For a couple of months now, I have been studying Shorinji Kempo (SK) with my students at Junten. The President of the school is an expert at it and there is a dedicated group of about 60 students who turn up three or four times a week each to practice. It's a Buddhist martial art that focuses on teamwork and partnership to accomplish various technique combinations, rather than on competition. There are no direct killing moves in SK, although I imagine it's still got it's uses in a bar brawl. People who practice SK are called Kenshi so now you can tell everyone you know that your friend Mike is a Kenshi.

Before I begin telling you about my experiences with Shorinji Kempo, I will point out that this update contains no photos of me in my pretty SK Dogi. Sorry guys! But on Friday I received my SK wallet card, which I think means I can legally kill anyone I like, and thought I'd write this update to warn you all…

Anyway, the lesson begins at 4pm with a cleaning of the hall and about twenty minutes of stretching exercises. Everything from pushups to the splits to rotating every wrist and ankle is covered in a variety of excruciating ways. Afterwards, the group moves to one side of the hall, and progresses to the other side doing various moves chained together. This is one part of the session that I really don't enjoy as often I have no idea how to do half the moves, so I end up trailing across the hall miles behind everyone else. However, I have the largest legspan in the group so with a few stealthy strides I can keep up.

Afterwards we break up into groups or pairs and practice various moves for tests. There are only three belt colours in SK – White, Brown and Black. I'm in training to get my brown belt although I don't know if I have enough time between now and August to get it, but if I don't I'll come pretty close so I should be able to get it in England.

Anyway, I thought I would give everyone a free lesson in Shorinji by teaching you the first part of the combination Ten Chi Ken, which means "Sky Ground Punch" or something I don't know. This combination starts with your left leg in front.

1. Front Punch
   So far so good…
2. Back Punch
   Hey what was I thinking? I can do this! This is easy!
3. Shuffle Forward, Block your face with back hand and swing front hand into a side punch.
   Wait, what?
4. Step back into right stance, block above your head with your right hand.
   Wait stop I'm still doing part three!
5. Block your face with right hand and your midriff with lower hand.
   Look can we just go back to part three again I…
6. Sweep a block to your left side with your upper hand and bring it back to your middle.
   Hang on a second my left leg is caught in my trousers.
7. Kick with right leg.
   Am I meant to be doubled over in pain because if I am I think I nailed it this time.
8. Drop into right stance.
   I came up with my own variation here called "Drop into hospital".

Truth be told I'm not that bad but I think this gives you an idea of how hard it is to improve something when your mistakes are pointed out in a language everyone but you can understand.

Last but not least, SK has taught me one very important lesson. Little girls are shockingly strong and are not to be questioned. Yes, Tomomi-San, you pass English. Just let me live…

I am lucky to have friends who are addicted to snowboarding. Addicted enough to drive the 2~3 hour car journey in order to go snowboarding in Niigata for a weekend. I too suffer from this terrible snow sport addiction, so when Yuko offered me a weekend of sun, snow and Japanese verb conjugation, I couldn't say yes quickly enough.

My story begins on Saturday morning, at the horrible time of 3.30am. This is when my alarm kindly reminded me it was time to go. Not that it needed to, I was so excited I was lying in bed just waiting for the time to roll around. At 3.31am I was already dressed and ready to go, but as the train didn't leave until 4.40, I had plenty of time. Incase you're wondering why I set my alarm four an hour early, I am very good at having "just five more minutes" in bed which quickly turn into 25 extra minutes.

A grand total of four passengers boarded the train at Oji station, and I was the only person to get off at Urawa station, where I waited for my friend to arrive. Sadly they were a little delayed, and I was left sitting on my bags outside the station in the freezing cold. I was pretty tired and cold but that was quickly forgotten when a car about the size of a truck pulled up and the beaming faces of my friends peered out of the windows.

When I asked why Yuko, who lives in pretty central Tokyo, had bought a car that could comfortably fit three elephants, her reply was "I like to go snowboarding every weekend in January and February." She went oddly quiet when I asked what she was going to do with it for the other 11 months. Still, no use in wondering. I climbed in and fell asleep.

After driving for a few hours and a quick breakfast (curry rice!) at a service station, we arrived at our destination. We quickly bundled on our snowboard gear and I rented a snowboard (I bought myself new snowboard boots, but I can't buy a board because getting it back to England would be quite a challenge), then it was time to hit the slopes!

For those who haven't seen snowboarders in action, the hardest thing to do is get off a chairlift. You must unstrap your back foot from the board in order to push yourself along the snow, and that means balancing and driving the board with only one foot strapped in at the other end. It takes a few tries to get used to it, and if you haven't been snowboarding for some time it's not uncommon to fall off the lift the first time. I immediately did so. Not the best start to the weekend.

Still, the weather was great, (warm but not hot) and the snow was somewhat new. We spent about 7 hours on the slopes. I am still a learner snowboarder, so I only went down the hard runs once, then I focused on my technique all afternoon. Sometimes I wish I had stayed on skis so I could tear up the slopes like the good old days. I used to love weaving in between learner skiers and snowboarders, scaring the crap out of them and generally being a nuisance. Now that I'm a slow learner again, I hate skiiers like myself. Oh well.

We spent that evening drinking, eating at a traditional Japanese restaurant and watching the sumo on TV. This was the first time I'd seen it properly, and I must say it's somewhat confusing. Each fight lasts about fifteen seconds, and then there's a whole lot of grunting and throwing salt and advertising. I can't say I am a sumo fan.

Sadly on Sunday the weather was too hot, and there had been no new snow, so as a result the piste conditions were somewhat poor. Snowboarding through slush is like trying to run with flippers on. Very difficult and rarely does it look good. It's also a lot more painful to fall on, which explains why I spent Monday hobbling around.

I have compiled a list of professional snowboarding tips and techniques that I myself have created;

1. If it looks like you're going to fall off it, you're going to fall off it.

2. Falling off the lift is only funny when it happens to other people.

3. There's a reason most people don't go far off the piste. These reasons are commonly called "trees".

4. Everyone infront of you in a lift queue will fall off the lift, making it take ages. However as soon as you are not on the lift, the queue will move remarkably quickly.

5. Everyone can go faster than you. Even children who cannot turn a corner can reach speeds of up to 300mph when racing you to the front of the lift queue.

6. All children who are carrying their skis will drop them at least once every three steps. If you are in close proximity they will drop them on you.

7. If you don't wear enough clothing, it will be a freezing cold day. If you wear too much the sun will beat down with no mercy.

8. The Golden Rule: When you are trying to show off to girls by flying past them on a snowboard, you will mess up and end up flying past them on your face.

I actually crashed into a Japanese girl who was snowboarding but it was her fault for sitting under a ramp. Silly girl. I hope I knocked some sense into her. (To make up for the several years I knocked off her life.)

Sorry this update is a bit brief and boring, but I'm working on like a million other ones and thought I'd do this one quickly at work. Don't tell my boss!

As you read this I am probably sitting at home, gently rocking myself to sleep and muttering curses about futons. Last night I had probably my worst night in Japan sleepwise. For some unknown reason I simply couldn’t fall asleep so this morning I resembled a cross between Madonna and Resident Evil.

For reference, the rest of the posts about Hokkaido can be seen here.

Something rather exciting did arrive in the mail today in the form of a CD full of more photos from Hokkaido. Since I have some spare time, I thought I’d post a few of my favourites and maybe write about some of the things I forgot.

This is Matt and I at the Toya Christmas party. Nate and Rolf came too but since Matt so generously gave them both the Norovirus, they were not in a singing mood. So it came down to us to teach the locals the lyrics of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. As you may already know Matt is a karaoke superstar so he did the singing, and I am a pointing-to-things superstar so I fearlessly indicated which line we were on. That’s teamwork!

I already wrote about Snowmobiling here but I thought I’d post a few more photos that were on the CD. Not much description is needed here, and since a photo is worth a thousand words, everyone must be getting sick of reading by now…

Closest I’ve ever got to driving properly, anyway…

After we went snowmobiling we took the excellent opportunity to go sledging, the ultimate fantasy of any young boy and thus me.

Aah, to be 18 again…

The final group of photographs were taken when we were dragged, kicking and screaming, to the airport. “No Nate, I don’t want to go back to Tokyo because I’m quite enjoying seeing anything other than the colour grey.” Anyway, on the way back we passed the amazing smoking volcano. You may all ooh and aah now, but smoking is bad for your health and can harm your unborn baby mountains.

Well, that’s all for this brief look back on our time in Hokkaido. I hope you’re all enjoying the new year so far. Here at work Matt and I have swapped classes so I’m discovering his best kept secret – namely the students in 1-5 class. They gave us nearly all of the content in English Mistakes 1. I’ll leave you with an epic shot of us volunteers. Cheerio!

In Japan, the coming of age festival is held on the second Monday of January (it used to be on January 15th but they stopped that in 1999) and is called Seijin No Hi. Basically everyone who will be 20 years old during the current school year, which runs between April and the following March, puts on fancy clothes and practice Seijin shiki, a coming of age ceremony. Ceremonies are held at local city offices. Government officials give speeches and everyone gets a little present. It’s all very happy.

More interestingly from a photograph perspective, all the women wear special Kimonos called furisode, which is apparently so hard to put on most of them head to beauty salons to get it put on for them, alongside a haircut and makeup or whatever. They also wear zori slippers, which are strange wooden shoes and because they never wear them, they’re all limping around like some invisible puppy has gone around the entirety of Japan snapping people’s ankles.

I didn’t really get many photos, because a foreigner following girls around in Oji is not the best idea. (We’re pretty much the only foreign people living here so it’s unlikely I could blend into the crowd.) However I did take two photos that I am really happy with, and they may feature somehow in the new Japan Is Doomed banner that I am working on. (This is the last one, I swear…) I posted one of them at the bottom of this update.

Sorry this update was so short but it was really a spur of the moment thing. As I said before I’m back at work now so life is dull. But on the weekend I may well be going snowboarding in Nagano. How exciting!

I’ve been teaching for about four months now, and I’ve amassed quite a collection of wrong, strange and frankly outrageous English mistakes over the weeks. I already wrote about the “I completely took the wrong clothes!” fiasco in the Winter Testing update, but here are some more of my favourites that Matt or I have seen.

“He is a great friend, and this is why I have a crush on him.”
- Senior 1st Grade student writing about his best friend.

“I had not been skiing for a while, so I was fierce.”
- This is the first recorded case of snow rage.

“But I went higher and the slope was slippery with a mother.”
- Slippery parents. Who can stand ‘em?

“But I cannot love woman. I love pretty young girls. I am stupid. Yeah!”
- This young man helpfully defines the worst chat up line ever.

“I love my parents, but if I think ugly thoughts, they would die.”
- That really works?! Matt Damon ugly thoughts, everyone!

“Do you know what is Japanese new year tradition? I do not know but I will tell you.”
- At least she admits everything else I read is a load of crap!

“Every year in Russia, over 20,000 women go missing and are never found.”
- Shown alongside an animated Winnie The Pooh and Piglet.

“But that which is it when it is hard is so hard to be easy. I think when it is hard.”
- Must…resist…rude…joke…

“I had a flaming good time!”
- Written instead of “I had a good time because it was warm”

That’s not all of them by a long shot, but I thought rather than post them all at once I’ll do short updates about them every so often. Enjoy!

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