Your Japanese word of the week is...

"kimeta", which is the past tense form of "kimeru", which means to decide. And, as I try to make all my "words of the week" relevant, there was a big decision made last week.

But before that, a certain Alan came to Tokyo for a week! We met up a couple of times, first when he came back to my town, another time when we met his friends in Ikebukuro for dinner, and on the last day when we went shopping around Harajuku.

The last day was particularly fun because we weren't in a rush (as I am, sorry to say, quite often in) and we got to wander around a slightly drizzly fashion district. We just had fast (read: cheap) food and chatted and watched a Harajuku girl get her picture taken with Snoopy....... by the way, if you're searching for SnoopyTown, they've moved from their great location directly across from Harajuku station to some rather nondescript location about 5-10min walk. Why I don't know....... it's not like they lacked business......

But, on to the big news which is............. I'm going to be competing in the upcoming Wadokai World Championships this Aug 21-23 in Vancouver.

The event I'm competing in is called team kata. Kata, for lack of better description, is forms- a preset series of moves designed to train the body for combat, provide examples of body dynamics and applications, and all the while be aesthetically pleasing (some have said to me that aesthetics is not the point of kata, but I still find good kata starts to take on a artful presence).

Team kata, along with kata standards of speed and power, require the team to be fully synchronized in their movements and, in the case of the tournament this August, requires "bunkai", or a demonstration of the application of the moves, for the final round.

My team consists of Richard Sensei and Peter Sensei, the latter who is from Vancouver and I have known for a few years now. We decided this last week when Peter arrived in Tokyo. He'll be staying for nearly a month and we'll be using that time to get our training up to snuff.

L to R: Richard, Me, Peter.

The other thing I've decided (finally, according to many) is to join Facebook. See, Peter's not going to be in Japan all the way til August but he's kindly offered to post videos of his training on his Facebook page so we can watch and learn it. Well, that involves me joining Facebook and so I did....... either way, my face has been book'd......... or....... whatever...........

As an example, this was the Japan's female kata team at the World Karate Federation's World Championships in 2006, including bunkai. The commentary is very....... umm...... excessive =P........ but the performance is incredible.

Compared to what we have so far..........

................... just kidding heh....... but come out to the tournament in August to see what we've REALLY put together =P.....