Kabuto Cutting

While I'm not entirely sure about the quality of the blade or kabuto used in this video, I do find the display interesting. Watch and enjoy. For those of you interested in learning more about this practice, I believe it's called Kabutowari.

Martial Arts Supply Sale Items

Today I just started working on a Sale items page over at South New England Martial Arts Supply. At the moment two items are listed at sale prices: a white size five, double weave Judo Gi for $75 and the Shinto Elite Katana from CAS Hanwei. The Shinto Elite Katana is priced at $399 down from it's regular price of $659 plus! Check out the site to take advantage of two great deals.

Keikogi Review

So, last night I wore a sample keikogi that I'll be selling at SNEMAS.Com and found it to be a good, quality gi for kenjutsu practice. I ordered a size five as my sample, and at 6'0" I found the gi a tad large for my 160 pounds. Otherwise I'm extremely please with my selection in my newest supplier/

My new Website

I'm in the process of setting up a new martial arts supply website at South New England Martial Arts Supply dot Com. So far I have some uniforms for aikido and ken jutsu, Cas Hanwei blades, and accessories on the site for sale. Feel free to check out the site and let me know what you think.

Keikogi

This weekend I started putting together some products for my soon to be built martial arts supply website. And on that note, here's an image of the keikogi I'm excited to be offering for kenjutsu and iaido practice. The keikogi features an extra long cut and no side vents, making it the perfect choice for any art where a saya is placed thru the obi.

Eco Friendly Water Bottles

You like water, right? So you must like bringing water to the dojo, right? Now's the time to invest in a more eco friendly water bottle for your dojo time, like the stainless steel canteen water bottles shown above. They last almost forever, can obviously be refilled and aren't an oil bi-product. So, do your part today and pick up your eco bottle today.

Website Update!

Normally I like to keep my martial arts activities separate from my business, but this week I setup a websites for senior members of the ryu which I belong. Now I remember why I normally do mix my activities. After I coded out the website and updated the name server settings at Godaddy, my client (the senior members of my ryu) experienced severe email difficulties.

So, to make a long story short, if you are setting up a website on a previously registered domain name double check to make sure that no emails are connected to said domain before you update any settings. The results could be "unfortunate".

***Update,

I have made a bit of head way on this project and things seem to be moving along towards setting up a site with a new domain name. Consequently, I've also picked up work from another dojo member as well, so maybe I was initially wrong about mixing business with "dojo" business. We'll see.

Ukeme Drills

Ever since finding this video about backfall ukeme, we've been trying to work on this exercise at the dojo to which I belong. So far the practice has been promising and hopefully will improve in the coming weeks.

Mixing Martial Arts and Business

Normally I like to keep my martial arts activities separate from my business, but this week I setup a websites for senior members of the ryu which I belong. Now I remember why I normally do mix my activities. After I coded out the website and updated the name server settings at Godaddy, my client (the senior members of my ryu) experienced severe email difficulties.

So, to make a long story short, if you are setting up a website on a previously registered domain name double check to make sure that no emails are connected to said domain before you update any settings. The results could be "unfortunate".

Old Time Christmas Music

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Madacy Entertainment. All opinions are 100% mine.

It seems more and more common these days for everything to become more high tech. AS s this process progresses, old time traditions seem to be swept under the rug in the course of "improvements". Luckily, you can now find a great collection of 60 Christmas Carols For Kids on CD over at Amazon.

To be completely honest, I don't have children who could enjoy something like these cds, but I do have little brothers and sisters who are obsessed with computers, video games, and iPods though. As these items become more and more popular, old fashioned Holiday traditions might be forgotten.

To my readers, the ones who are my age or older, you probably remember tapes, maybe even 45's with your favorite childhood holiday songs. Now that the music is being recorded over to cds it's time to pass the traditions to the next generation. So, check it out and enjoy!

Fuchi, Kashira, and Kojiri

Here's a couple images of the style of fuchi, kashira, and kojiri I plan to mount my wakizashi with. I really like the plain, simple style of the set and feel this wakizashi will now be able to be worn with a variety of other blades. Well, at least it won't be a completely different feel or look from my existing katana theme.

Finally a contest I can relate to Aikido

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Incendia Health. All opinions are 100% mine.

So, Abbott Medical Optics Inc, a company who performs laser vision correction is having a iLASIK Video Contest highlighting the disadvantages of glasses or contacts over corrective surgery. Having run into this problem in a few dojo's around the country, I can definitely relate. What aikidoka has practiced with glasses on, or with a partner who was wearing glasses only to have them knocked off? I know I've dealt with the latter several times, and it can disrupt the flow of the dojo, no one wants to break someones glasses after all.

If I had a good enough video camera I would totally put together a video of submission. A video that shows just how inconvenient glasses can be during class at the dojo. There are some pretty good prizes on the line.

Here's the low down:


The Prizes
$5,000 Grand Prize

First Prize (one in each video category):
HDTV package — a $2,500 value

Second Prize (one in each video category):
The Flip UltraHD™ camcorder — a $199.99 value

The Details
1. Submit A Video
Users make and submit a video in one of the following categories:
• “My contacts are getting in the way of my good time”
• “My favorite sport or activity would be so much cooler with better vision”
• “You should see life after the iLASIK® Procedure”

2. Tell Friends To Vote
Once users submit a video, their friends can vote on it. And votes are one of the key factors in determining which videos win a prize.

3. Have A Chance To Win
• One Grand Prize winner will win $5,000 — selected from all submitted videos
• Three First Prize winners will win an HDTV package(a $2,500 value) — one per video category
• Three Second Prize winners will win the Flip UltraHD camcorder (a $199.99 value) — one per video category

Users can submit videos, view and vote on all entries at www.GottaSeeThisNow.com.

Here's a picture of my new tsuba

Here's a picture of the wakizashi tsuba I got for my wakizashi remount project. I wanted to find some rabbit or moon menuki to go with it in order to keep the theme along the lines of the Japanese rabbit in the moon myth, but instead sold my dragonfly menuki in order to get a pair with birds in branches. I figure that is more in line with the nature them I have going on right now!

More pictures soon!

Blogger Speed Issues

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Charter. All opinions are 100% mine.

Now, I normally don't like to diss my computer or the speed at which it operates, or my internet connection. But, when I work on Blogger I notice an awful lot of lag time in the image uploader. And I'm talking about minutes sometimes, depending on what the file size is.

So, today I pulled all the crap (compressed disk space and files I no longer needed) off my machine before getting to work and I still noticed a bit of lag. I figure the lag must be caused by my internet connection, and that's when I found out about the charter ultra fast 60 Mbps service!

Those of you who don't realize it should know that that's a pretty good speed internet connection. Right now my current internet connection speed is right around 54 Mbps, which isn't too shabby. But 64 Mbps would be a 20% increase! Uploading images, emailing large attachments, everything I do on the internet would be considerably faster! It might just be time to look into Charter as an option.

My Wakizashi Mounting Continues

This week I made some head way in completing my wakizashi remount project in order to wear my short sword during ken-jutsu classes. I was holding on the the above fuchi, kashira, and menuki, but decided to sell them (and did) in order to buy a more cohesive set for my Wakizashi. I plan to pick up a matching set of fuchi, kashira, and kojiri in a blackened iron imported from Japan this week! I'll send images as soon as the new set arrives!

Very exciting!!!

New Ken-Jutsu Kata

Last we my ken jutsu sensei taught me a few new kata! The first new kata starts in a combination of seiza and cross legged sitting. Basically, the form is begun sitting in the arch of the left foot with the right foot in front of the left knee. This turned out to be an extremely challenging position, forcing me to work on posture, balance, and flexibility all at the same time.

Next we worked on two new kata involving a draw and thrust combination. These two kata are performed from a standing position. They were both as challenging at the seated kata, and required their own set of skills. I'll be digging up my notes this week and will have names for you soon!

Two Sword Kata

While I don't know a whole lot about the style being shown in the video above, I do think the two sword, wakizashi & katana, kata is interesting. I received my wakizashi tsuba yesterday and can't wait to finish mounting my wakizashi to use during kata.

Cutting with Wakizashi

My last post made me start thinking about Wakizashi, and here's an interesting video showing wakizashi Tameshigiri! Enjoy

Wakizashi Tsuba

This week I've been searching for a wakizashi sized tsuba and was totally surprised at how difficult it was to actually find a reasonably priced item. You see, since my Kenjutsu teacher started letting me wear two swords (katana & wakizashi) during kata I think it's time to finish my old Kris Cutlery Wakizashi blade and start wearing it! I'll be sure to post some pictures of the final mounting and one of me wearing the whole rig once it's all finished.

Yoshinkan Aikido

I just watched this video on Yoshinkan Aikido and found it quite interesting. Having spent my aikido experience among the ASU crowd, seeing another style of aikido such as Yoshinkan was a lot of fun. Check out the video, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.