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What are heavy? Sea-sand and sorrow;
What are brief? Today and tomorrow;
What are frail? Spring blossoms and youth;
What are deep? The ocean and truth. Christina Rossetti, What Are Heavy?
Fortune, honour, beauty, youth,
Are but blossoms dying;
Wanton pleasures, doting love,
Are but shadows flying. Thomas Campion, What If A Day Or A Month Or A Year
without regret
they fall and scatter
cherry blossoms haiku by Issa
They have created the beauty of cherry blossoms. from Sugata Sanshiro, directed by Akira Kurosawa
Spring in Japan. No, not yet. Not yet. The air is usually already warmer by the time of Buddha's birthday on 8 April. But this year spring has kept feinting an attack and then has hastily retreated. This week it has felt like we were still in December.
But the cherry blossoms have fallen. The cherry blossom viewing parties have all been held.
Cherry blossoms signal the changing seasons. I have written about cherry blossoms before. In 2011 after the Tohoku earthquake in cherry blossom and moon and also in 2012 in beneath the cherry trees and also here. There are some cool poems in those articles.
Cherry blossom viewing can be poignant. Weather forecasts give detailed forecasts of when the trees will be in full bloom. Some of the drinking and karaoke parties in the parks are superficial. But for many Japanese people there is still sadness behind the beauty. The trees bloom. T
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I was determined to go to Japan to outstrip them all, to learn judo. It wasn't to
go to the Olympics, it was to become really, really good at judo. Doug Rogers
How very Canadian - I had a one-way ticket to the Olympics. Doug Rogers
In the tunnel
the black taxi roof
a stream of neon Colin Oliver, haiku
Youth is not a time of life
it is a state of mind
it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees
it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions Samuel Ullmann, Youth
There was a link on a judo site to an old documentary called Judoka. It's about a Canadian called Doug Rogers and his serious judo training in Japan. He was there from 1960 to 1965. He was obviously an exceptionally talented and determined judoka and he became one of the very best in the world. At the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 he won the heavyweight silver medal.
It's a very interesting documentary. It shows the training and life of a young martial artist in Japan. It was a simpler, more innocent time.
There is a nice scene of Doug Rogers doing randori free training in the Nippon Budokan. The Nippon Budokan is a huge martial arts hall in central Tokyo. It was constructed for the 1964 Olympics. Over the years it has been used for rock concerts and many artists have recorded Live at Budokan albums. The All-Japan Aikido demonstration is held there every year in May.