Hi everybody, I just created this poll to get a better idea of where you are at with your training right now. If you're already a distance student, there's no need to answer since this poll is for members who arend distance students yet. Also, there's no wrong answer, I'm just curious to learn where you're at so I know where to direct my time.

A fun question for everyone; what is your training space? Is it somewhere separate from where you live? Is it the dojo itself or whenever the mood strikes you wherever you happen to be? What are some interesting places you’ve trained or places you make a point to train at? For me, I travel quite a bit for work these days so usually the type of hotel I find myself in will dictate what I focus on and whether or not I can tune in on class. When I’m home I usually clear a large space in the living room when the house hasn’t woken up yet and for interesting places, I’ve enjoyed finding a quiet spot or two in the mountains after work occasionally. Sometimes changing things up is a gift in and of itself. I think, for me at least, the objects we dedicate ourselves to signal the spirit of training. For example, the bokken/shinken is here, so here I may begin.

In class today we were working on displacing our training partner. I was doing ok but pointed out to the instructor I really struggle with larger stronger partners. I am older than everyone in class, including the instructor and not really an athlete. Rather than my instructor telling me to do something differently he said be unbothered. Don't think about how big or strong the other person is, just move like we are supposed to and it will work. If I add more I get in my own way. Definitely something for me to work on. I am sharing this in hopes it will help you all in your training. 🙂

On zoom tonight it tells me the host is in “focus mode”. Figure the zoom isn’t up and running for tonight’s lesson.

I’m finding it very difficult to find CKRT blades designed by James Williams sensei in Canada as they have been discontinued. I already have several and the design is exceptional. I’m looking for the Hissatu 4.5 folder. Has anyone seen these at a reputable dealer? I found what looked like a legitimate online dealer and then realized that they had “everything” at steep (too good to be true” discounts) and ran the site through fraud detection- it seems to have been a fraud from the ground up. I acquired one item through Alibaba and it actually arrived- but it turned out to be a replica. The handle was a giveaway and blade imprints of Kanji characters were missing.. I’m concerned the metal may be Crap-ite and will fail.