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Archives for January 2023

Yamada Sensei

January 30, 2023 By Mark Leave a Comment

Yoshimitsu Yamada passed away recently. He was many things, but above all he was a teacher.

In my aikido practice decades ago I first became aware of Yamada Sensei through VHS video tapes. There were a number of high-ranking senseis who had some prominence in the aikido community, and a few who seemed to aspire to celebrity, but Yamada Sensei appeared constitutionally incapable of anything other than humility and unqualified encouragement.

His simple goal of daily improvement became my goal in various crafts, and is still the only future I seek.

On one of my recurrent trips to New York City — again, decades ago — I went to the New York Aikikai just to watch him conduct a class. I didn’t want to sit in, I didn’t want a picture with him, I didn’t want anything except to see if the person matched the images I had seen, and he did. The exact same person on camera, and in person in a roomful of students on a random day.

Yamada Sensei’s last class — part 1 of 3.

— Mark Barrett

Filed Under: Non Sequiturs

Nodding and Shaking — A Primer

January 25, 2023 By Mark Leave a Comment

A long time ago, in an undergraduate writing workshop far, far away, I read a story in which a character shook their head yes. When the workshop met for discussion I pointed out that people can either shake their head no or nod their head yes, but it wasn’t clear from the context which error the author had made. What genuinely surprised me, however, was not that the author didn’t know the difference, but that a handful of the other members also did not.

At the time I assumed I had stumbled into an aberrant cluster of people who were not well verse in the obscure art of describing head movements, but in the intervening decades that has proven not to be the case. In particular, there seems to be a persistent percentage of people who believe that nodding and shaking of the head both mean yes when they are decidedly not. So let this post — abetted over time by the long reach of search engine algorithms — stand as a corrective.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Writing

Happy Copyright Notice Update Day!

January 1, 2023 By Mark Leave a Comment

Yes it’s that time of year again….

While admittedly a pedestrian clerical task, nothing demonstrates attention to detail like an up-to-date copyright notice. And I think that’s particularly important if your website offers services or is intended to demonstrate your professionalism or keen cultural relevance.

(If you have really been off the grid: it’s 2023. And no I can’t believe it either.)

— Mark Barrett

Filed Under: Ditchwalk.com