“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers”1 Study, practice, research, and then study, practice, research, and so on over and over again. Holy cow, it’s practically a job! But we just want to have fun! It sure is a job for many of us. It is a profession with which we pay rent […]
“I can resist everything except temptation.”1 Japan, Edo period. Two samurai cross as they walk down a country road, look at each other and, in less than a second, draw their swords and start a duel in which one or both of them die. This is what we imagine would happen in those times and circumstances, thanks
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“They’re coming outta the goddamn walls”1 Japan. The train moved fast, cutting through what were once farmlands and were now transformed into a long line of personality-less buildings linking Narita Airport to Tokyo Station. The black rain-laden clouds of a wet October contrasted with the emerald green rice fields that still resisted the modernizing fury
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Namely the effectiveness of martial arts I have always been a fan of comic books and, like all fans, I have experienced various phases of interest in it. Thanks to the fact that my father was too, the items in our house were never lacking, and I could easily range from comics suitable for my
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“There are more things in Heaven and Earth…”1 I fell in love with Japan and the Japanese sword as a child, watching a movie on television, Sydney Pollack’s “The Yakuza”2 with Takakura Ken and Robert Mitchum. The film had all the ingredients to fascinate: it was about honor, love, duty, betrayal, yakuza, there was a lot
Suntory Time “The Japanese language can express anything it needs to, but Japanese social norms often require people to express themselves indirectly or incompletely.”1 Who does not remember Bill Murray’s estrangement, as he tried to understand the director’s directions on the set of the Suntory Whiskey commercial, in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation? Who, as
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It’s all about answers, relevant questions, and the right timing. In the West, we have been taught to continually ask and put questions. To ask ourselves what we are doing and ask everyone for explanations on everything. This is undoubtedly the basis of our thinking and it is this attitude that has allowed us to
“The time has come, to talk of many things…” Read More »
What is iaido? And why talk about it? Iaido is a Japanese martial art that consists of the quick drawing of the sword and striking (by cutting or thrust) in a single gesture. The sword used in Iaido is the famous katana, made popular by countless books, films, TV series, anime, and manga and inextricably linked
