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I, a virgin, can make my frank boast that I communicate to no mortal man my secret counsels except to such as I have chosen on account of their taciturnity; then, if these secrets are later discovered, I know whom to accuse. Elizabeth I
Unknown to trade, to travel, almost to geography, the manner of life they harbour is an unsolved secret. Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer
Music and mushrooms:
two words next to one
another in many dictionaries.
Where did he
write The Three-Penny Opera?
Now he's
buried below the grass at the
foot of High Tor.
Once the season changes
from summer to fall,
given sufficient rain,
or just the
mysterious dampness that's in the
earth, mushrooms
grow there,
carrying on, I
am sure, his
business of working with
sounds.
That we
have no ears to hear the
music the spores shot off
from basidia make obliges us
to busy ourselves microphonically. John Cage, Indeterminacy
All aikido arts are secret in nature and are not to be revealed publicly nor taught to rogues who will use them for evil purposes. Morihei Ueshiba, Budo
Matsutake are a type of Japanese mushroom. They are quite rare. They have a special fragrance. They are very, very expensive. Domestic Japanese matsutake are about $100 for 100g now. A dollar a gram. Imported ones are much cheaper. Japan now imports many products traditionally thought of as Japanese from other countries. Especially from other Asian
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This is a cool article from the Washington Post by Joel Stein. And it asks an important question: should I teach my child how to fight?
As parents we want to protect our children. From harm. From bad things. From the world. Some children - like Joel's perhaps, and like Joel himself certainly - are not interested in learning how to fight.
Joel Stein believes kindness and gentleness are better than fighting. But anyway he'll let his son try a mixed martial arts class.
Quote:
Being a dad is knowing when your kid will be receptive to certain lessons. But that's not it. I'm the one who is never going to be ready. Even when he's 20, I'll be trying to distract him from the violence of the world. I'll be proud of his kindness, his gentleness, his ability to extract revenge by firing off pointed satire on Twitter.
So what is the answer? Should you? Should you teach your child how to fight? Or should you teach your child how not to fight.
I have only taught aikido to children very very occasionally. But this week I was asked to teach a community self-defence class. I wasn't sure how it was going to go...
I have always thought that judo and karate were more suitable than aikido for young children. Some children like the grappling part of judo and some like the throwing part; some children like the kata part of karate and some like the kumite (sparring) part. And maybe the concept of no winners and no losers in aikido is a little difficult to catch. Anyway this class was self-defence so philosophy wasn't a problem!
So I checked out aikiweb and I found some useful information. The teachers on aikiweb who are experienced in teaching children have a lot of knowledge. You can search the forums for "teaching children."
And Robert Kent at the Aikido Kids Google group kindly pointed me towards some more links:
http://groups.google.com/group/aikidokids
(if you apply to join the group - the reply is very fast - you'll be able to read the discussions and join in if you want).
KEEP IT FAST
KEEP IT UPBEAT
KEEP IT SIMPLE
KEEP IT FUN
And here is the basic lesson plan for a one-off self-defence course. It's in English and Japanese in case anyone is interested in the vocabulary.
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09-23-2012 04:18 AM 
I have only taught aikido to children very very occasionally. But this week I was asked to teach a community self-defence class. I wasn't sure how it was going to go... 