Big in Japan: Iaidō is the world’s most bad-ass martial art!

by Matthew Firestone on

From Afro-Brazilian capoeira to Muay Thai kickboxing, there is no shortage of bad-ass martial arts out there…

However, although I can guarantee that you’ve never heard of Iaid? (??????), it’s probably the most bad-ass martial art ever!

Literally translated into English as the “the way of mental presence and immediate reaction,” Iaid? is a Japanese martial art entirely dedicated to the katana (???) or samurai sword.

Of course, unlike the slash ’em up antics of 1970s Kung Fu action flicks, Iaid? emphasizes controlled movements, quick unsheathes, deadly strikes, blood removal and quick sheathes.

So, to put things into better context, Iaid? essentially boils down to killing your opponent and cleaning his blood off of your sword in the minimal number of steps.

According to a friend of mine who studies the art, “Iaid? is a perfect martial art for honing your reaction time. It also teaches you how to eliminate three opponents in only seven moves, which can be executed with flawless precision in between sips of macha green tea.”

Awesome.

Intrigued about this deadly yet efficient martial art? Keep reading to learn why Iaid? clearly holds the title for the world’s most bad-ass martial art!

According to martial arts historians, a legendary samurai known as Hayashizaki Jinsuke Shigenobu is credited with establishing Iaidō sometime in the early 16th century.

However, the fine art of drawing the katana in battle, which is known in Japanese as battōjutsu (抜刀術), has its origins in the 15th century.

Literally translated into English as the “the technique of drawing the sword,” battōjutsu is a technical art form dedicated to slicing an opponent to death in battle.

In keeping with the tradition of restraint and control emphasized by Bushidō (武士道) or the samurai code, the ultimate goal of battōjutsu was to strike down your opponent in the minimum number of moves.

Of course, the term battōjutsu eventually gave way to Iaidō, a word that incorporates the suffix -dō, which implies philosophy and spirituality.

Thanks to this linguistic construction, the deadly art of honed, precision killing was elevated to a religious level.

As with all Japanese marital arts, Iaidō is a refined discipline that can take several lifetimes to perfect.

Students of this art must first learn to control their psychological state of being present. After they have mastered this, they must learn to respond to a sudden attack in a calm and collected manner. Following the vanquish of their opponent(s), they must return to their resting state as quickly as possible.

Beginners often practice these three pathways in combative postures or standing positions. However, advanced students expand on these forms by learning how to react from difficult starting positions, such as sitting with your legs crossed and drinking tea.

After all, a true samurai never knows when their tea time might be interrupted by hell-bent ninjas emerging from the shadows.

(I told you this martial art was bad-ass!)

** All images were courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons Project **

Big in Japan: Hara-kiri for dummies

by Matthew Firestone on

Few traditional Japanese customs fascinate Westerners more than the practice of hara-kiri (?????????) or ritual suicide.

Literally translating as “belly-cutting,” hara-kiri is more formally known as seppuku (??????), and was a key part of the bushido (????) code that all Japanese samurai were sworn to uphold.

While suicide is considered a sin in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the samurai believed that hara-kiri was both an effective way of avoiding capture, preventing disgrace and/or attenuating shame.

Although it’s anything but pleasant, hara-kiri is brutally efficient as a samurai need only plunge their sword directly into their abdomen, and make a quick but deadly left to right cut.

If the condemned is particularly lucky, they have the luxury of appointing someone to be their kaishakunin (??????) or second, who proceeds to quickly dispatch the condemned with a quick thrust of the sword to the back of the neck.

Of course, there are literally hundreds of subtle rules, styles and nuances to hara-kiri that have evolved over the centuries.

But, for those of you without PhDs in Japanese history, I’ve complied a quick and easy ‘Hara-kiri for Dummies’ guide to help explain this fascinating practice!

Welcome to Hara-kiri for Dummies!

In order to make some sense of this time-honored but impossibly elaborate art, here is a step-by-step guide to ending your life with dignity.

1) Take a hot bath, dress in white robes and prepare your favorite meal.

2) Eat everything, and then place your tantō (短刀) or short sword on the empty plate.

3) Prepare for death by writing a death poem – a short but elegant haiku is preferred!

4) Appoint a trusted person to stand by your side and serve as your second.

5) Take your short sword, and plunge it deep into your abdomen in one motion.

6) Don’t scream, but rather accept the inevitably of your death with grace.

7) In one motion, make a long and straight cut from left to right – the direction is important!

8) Rather than writhing in pain, wait patiently for your second to confirm that the hara-kiri was performed successfully.

And, should you ever have the opportunity to serve as an appointed second, here is a step-by-step guide to ending the condemned’s life with dignity.

1) Before serving as someone’s second, be sure that you are an expert swordsman as the daki-kubi is not an easy cut to perform.

2) In one swift but precise motion, strike the back of the samurai’s neck with your katana, but do not decapitate them!

3) If the cut was performed correctly, the samurai will die instantaneously, but their head will still be attached to their neck by a slight band of flesh.

4) Perform chiburi (血振), or the process by which one removes the blood from their katana with a quick flick of the blade

5) Once you’ve ensured that your blade is clean (you don’t want it to rust!), place it back in your scabbard and bow silently to the departed.

Now that you’re all experts in Hara-kiri, have fun practicing this sacred Japanese art with all of your friends!

(I’m kidding – seriously.)

** All images were obtained from the Wikimedia Commons Project **

Big in Japan: Japanese mad scientists are at it again

by Matthew Firestone on

Disclaimer: This post is about science, which I know isn’t exactly one of the zaniest stories on Gadling at the moment. However, I can assure you in plain and simple laymen’s terms that this post will be really, really cool to read.

One of the greatest parts of living in Japan is that you’re usually the first person out of all your friends back home to get their hands on the latest electronics.

For instance, I regularly rock out touch-screen digital cameras, handheld GPS units and cell phones that make the IPhone look about as advanced as a VCR.

Indeed, high technology is a fact of life here in Japan – toilets wipe your butt for you, and ATMs thank you in a sexy voice for making a transaction.

So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that mad scientist-inspired research regularly splashes across the headlines here in Japan.

Case in point – last week in Japan, researchers were successfully able to implant a small camera inside a mouse’s brain to see how memory is formed.

Even if you’re not a scientist, you have to admit – that is pretty awesome!

Want to know more? Sure you do…

As I said before, neurobiology isn’t exactly the easiest of disciplines to understand, so I will try to explain everything in layman’s terms. Wish me luck!

First question: why would the Japanese want to take images of a mouse’s memories?

The hope is that one day, this research will facilitate our ability to treat Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases (in humans of course!) by better understanding the brain activity that triggers these conditions.

Second question: how small of a camera do you need to film mice memories?

According the study published in the Journal of Neuroscience Methods, which I can assure you is a gripping read, the team used a camera 3 mm long, 2.3 mm wide and 2.4 mm in depth. If you don’t understand metric, trust me – that’s really small!

Third question: how do you film a mouse being nostalgic about the past.

First of all, you need to implant a camera inside the hippocampus of the mouse’s brain. Next, you need to inject the mouse with a special substance that lights up whenever there is brain activity. Then, you just sit back and wait as the camera captures the light and displays the image on a screen.

Makes sense? Hope so!

Anyway, I know science can be like, all technical and stuff, but hopefully this little foray into neurobiology wasn’t too difficult.

After all, this really is groundbreaking research that will hopefully one day result in a treatment for some of the most debilitating neurological diseases known to man.

So, at this point in the article, I have one last thing to say:

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I think so Brain, but me and Pippi Longstocking… I mean, what would the children look like?”

(That one was for all the Animaniacs fans out there!)

** Mice and brain images were courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons Project. Pinky is a trademarked and licensed character from the 1990s TV show ‘Animaniacs.**

Big in Japan: Deadly dumplings injure 175

by Matthew Firestone on

One of the many things that I’ve learned about the Japanese since moving to Tokyo is that they love to eat.

Of course, unlike Americans who seem to take extreme pleasure in enormous portion sizes of incredibly fatty food, the Japanese are much more refined in their culinary choices.

Indeed, Japanese society is structured around the fine art of sharing food with friends, which is perhaps one reason why the quality of meals over here is arguably the best in the world.

So, you can imagine the havoc that is spreading through Japan this week following the news that 175 people checked themselves into the hospital after dining on deadly dumplings.

How potentially deadly where the dumplings in question?

Well, not that deadly – unless of course you consider pesticides to be an acceptable condiment!

Delicious. Nothing like a few hundred milligrams of an insect-killing chemical concoction to cleanse the palatte and settle the stomach!

Jokes aside, the case of the deadly dumplings is actually an incredibly serious matter that might possibly endanger the future of Chinese-Japanese economic and political relations!

(I told you that eating was a very serious business in Japan!)

So, let’s start off with something simple – what exactly is a dumpling?

Good question!

Dumplings in Japan are known as gyōza (餃子), and are generally comprised of some mystery blend of meat and vegetable that is wrapped into a thinly rolled and sealed piece of dough.

Gyoza are generally served with three dipping sauces – soy sauce, rice vinegar and hot chili sauce – though each gyoza aficionado generally mixes up their own special blend of the three.

Anyway, let’s get back to the story….

Two weeks ago, the Chinese government launched a fourth-month campaign to eliminate “non-food materials” from their food exports.

What exactly is a non-food material you ask? Well, simply put, anything that isn’t a food material, like industrial dyes, pesticides and fungicides.

Getting hungry yet?

Despite this pledge however, Chinese-made dumplings containing pesticides sickened 175 Japanese, which has created a huge scandal that is impossible to ignore in a society that is borderline obsessed with their personal safety.

Last year, the Chinese exported a whopping US$56.7 billion of food to Japan, though analysts are warning that this lucrative industry is about to take a huge hit.

According to Minoru Morita, a Tokyo-based economist, “Japanese consumers, already distrustful of Chinese products, may stop buying them.”

Just ask Hiroko Date, a 38-year-old mother of two in Tokyo: “It makes you scared to buy imported food — you worry about your kids.”

So, for the time being, it looks like there won’t be too many plates of dumplings gracing the dinner tables of Japan for quite some time.

With that said, if you’re reading this article somewhere across the Pacific Ocean in North America, you also probably might want to pass on any pre-packaged dumplings you might find at the local supermarket.

Sigh – looks like I might have to find another favorite drunk food, though fortunately ramen is still safe!

** The images of the delicious dumplings were courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons Project **

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Big in Japan: Red Sox season opener will take place in Japan

by Matthew Firestone on

Looking for another reason to visit to Japan?

Baseball may be as American as apple pie, but it’s also as Japanese as cod-roe spaghetti and green tea ice cream.

Although few Americans are aware of the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), it has produced a number of major Major League Baseball (MLB) players including Hideki Matsui, Ichiro Suzuki and Daisuke Matsuzaka among others.

Known as the Puro Yaky? (???????????) in Japanese, the NPB has a long history dating back to 1934 when it was originally founded as the Greater Japan Tokyo Baseball Club (?????????????????????, Dai-nippon T?ky? Yaky? Kurabu).

Of course, all of this may soon become common knowledge to Bostonians as this March, the Red Sox season opener will be a pair of exhibition games against the Hanshin Tigers on March 22 (11:07 p.m. EST March 21) and the Yomiuri Giants on March 23 (6:07 a.m. EST).

Despite the lack of publicity that the Ricoh Japan Opening Series 2008 has received in the States, the event is being billed here in Japan as something akin to the real ‘World Series.’

Here’s the answer to your first question: who are the Hanshin Tigers?

The Hanshin Tigers (阪神タイガース, Hanshin Taigāsu) are a NPB based in Nishinomiya, which is a city in the Kansai region near Osaka.

Of course, since this is Japan, the team is owned and named after the Hanshin Electric Railway Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Inc.

Interestingly enough, the Tigers are often portrayed by the media as being the Japanese Red Sox since they have historically been underachievers.

In fact, they even have their own ‘Curse of the Bambino!’

After winning the 1985 Japan series, Tigers fans dressed up like their favorite players, and jumped into the adjacent Dotonbori Canal.

However, because none of the fans resembled first baseman Randy Bass (he was bearded white guy from Oklahoma), fans threw a life-sized statue of the Kentucky Fried Chicken mascot Colonel Sanders into the river.

To this day, the statue has never been recovered, and legend holds that until the Colonel is rescued from the river, the Tigers will continue to have bad luck.

Here’s the answer to your second question: who are the Yomiuri Giants?

The Yomiuri Giants (読売ジャイアンツ, Yomiuri Jaiantsu) are a NPB based in Bunkyo, which is a district in Tokyo.

Of course, since this is Japan, the team is owned and named after the Yomiuri Group, Ltd., a behemoth media conglomerate of television stations, newspapers and magazines.

Interestingly enough, the Giants are often portrayed by the media as being the Japanese Yankees since they have historically dominated the NPB (and they’re the richest franchise by a long-shot!).

Want to know more about Japanese baseball? Love the Boston Red Sox? Why not check out their season opener over here in the Land of the Rising Sun?

Here is all the info you need:

General tickets for all four Red Sox games in Tokyo go on sale Feb. 9. For more information, call 011-81-3-5777-8600 between 6 p.m. and 10 a.m. EST.

In addition, Fenway Sports Group, through its Red Sox Destinations program, has put together a full travel package for the Japan Opening Series.

Standard Red Sox destination packages to Japan start at $4,999 and are available now. Upgraded packages, including business class seating on the charter flight, a hotel suite, and premium game tickets, are also available on a limited basis.

For more information, visit redsox.com/redsoxdestinations, call 617-226-6400, or e-mail travel@fenwaysportsgroup.com.