts him, Clark chooses to walk away. Nathan asked why Clark didn’t just beat him up, as he was obviously stronger than the trucker. This gave us the opportunity to have a talk about how just because you’re stronger than someone else, doesn’t mean you should exercise that strength against them.
The next scene came when we flash back to Clark’s teen years and he gets shoved to the ground and taunted by a group of bullies. Clark sits there and ignores their taunts until they depart. He’s helped to his feet by another classmate and as he releases the steel post he was braced against, we see Clark’s hand has imprinted on the steel. Nathan was blown away at the level of strength and asked why Clark wouldn’t fight back and beat up the boys, since they started it and he should defend himself. I explained that Clark showed restraint, which can often be a more valuable quality than a show of force. Especially in light of the fact that he managed to de-escalate the situation by avoiding a fight.
There were a number of other scenes but honestly, I’ve made this post long enough at this point. I often say that knowledge and wisdom can come form the most unlikely sources, and last night effectively proved that point. What started out as an evening of movie-watching fun proved to be an evening of important life-lessons for my young son. We still had fun and enjoyed the movie, but a little growing was done at the same time. Not too shabby, for a Friday night… ☯
The Blogging Buddhist 