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<blogEntry id="4516">
	<title><![CDATA[Welcome to Mushin Ryu Aikido Dojo]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[There's something odd about the instructor's voice, but he can't quite put his finger on it. The guy sounded perfectly normal on the phone. 

Joe tries not to fidget on the wooden bench and looks around. At the front of the room there's a picture of an old, bald, Asian man with a long beard. The man seems to be staring past the camera and into the distance with a look of serious contemplation.

"I hope I'll age as gracefully as that," the 21-year-old muses. 

He leans against the wall behind him, trying to imagine himself looking even half as dignified in his older years. As his head tilts back, he feels it hit something sharp and instinctively jerks forward.

"Ow!" mutters Joe, turning around to frown at the source of the pain. He steps back and finds himself staring up at a large, wooden picture frame. Within it is a photo of the same Asian man, only looking much older, sporting a longer, white beard. This time, however, he's dressed in a flowing grey robe. On his head is a floppy, wide-brimmed, and pointy grey hat. In his hand is a carved, white wooden staff.

Someone has Photoshopped the man into a picture of Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings. 

In fact, all along the wall, Joe can see similar, badly doctored photos of the same man: dressed as Dumbledore from Harry Potter, standing among the parapets of Hogwarts; clean-shaven and sitting in a wheelchair as Professor Charles Xavier from the X-men with a huge explosion behind him.

Just as his jaw goes slack, Joe nearly jumps at the stern, thickly-accented voice behind him.

"Must open your mind to all manifestation of power."

Joe turns to face the speaker and finds himself staring eye to eye with a Caucasian man in his early fifties, arms tightly folded over his white uniform. The man's skin has obviously been tinted a light shade of brown, as Joe notices from the telltale orange stain of self-tanner that spots his lapel.

"But why - " Joe begins, only partly interested in the answer, but mostly hoping that hearing the man speak more will help him place his strange, yet oddly-familiar accent. It's really beginning to bug him.

"Ah!" the man raises his hand towards Joe's mouth to silence him. "No question." He pokes his finger firmly at Joe's chest. "Answer lie within you."

And with that, the man spins on his heel, black skirt and ponytail flaring behind him as he stalks off onto the mats to begin teaching the class.]]></body>
	<date>05-14-2012</date>
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