Back to basics

8 months ago, I came home from my 2,5 month long stay in Japan. It was a life changing travel in many ways. Some people might call it a life crisis, I call it necessary development and change. I experienced a lot and among the best things was that had the opportunity to train enough to start finding my path in the Bujinkan.

I would say I've spent my time well, after coming home. I've been working hard in my dojo, at seminars, at home and in my mind to figure out what I actually learned and what I want to work with.
Slowly the picture becomes clearer.

One of the many things I've noticed for a long time now is that most of us (including my self) aren't strong enough to be able to do the basic kamae, ukemi, throws and so on. We don't have the core, the legs, the over all structure to do it in a good and safe way, that wont hurt us or our partners. Sometimes there's the more direct risk of injury in training, but most of the time it's more about repetitive bad movements that will slowly break down our joints and ligaments. Which in the long run can give you an aching back, hips, knees, shoulders or neck.
I say we need to go back to the basics before the basics, how to strengthen and take care of your body, junan taiso, body conditioning.
Many people I've met in the Bujinkan have told me you shouldn't waste time on work out at classes, that's something that people should do on their own. But I beg do differ. You can make good, tiring exercises for your whole body by using the basic kamae, keri, ken, ukemi, kiten and so on. In that way you'll get both the basic Bujinkan training and get strong, win-win!
A basic jodan uke, in low kamae, repeated x times and done correctly will make your legs tired. Working on different punch and kick combinations with your partner being active and including dodging attacks will make you tired after only 10 minutes if you keep the tempo up.
Or do mat wrestling for a minute or two, phew!
Slow backward rolls, only putting your toes down and rolling back up to sitting again with good control and without putting your feet down in between and then repeating that on the other side for a bunch of times will make your stomach hurt, I promise you! 
Try to do headstands for a couple of minutes, and work on lifting and lowering you straight legs from the hips and keeping your balance. It's an excellent core exercise, that gives you a good understanding and control of your pelvis. Working your way from head stands, to a bridge and after a while to full head flips gives you even better body control and you feel stronger and it also builds your confidence, when showing your self what you can learn with continuous training.
There are thousands of ways you can use the basic Bujinkan training and make it to really heavy exercises that will make you stronger and more flexible.
And we need that! We need to be strong and have flexible, agile bodies.

Look at Hatsumi sensei or any of the Japanese shihans. All of them are still strong and agile, imagine how strong they must've been 40 years ago! If you want your body to be able to continue with this training for many years still, you need to condition it, in whatever way you can!
Remember, we're training a martial art, and if you want to be able to fight, your body must be tough, you need to be able to endure/persevere  and you should feel confident in that it will respond in the way you want it to. You should know it with all it's good sides and weak points.
If you get injured or become sick, a strong, conditioned body will heal much faster than a weak one. You'll naturally know what you need to do to heal. The risk for injuries lowers when you have knowledge about your body, you will naturally protect your self.

As always, it's up to each one of us to take responsibility for our training and make sure we do everything we can to grow stronger in every way possible, so we can continue to spread the wonderful knowledge that so gracefully has been past on to us from Soke and his predecessors.
Be grateful and proud of the heritage and make sure to keep it as the strong, beautiful and lively martial art it is!

Work the magic into your life!

Three weeks ago I started reading and working with "the Magic". Maybe some of you know about it already or has heard about it's predecessor, "the Secret".

The Magic lies in being grateful. Grateful for all the things you have in life. And by being grateful for all that you have you'll open up to see new ways and possibilities and you'll get even more to be grateful for, and so on. A positive spiral.
Maybe you think as I did when I first read it, "well, how can me being grateful for things actually make any difference in my life?".
Or maybe you think you don't have anything to be grateful for?

I can tell you there are thousands of things in your daily life that you can be grateful for! Even if you have problems in your relations, have a hard time at work or are unemployed, if you are out of money and in debt, having health problems or whatever it might be, that you don't feel good about.
I promise you, if you start looking for the little things you actually have to be happy about, you'll find more and more things and opportunities will come up, that you might had overlooked otherwise.

For instance, just think about your body. You reading this means you have eyes that can read and take in what happens in the world around you, that's something to be grateful of! Your eyes keep seeing things for you all day long, working perfectly without you needing to think about it.
If you found this webpage you must have typed in the address or clicked your way here. That means you have hands that can do that. You have the coordination to type and click, and probably you don't have to think about it, it just happens! That's something to be grateful for, a pair of hands that do most of the things you want them to do, without you needing to think about it every time. And you can learn to do new things and get really agile if you practice! Amazing!
Another thing that keeps you going through every day is your heart. Have you ever thought about how wonderful and amazing your heart is? Beating about 60 times/min or faster all the time, all through your life. It just keeps going and you can run, jump, sleep, drive your car, laugh with friends and it'll just keep going, at the speed needed. Without you ever having to think about it. That's really something to be grateful for!

You see, we could go on for ever, just going through all the parts of the body would make a really long post. You get the idea, don't you? You start looking for the little things, and as you keep going you'll find more and more things to be grateful for.
Do the same thing with a relationship you feel is troublesome, or if you have money problems. Start being grateful for what you actually have, and your mind will open up for other things around you that is good. If you focus on the good things about a person, next time you'll meet them you'll have a more positive attitude and that will change how you interact in a positive way, which gives the relationship a chance of becoming better.
It's based on the law of attraction. You'll get more of what you surround your self with. If you feel frustrated or sad for the things that aren't working for you in your life, you'll attract more frustration and sadness.
If you focus on the parts of your life that are working and feel truly grateful for them, you'll see that more good things will come in your way.

Does it sound stupid or naive?
I thought so from the beginning, but decided to try it fully and put my heart into it. And I can tell you that the work has payed off! By focusing on the good things in my life I feel I'm becoming more positive as a person and small little things that makes my life a little easier happens every day. My relationships start to get better, when I'm focusing on the good parts of every person and feel grateful for having them in my life.

If I can do it, I'm sure anyone can do it, work their way to have more magic in their lives!

Cupcakes!

 My first attempt at baking LCHF. I found the recipe in a magazine that my sister borrowed me. It's called a devil´s cupcake, and you who live in the states maybe recognizes the name. It's a modified recipe for Devil's cake, which I never have had the opportunity to taste.

"Well, what's so special about these cupcakes then?" you can't help to wonder. There's no sugar and no wheat flour put into them. Instead I've been using coconut and almond flour and some Stevia (a natural herb that's so sweet it almost hurts when you try to taste just a pinch) for sweetening it.

They taste really good! I'm happy of the good result, since it was my first try. Of course you find little things that can be improved, so next time I plan on making them deceivingly delicious! ^ ^

The dough

In the making

A little naked

All done!

Yeah, it looks like someone poo-ed on them, they don't taste that way though. :)

 

Chocolate - gold for you palate and body!

Today I went to a chocolate tasting with one of my friends. I had some ideas of what it would be like.
Someone presenting a couple of expensive chocolates and talk about the different tastes and how to best combine them with wine, beer or coffee.
It was nothing like that!

An enormously boring man in his late 60´s was going on and on about everything from how the beans are grown, it's history to the chemistry and mechanical details of how it's made in the chocolate factories (not a bit like Karl and the chocolate factory, I'm afraid).
The contents of the lecture was actually interesting, but the guy... come on! A recording would've been more fun, then you wouldn't feel obligated to try to look interested.  Phew!

Anyhow. We got to taste a couple of different chocolates and pralines. I found a new favourite; "Michel Cluizel - Vila Gracinda". It´s made of a bean called "Trinitario" and had a interesting, burnt/smoked taste that I really liked.
In my opinion chocolates should have little bit of character.

Cocoa fruit.

Some chocolate facts:

The beans are actually the seeds of the cocoa fruit. The flowers grow straight from the stem, just as the fruits do later on, a bit different from our apples and pears.
When they are fully grown they are harvested and the beans and the meat is taken out and fermented for a couple of days, up to a week, depending on the climate. This makes the fruit meat around the beans to evaporate and the beans can then be dried for another couple of days, this is when they attain their brown color.
Most of the beans are grown in the African countries around the equator. The bean originates from South America, where the conquistadors "found it" and spread it over the world.
According to old scriptures the Indians in South America used it as a nutrient dense beverage and it was considered very valuable.

The beans are transported and sold to the different chocolate makers all over the world. There the beans are processed in different ways. The beans are grinded to get the cocoa mass. When the cocoa mass is pressurized the cocoa and the fat separates and you get cocoa powder and cocoa butter, which then can be used in different ways.

There are essentially three groups in which all cocoa beans are categorized into.

• Forastero - which is the most common one. It has a soft and a bit bitter taste with fruity, and acid tones.
• Criollo - considered a bit finer than the Forastero. It's taste is soft and balanced, with tones of tree, nuts and spices.
• Trinitario - which actually is a crossing of the two above, and it's originally from Trinidad, as the name suggests. It has a deep and complex aroma with some tones of exotic fruits, roasted coffee and tobacco.

• Dark chocolate is made of cocoa mass, has no milk in it, and can contain cocoa butter.
• Milk chocolate contains milk, cocoa butter, more sugar and less cocoa mass than dark chocolate.
• White chocolate consists of the cocoa butter and sugar, no cocoa mass.

The best part of chocolate is that it's really good for you!
It contains a lot of good fats, like stearic acid and oleic acid, which both are good for raising your HDL (aka the good cholesterol) and lowering your LDL (aka the bad cholesterol) levels. It also contains antioxidants, copper, niacin (vitamin B3) and theobromine, which has similar effects as caffeine. (Don't eat chocolate to late in the evenings, LOL).
And it tastes good, of course.

I would recommend finding a dark chocolate with a high cocoa content and as little sugar as possible to get all the benefits from the cocoa, but not having to deal with all the effects of the sugar. I've found that you get used to the bitterness of the chocolate with time and after a while it's impossible to go back to the lighter ones with a higher sugar content, they get to sweet!
Here's a couple of suggestions:

Michel Cluizel - Vila Gracinda

Zotter - Laboko 80 %

One of my favourites from this maker!

Kamae and distance, waiting for the right time.

<p>These last six months have been filled with travels, both in the geographical and philosophical sense. <br>
The extensive training in Japan this spring brought with it an awakening and a starting point for a new direction of my development. I finally realized that I'm the only one putting up boundaries in my life. <br>
My weeks in Santa Cruz, having the great honor and pleasure to train in Mark's dojo, boosted my already firm belief in the need to get out of old habits. <br>
The difficult part now is to find out in which direction I want to go. Suddenly many different paths revealed them selves. I feel the important thing is not to rush anything. With the experience from training and my last six months, I know there'll come a time when the right way will show it self. I've learned that, by opening up and tuning into the world, the opportunities will come to me and I will know when it's time to make a decision. <br>
Until then I persevere, happily-in an almost zen-like state of being. Maybe starting to understand the words Nagato sensei used quite often during his classes this spring. </p>

Nikko 2012-05-12

I just emptied my flash card on my camera and found all these pictures from when I was in Nikko two weeks ago.
On my way back from Misawa I met two American guys that were headed for the same destination as me. We ended up talking all the way down to Tokyo and it came up that they had made plans to go to Nikko the day after. Since we got along so well I asked to come along and they warmly welcomed me.
We exchanged phone numbers, and the day after we met up at the Asakusa station. Two of their friends also came along, so we were a neat little group of five people making the day trip to Nikko.
Nikko is a world heritage site, located  north of Tokyo 2 hours by train. They also have a Edo world experience place and beautiful walking tracks, spiralling the mountains, going by the lakes and through the woods.
We bought the tickets for the heritage sites, so our hours were spent walking in the wonderful nature, looking at shrines of all kinds! It was an enjoyable experience, I really liked the atmosphere of this place.
One day I will go back and stay a night, do some more hiking, enjoying the nature and also take the chance to go to the Edo village. I've heard rumours of the possibility to be dressed up in clothes from that era and go into a given roll, maybe be a samurai or a geisha? :) Seems to be a cool place.

Anyhow, here is some pictures for you!

The train that took us to Nikko. Like stepping into the 60's :)

Hear no evil, talk no evil, see no evil.

The famous bridge!

The guys I met the day before.

And their friends that I got to know! Thanks you guys for a nice day!

Tattoos!

Two nights ago I went to the Foreign Correspondets' club of Japan and visited their tattoo night. What an experience!
It started out with Horiyoshi III, the irezumi (japanes tattoo art) sensei, talking about the history of Japanese tattoing and then his deshi (students), Matti Sedholm (swe) and Alex Reinke (uk) telling us how they got into the art.
Four guys and two girls then showed us their wonderful tattoos and there was a brief explanation on what the story on their bodies was thought to be. Each full body tattoo describes a story, really beautiful and special. The cool thing is that you wont see anything of their tattoos when they put pants and a long sleeved shirt on! :)

The whole thing ended with Horiyoshi actually tattooing one of the girls! Live, in the room! Doing it by hand. Cool! Unfortunately, my camera battery was out of charge, so I couldn't take any pictures or videos of it. Hopefully I'll get some pictures from one of my friends, I'll be sure to post them!

Here are some pictures, enjoy!

The guy talking did his body suit in 2 years!

Work in progress.

It's about time for me to update this place, isn't it!
I've been around the northern parts of Japan last week, tried out Sapporo for a change. It's now one of my favourite places in Japan! Loved the atmosphere of the town and it offers beautiful nature and a lot of good food. I really recommend the "soupu kare, it's delicious!

Nomnomnom! ;)

Finally got to buy my own Tsugaru Shamisen from the one and only Masahiro Nitta! I bought his old one, that he used to play on a couple of years ago. It has a nice sound to it. Got a CD where he's playing on my shamisen, hopefully I will sound that good one day! ;) Look him up on YouTube, he's awesome!

This is what it looks like. (Sorry for the bad resolution.)

Also had the opportunity to hang out with some Bujinkan friends up north, nice to be able to keep up the training while travelling!

Yesterday I met up with two of my friends from Sweden, who are here visiting for a little more than a week. One of my Japanese friends also came, she works in the same field as one of the Swedes so I thought it would be a good idea to hook them up with each other. :)
We met up in Harajuku with the intention to see some Cosplay. Sadly we were to late, so no Alice in wonderland dresses or Naruto costumes. Instead we took a walk in Yoyogi koen, to Meiji jingu and took a look around. Mildly bored on our way back we suddenly heard the sound of hard core music drifting in the wind, me and my Swedish friends looked at each other. What is this? A party going on somewhere?
We made it a mission to find out where it came from and if we maybe could join in. :)

We quickly made it out of Yoyogi koen and ventured in the direction of the sound, away from Harjuku station. After a couple of minutes we stepped in to another part of the park, walking directly into a bunch of Japanese rockabilly guys, giving it all to the rock 'n roll they were playing from broken speakers. It was such an unexpected thing to see that we stood staring at them for almost ten minutes. :)

In action!

Damn right! Greasing the road!

This part of the park was really nice, filled with green lawns, fluffy trees and lots of young Japanese hanging out, having picnics, playing games with each other or letting out their creativity in different ways. Strolling around we bumped into a group of people playing African drums and dancing to the rhythm. The drummers and some of the dancers interacted in a really cool way, improvising together. Check out the video!

After recording and looking at the joy the dancers were moving with and the smiles at the musicians faces I couldn't help my self and went for a minute of African rhythms. So fun!

Continuing into the park we finally could solve the mystery of the hard core rythms! Just outside the park, on the road near the pavement stood a small truck, loaded with speakers and a mixer board. There, parked on the road, at the sidewalk, the DJ had decided he should play. He boosted out his love for the music with proud! A couple of people were dancing just in front of the car, otherwise people just passed by. Sooo random, so strange and so much Tokyo! Everything, anything can happen! 


While going into the park again I walked into two Swedish friends that I haven't seen for almost a year. The world suddenly shrank and went into mini-mode! You just don't walk into Swedish people you know in a park in Tokyo, it's not supposed to happen! What a crazy day!

A little further into the park, a group of people were practising their salsa skills. So much going on at this place! Super cool!

 

This park is now officially my favourite place to be in Tokyo! Next year I'll bring my Shamisen and any friend that wants to join and sit here and play! The best place to be for creativity, friendship and joy.

Here's some pictures from the place:  

To make the day even better and a little more strange we stepped into a Jamaican festival on our way back to Harajuku station. Lots of little shops and booths selling food and a diverse variety of rasta farai, boheme and you name it clothing. Also a couple of places selling vinyls and a live band playing Ska/reggae. By this time we were already filled with the discoveries of the day, so we quickly sneaked out from the stalls and went for some well deserved beer and dinner!

On our way back I found some nice street art on the doors of the closed shops. Aren't they nice!?

And here we are, all four of us. Tired and happy after a great day with all the fun and crazy things Tokyo has to offer. We sure missed the Cosplay, but found more than enough to make up for it! :)

A whole new world!

The last two weeks have been so wonderfully different from all my other experiences in Japan. I followed my friend up north to Aomori and the shamisen tournaments that took place in Hirosaki. I've been hanging with my friend and his shamisen sensei, trying to get as much knowledge as possible in this new field.
It was really interesting to go to the two day long tournament in Hirosaki and see what makes the difference between a beginner and a experienced shamisen player. The sounds of the shamisen is really cool, there is the sounds of the three strings, the sounds of the bachi hitting the skin or the wood, a klicking noise from the strings against the bachi and then also the whole spectrum of loudness. The shamisen sure can be loud! :D

Lot's of shamisen players, practising for their performance.

I've also had the opportunity to start taking lessons from my friend and his sensei. I really enjoy playing this instrument and it seems I have some kind of talent for it. I've decided to keep playing and I'm going to buy my self one before I leave Japan. Next year I'll be participating in the tournaments! That's so exciting!

The tournament took place in Hirosaki koen, a beatiful park surrounding a small castle. Luckily the cherry blossoms had just started blooming here in the north, so I've had my second hanami experience!

Hanami in Hirosaki koen.

The drive to Hirosaki from Misawa was also an adventure. We took the mountain route and really had some beautiful views on the way. Northern Japan is so different from the southern parts I've visited so far. So much nature, I love it!

On our way to Hirosaki

The last four days have been full of shamisen practice, the making of new videos for my friends website www.bachido.com and also going through the curriculum that my friends dojo uses for their kyugrades, since I'm planning to make use of that curriculum for my own dojo. So a good deal of Bujinkan training has been done too! A perfect match, both musical and martial rhythms in my life!

Ja ne!