As many of you know, I love to read – always have.  My taste runs to history, hard science, social science, current events and the occasional good sci-fi book (hard to find these days).  Relatives have told me that they recall that I self-taught myself to read when I was 3-4 years old.  Whether that’s true or not, my parents used to credit the many Golden Books they bought for me when I was very young.  Despite their investment, I can only say that my favorite reading material when I was very young was….DC comic books!  I especially loved the DC Action comics which featured my favorite superheros: Superman, Superboy, Green Lantern, and The Justice League of America!! Back then, the comic book cost 10 cents – some years later, I remember that the price was raised a whopping 20% to 12 cents an issue! Since each issue had to last me until the next one arrived at the stands, I always made sure to read each and every page again and again.  When I say each and every page, that included the Letters to the Editor section, which sometimes was more entertaining and informative than the stories in the [...]

Later this year, Sensei Peter and I reach one of the major milestones in life as one matures – we become eligible for Medicare, haha! Truthfully, as federal retirees, we already have medical coverage via FEHB, so it’s not as exciting a milestone as…say, finally qualifying for purchase of a Zippy’s  Restaurant card!!  (Where your sensei’s gather after Saturday training to er…discuss martial arts history and um…secret karate techniques 🙂  Yeah, there’s gotta be a few benefits we can glean from getting old. Actually, for us men of Japanese ancestry, one of the big milestones is the Kanreki (celebrating one’s 60th birthday), which was a few years ago for us.  My wife and I were talking about how this appears to be a dying tradition among us sansei (not sensei 😉 and I rarely have attended one since my dad’s generation hit this hallowed mark some 30+ years ago.  Fortunately for me, I have a wife and kids who are among the best party and entertainment gurus around and they threw the old man a big one at the Hawaii Prince golf course back in 2011. My favorite memory of the festivities was when my daughter did a masterful impression [...]

“Hey! Adrienne!”  Catchy title and song, but today’s note is probably not about what you’re thinking it’s about, haha.  I did want to expound a little on developing one’s eye, and the tiger mon is an iconic one that is universally recognized as a symbol of the Shotokan style of Karate-Do, so the title is still fitting.  One of Master Funakoshi’s early supporters in spreading the Okinawan art in Japan was a famous artist, Hoan Kosugi.  He encouraged the Founder to write a book on Karate-Do and promised to design an appropriate cover for the book. The tiger symbol was the result.  Why a tiger?  I’ve heard several different stories: one was that the Founder used to walk up a winding mountain trail on Mount Torao, so called due to its resemblance to an undulating tiger tail; another was that the book was to be a master text for Karate-Do, therefore, a Tora No Maki and a clever pun on the word Tora.  In any case, this enduring image has represented our art across the globe, from its earliest days. Speaking of art, there is a college degree that not too many people possess.  Did you ever hear of a [...]