The New Hope

Almost exactly 4 years since the last entry, I went for a class in my new school, one mentioned previously: Fudo Myou Dojo. I am not entirely clear how Yamaneko comes into the picture: is this a parent school? Anyway, it is a Bujinkan school.

The class itself it was quite a disaster. For the warm-up, the heart rate goes up and blood vessels expand, but as we move on, the rate collapses, and so does the blood pressure. If I keep standing, it ends in blackout. So, I spent most of the class laying on the ground, where sensei placed me.

What to do? Training, I suppose. I know from experience that typicall conditioning helps very little, because it focuses on handling the exertion. But my problem is what happens thereafter. But perhaps something may be found.

Adventures on the Internet

Now that I am in Albuquerque, I am searching for a school. But the first thing I've done was to look up Tracy at Networker. Surprise, we have a virtual dojo: Tracy Bujinkan Buyu Dojo ran by Mr. Jim Kruse. And they meet at my old school, Traditional Martial Arts. What's more, Mr. Albracht is one of the instructors in Buyu. I saw Mr. Kruse many times, giving mysterious classes which were never on the schedule or talked about. Now I know.

The only entry at WIN for Albuquerque is Fudo Myo Dojo, ran by Mr. Domonic Lees. It is also a virtual dojo, meeting at a local community center.

General search unearthes a number of references, the most prominent is Jubunnaai. Their blog wasn't updated since December of 2007, but it's not like this blog sees regular updates. Mr. Lees trained with Jubunnaai before he founded Fudo Myo.

Orange belt and other news

I tested for orange belt. I had to go alone, because I was out of town on the normal testing date and Mr. Albracht allowed me to test slightly later instead of skipping the whole cycle. I'm gratious for that, although I know already that ultimately I won't be graduating due to impeding relocation.

Curtiss is back, which is nice. I was concerned that he'd quit or at least drops out for a while due to foot injury.

Chanbara (softsword)

I saw this attendees of anime convention hitting each other with padded sticks before. The excercise was somewhat ritualized, but otherwise looked like something silly anime fans would do. Imagine my surprise when we did it today in the dojo.

Apparently, chanbara has its own international association, and is wildly popular in Japan (or at least used to be). Of course, there are rules and all the rest.

Curiously, "chanbara" is written with no kanji.

Saturday

Saturday class is the best. It's very nearly the individual class for the same money.

Also, made it to class 3 times this week.

Test is announced

Mr. A. announced today that we're having a test on Friday 3/28. Unfortunately, I am out of town on that date. It may be something I can do a little earlier, probably (actually, I talked to Mr. A about it).

I really need to get things together now.

Class 2008/01/23

Good warm-up and conditioning with 200 jumping jacks (although no push-ups). Then, it was iaido basics. I am not very interested in iaido, but it's a part of our curriculum, so I have to do my best.

The shaking off blood is a curious thing. Mr. Albrecht calls it "chiburi", e.g. 血振り. So, we have smaller chiburi, big chiburi, etc. But the dictionary calls the process "chiburui" (血振るい), the action is "chiburui suru", and the phrase is "katana no chiburui wo suru" (刀の知振るいをする). So, "chiburi" is basically a slang, like "memo" and "info" in English, although if Dr. Hatsumi says it that way, that's how it is.