Khadaji's blog

I had a wee bit of fun this Christmas… according to my Sister-in-Law, my 20 year old niece wanted a “Hair Straightener” for Christmas.  Now, being a guy; I had absolutely no clue what a “hair straightener” was, and had to be ‘edumacated’.

Being somewhat mischievous from time to time, I decided to play a little prank on my niece - so I purchased a red construction brick, a rubber mallet, and a box of matches.

I looked around for an appropriate box, set some styrofoam in it, and with a razor I carefully cut out areas for the brick, mallet, and box of matches to sit in.

Then I sat down to the computer, and created a “manual” for my “Redneck Hillbilly’s Home Care Hare Straitening Kit”.  Then, as all manuals seem to be - I ran over to Google and translated the manual into French, German, and Japanese.  I spent some time learning how to print this out in a ‘booklet’ form, and created a very nice little manual.
(Click Here to View the Manual).

It’s irritating to me to see that there are corporations that are bowing to the ‘politically correct’ theme of avoiding any reference to holidays that may be religious in nature.  To be specific, those stores that instruct their employees to not use the words “Merry Christmas”.

Microsoft has long held a fairly strong monopoly on the operating system used in today’s home & business computers.  And for a long time, I’ve not been too disappointed with this control.

But recently, as I’ve been studying the upcoming new version of Windows, dubbed “Vista”, it seems that I need to rethink my position.  Most people will continue to be locked into the Microsoft platform for several good reasons:

Just got back from an Encino Judo Club tournament and Clinic on Saturday. We were fortunate to have AnnMaria De Mars, 6th Dan and former World Champion to teach the clinic. I thought I’d pass along a few tidbits from the class.  One interesting concept that she passed along was on the topic of the turtle. She comments that there are just three possibilities when your opponent turtles at a shiai:

Approaching more quickly than is comfortable will be my 40th year in Judo… I’m already beyond the 35 year mark…

So it comes as a surprise to run across a Judo throw that I’ve never seen before.  This technique isn’t even close enough to another technique for me to be able to put a name to it!  Last week, I put a couple of our black belts on the mat, and had the entire class ‘run the line’, doing randori with both black belts.  Ludovic, a shodan from France, and Helmudt, a shodan from Germany.

Brazilian Jiu-jitsuka - when they remark on Judo’s Newaza, will often comment on the explosive and fast nature of it, in comparison to the slow, deliberate, and patient nature of BJJ’s technique.

Here it is, today… in America we are ‘celebrating’ Boss’s Day.  And if you want to stay employed, you’d better be ‘celebrating’ it!

In my last post, I explored briefly the advantages of randori & kata, and why they have their places… but a recent post in ‘rec.martial-arts’ newsgroup brought a new facet to light.  A martial beginner tried three different classes in the same week, one was Judo, and two were jujutsu styles that evidently don’t train the way Judo does.  Here’s a snippet of the post:

I’ve long thought that requiring a 2 or 3 year stint in the military branch of your choice would be an excellent way to instill discipline and educational opportunities for our countries’ young men & women.

I must confess that such an idea comes naturally to me - my father retired from the Navy, and I spent over a decade in the Marine Corps… so I have a very high regard for the opportunities that were afforded me by my service to my country.