Look for Trouble It Finds You!

I recently watched some YouTube video's about Yakuza, aka the Underworld (not the movie, the actual underworld). Lifestyles of the real nightlife in Japan. FYI I see there is a new Underworld movie about to be released (the trailers look deceivingly good. The story kinda plateaued for me, then dropped faster than Felix Baumgartner from the stratosphere).

I remember my High School Japanese teacher (who I mentioned many times is a white guy) seemed to have all sorts of trouble with the Underworld. I hope his stories were true (there as no vampires in them). Even if they weren't, they were highly entertaining and led me down a path to the dark side. You might call him (Darth VADER!) and he is not my father (that I'm aware!)

In these YouTube videos a couple American guys are talking about drinking and clubbing and looking for girls. They don't care if the girls have boyfriends or not. That seems to be where the problem starts (foreshadow. It doesn't matter what country you are in, that won't end well, and no I don't know from experience).

One guy states "Those MOFO's do NINJA sh#t to kick our asses! They are always training to beat someone". I laughed, its a statement with semi truth.

Watch out you will never see them coming!

Let me emphasize you NEVER judge a book by its cover. You might be thinking this nerdy mofo who is 5 feet tall, can't do sh#t, then ninja’s might pop out at you. And he undoes his suit and inside he has ninja clothes on, swords and throwing stars.

The samurai spirit or mentality is still alive in Japan. As I mentioned in previous posts I saw some mofo’s do some crazy “Ninja” sh#t.

I saw people get choked out, arm breaks at judo. My own ribs and almost neck break (and I'm 5 feet tall and 100 pounds).
I saw little old men with no muscle do wrist locks or me and other people and make them scream like little girls (I usually scream that way in all honesty). It was impressive to say the least (and I have the marks on my body to prove it). Let me know if you can find out any voodoo techniques to pass those body marks to someone else (or if you met Dr.Strange. I'm not sure he's real yet, I'll check out his Marvel documentary to make sure his magic is legit).

In Japan a lot of children learn Judo or other martial arts. The school I taught at only had Judo, but they did a workshop on SUMO (I wasn't interested in seeing the loincloth on myself or others so I skipped it). Other schools may also have karate, kendo, aikido etc. There must be some that teach how to throw ninja stars called "shuriken" in Japanese. I hope they don't lace them with poison, kids would be dropping left and right.
After school those kids (or shall I say mofo's) are still training the same martial art or a different one. So they train day, night, weekend. Of course they are going to be proficient (aka able to kick ass with ninja sh$t). This should come as no surprise.

Let me express that there are no MCDojo's in Japan. If you don't get that word let me break it down for you.

Hmm, only a few months to get a black belt, must be legit!

You cannot buy your belt in Japan, you have to earn it. In Canada, there are a couple companies (especially karate based ones, don't wanna mention names or I may have a lawsuit coming).
People pay to buy each belt. 
In Japan, at minimum you must put the time in. There are many crappy lower level black belts, but it doesn't mean they didn't spend 1000's of hours training (and doing ninja sh$t too).
A black belt of lower rank is seen as the beginning of the path, but here its seen as the end.
Once you are higher ranked, your skills will be so good, you may be learnt how to be invisible and touch of death (that's sarcasm, so don't expect it to be real, as for the Marvel Universe and Dr.Strange's magic the jury is still out).

So the moral of the story is simple, you might think that you being muscular and 6 ft 1, with 200 + pounds on a little scrawny Japanese guy means something, but it doesn't.

If you throw gas on the flame and try to steal someone's girlfriend, you may be in for a beating (and I may join in too).
Just cause you are a gaijin (foreigner) doesn't mean you have the right to be an as$hole.

Heed my words grasshoppers, for I am the ancient one (just like in the Dr.Strange movie, like how I used that three plus times?) By the way, the ancient one (in the comics) is supposed to be Asian but they hired a white for it. That's nice. 
Hollywood is so with the times ;-)
On that note since its almost election time in the U.S. so is Trump. LOL!

LOL. And this guy might be President? You Americans are so funny.

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future.

My Youtube Channel, wearing red tights and jumping around as Deadpool (but I say Dadpool to avoid copyright. Smarter than I look!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6hudSMxomg

Other funny stories from this blog 

http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related/ and maybe less amusing )

http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/ 

My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)

http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Aikido Pain is But Englightenment

Ouch!
Dude it hurts, seriously.

I never thought much about Aikido when I was a kid. I remember my Japanese teacher (who was white and not Japanese) used to tell us Aikido was a bit fake, when people pretended they threw ki balls (energy balls like hadoken from Street Fighter) and the other person pretends to fall over.
The only person who does a version that actually seems violent and isn't fake is Steven Seagal. Although he's a bit washed up these days.

My friend Brandon wanted me to go to Aikido but I wasn't very keen on it. It happened to be at the same gym where I was doing Judo, so I thought the location is good at least even though the martial art isn't.

I snickered while people did these complicated moves thinking how I could throw them mock 5 (the speed of light) on their face. As I snickered, an old Japanese man was standing in the corner not doing much. I wasn't sure who he was, since there was another Sensei (teacher) teaching the class.
I think he saw me snickering. He called me over and told me to grab his wrists. After a delay of about 3 seconds I was screaming. I felt like my wrist bone was cracking. And by cracking I mean like the wishbone of a chicken.
If a 70 year old can take you down, it must be somewhat legit.

That shiz seriously hurts. Unless you have a serious knack of pain don't snicker in class.

I wasn't into the enlightenment part or into wooden weapons but that's cause my body is already like weapon, sharp and deadly. I'm like the Beverly Hills Ninja.

Take Chris Farley and divide by 3, I'm 1/3 of his size, but even a better ninja!

We did self reflection stuff, and meditation etc, which I had no interest in. All I wanted to do was kickass. Or to be precise get my ass kicked, and my ass I mean wrists cracked like wishbones.

A lot of the moves were kind of complicated and I kept being told my movements seemed very Judo-ish. I was like ya cause I did 10 years of Judo.

Finally there was a bald headed dude. I thought he was a monk. A monk of pain. Instead of nirvana he wanted to create his own nirvana, void of foreigners. I thought he wanted to kill me.
His wrists were the size of two legs. When he told me to grab his wrists my hand wouldn't go half way around.
Ha! Even now I'm laughing about it.
He looked like a monk with this grin, always laughing, knowing he could snap me in two.

That monk of pain was legit. He liked to hurt people or at least foreigners. He was nice to girls though.

Although I thought Judo was better overall I learned a few useful pain techniques. Which I often practice on my wife and child (kidding!!).
My wrists still crack occasionally to this day due to my Aikido training.
I think they gave me early arthritis.

Or maybe I should say wishboneristis. Ha! Lame.



Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Kendo, it stinks! Literally!

 Kendo, it stinks! Literally!

To make it more interesting let's use live metal blades and no padding. Now, that would show who is the Last Samurai!

If you’ve ever seen The Last Samurai, you probably thought sword fighting is the coolest thing ever. Little boys no matter what country use sticks, brooms and pens to battle each other. I was never that good at it as a kid. I used to get hit, so I’d run and throw my sword or in this case my stick at them.
The moto “stand and fight” never stuck well with me, I always prefered “flee like a wimp and throw things”. Hope to live another day.
Regardless I thought THE LAST SAMURAI was so cool, Tom Cruise with his Scientology and their aliens that made the earth storyline. Oh wait! Sorry that’s real life.
I can’t deny he was very cool with his damn swords and training as a Samurai.
In Japan though, you can’t really train with real swords (for fear of cutting each other in half), although to be honest that would be pretty cool. Imagine seeing people practicing and they are like “Oh dude, wait wait, I cut your arm in half”. It would be like a scene from Monty Python Holy Grail.
Kendo is pretty much the closest thing to real swords, but its done with wooden swords (called shinai in Japanese). I always thought, if I get the chance I’d like to see someone do it. As its kind of like make believe being a samurai. That being said if you have ever been unlucky enough to watch Kendo before, you already know what I'm going to write about.
One of our school students was in a tournament on a country wide sports day. Since he was the only one from our school, he was unique at the tourney with no support. I went to go see him with the vice principal to give him a cheerleader. I thought it was also a chance to see some Tom Cruise like battles fighting to the death albeit with wooden swords.
Just prior to walking into the gym the Vice principal said to me, "Get ready for it, as soon as we walk in a very special smell".
I was thinking WTF does that mean! Then as we walked in I understood. The putrid smell of stinky, salty sweat! It was overwhelming to the point of almost throwing up. It was a horrible horrid smell. Let's called it the HH horrible horrid smell. 
He informed me that after a short time I would get used to it. I was thinking whatever time short is determined to be is going to be too long. He told me it was even strong for him and he was used to it, since he taught Kendo near his house. I guess because they have armour on, they sweat profusely underneath the armour. He said they could wash the gi (marital arts clothes) part of the cloth, but not the rest. Remind me not to do Kendo, unless I have a severe nose cold or a clothespin on my nose.

That's what my girlfriend always says. It might be a good thing in some ways. As long as it doesn't smell as bad as Kendo.

I always pictured Kendo just like in the movies with these huge cuts and slashes. To my disbelief they have only have 3 cuts (swings) in Kendo, that I’m aware of. Hmm, so much for surprise. Not that I should talk, I’d run as soon as someone started slashing.
After seeing each of the cuts I kept thinking wow, these small little movements are kind of boring. You can’t even tell if someone cut the wrist for the point or not. Too bad it wasn’t live blades, at least it would be more exciting. I contemplated going up to someones sword when there weren't looking and putting a metal tip on it.
It was so boring and I had to watch it for 3 hours. I realized at that point I should have chosen a more interesting sport to watch like golf. By the way, to the people who find golf interesting, I'm not even sure that counts as a sport. You don't even break a sweat.
I started to fall asleep and the teacher said, "Let's go, I've had enough of this". You could say that I again. I had enough of it  times 100! Once we exited the building I inhaled fresh air, it was nice, until we got to his old truck and the smell of gasoline and smoke made me sick again.

Sometimes you can't win!

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future. If only it could make me some money.

My Youtube Channel, wearing red tights and jumping around as Deadpool (but I say Dadpool to avoid copyright. Smarter than I look!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUXxArlapy0

Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva