Meanwhile, in Japan

One of the reasons that I moved to Japan is the wealth of knowledgeable trainers. Not that there aren’t many excellent instructors in the States (on the contrary; I believe that the U.S., as a whole, has the best training in the world), but I’m from the Midwest where serious martial artists are largely out of luck unless your bag is strip mall tae kwon do. Japan is interesting to that end because, per capita, people here don’t participate in such activities as much as Americans. The people who do train, though, are often very dedicated. As one drunken Aikikai member told me on a train some time ago, “Aikido is my life.”

So that’s where I stand at the moment. If you’d like to read some of my ruminations on the martial arts and Ways, just click here.

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