Cops, fires and swords

Went to the fruit dumpster, the bakery and the pharmacy. In between the fruit dumpster and the bakery the popo stopped me, told me I didn't have lights on my bike which of course makes me hard to see (oh really?) and that it was illegal to ride with headphones in (I'm gonna look this up because it's a practice I really enjoy and it hasn't hindered my awareness in the slightest). After looking at ID they kept asking me if I had a screwdriver *shrug*, which I didn't, then they left. At the pharmacy dumpster I saw something that troubles me; the lids were missing and the dumpster seemed to be full of half burned store furniture and shelves, I didn't get too good of a look since I didn't stick around but it looked and smelled of ash and old fire. I can only hope that the place will continue running as it does and will keep throwing out ridiculous amounts of foods. Dropped of a ton of food at Kunoichi's place, got home with:
2 heads of broccoli
1 baguette
3 small loaves of bread
2 bell peppers
1 bunch of green onions
1 yellow onion
1 bunch of parsley
2 bok choy
Earlier today I did some bokken practice out back and set the firewood from the fall to dry since it was covered in snow. My arm strength isn't where it should be so I'm doing upper body workouts again. I noticed that my arms got weaker when I went to do parkour with V, I have stronger legs from biking but my arms have gotten weaker from disuse. If all goes well there will be a nice Frozen Monkeys jam tomorrow.

Bad Weather/Jean Sheath

I'm gonna be bored for a while, I have a bunch of free time and no plans, also everything outside is covered in snow, so footprints and slipperyness and wetness kinda turn me off from sneaking around doing parkour, but don't think it'll turn me away from getting free food.
Anyways, I made a sheath for the bokken. The old sheath was starting to look pretty suck (it was rubber bands and paper towels) so I took a pair of jeans that I dumpstered but didn't like and cut the back of a leg into a sheath; it's the length of the bokken and then some with the extra space used as a pocket, I sewed it off and added a button, ideally I'll somehow get a zipper and I'll replace the button. At some point I might add a picture of the sheath, maybe...

More Kenjutsu

I did some kenjutsu after watching B13 Ultimatum tonight. Just went out back and did various cuts from the above the head. Worked on having my hands in regular and in switch. It was conditioning as much as an arm/shoulder work out. I did a small workout before going out, I need to do more exercise, I'm still more in shape than most people that don't exercise but I feel that I was in much better shape this summer. I found out today that my friend (the guy from Spain that I did the TKD lesson with) will be coming up from Wednesday until Saturday morning. I guess we're gonna go out clubbing probably or crash as many parties as are happening. We'll call my friend Nin-nin (after the Afro Samurai character), because he shares some of the same traits.

A lot of people didn't like the second B13 but I really enjoyed it, I realized it's a lot more stylized but it's an action movie first and a parkour popularizer second so I didn't really expect it to stay "true to parkour" as much as many people felt it should.

Tramps and Swords

I've taken an interest in tramps and hobos recently. I will probably try to go tramping a bit after school or at some point. It's travel and freedom and... well that's it. Revisiting Evasion (which you should read) as well as reading different train hopping writings, punk zines and that sort of thing. On the more hands on side, I've gotten pretty hardcore into dumpster diving. Last night I brought home lots of strawberries, corn, radish, carrots and a watermelon. I'm getting more used to going out and diving even without Kusa. Ting is accepting it more, because when you see "nasty garbage" turn into delicious food it's hard to say no.
On the martial side I've been working on kenjutsu behind the apartment on and off with the bokken. Doing exercise on and off, mostly when I watch shows online.

Bonus point: I found a way onto the roof of my main school building :)

Kenjutsu and New Tobi

Yesterday practiced rolling and sword stuff out back. Lots of drawing techniques, making sure I had a good grip on the sword and various cuts. Just regular sword training really.
What I'm happy about is I learned a new jumping technique, it's an old ninja technique and for jumping straight up with no momentum it's better than the parkour jump (from my comparison). It brings up the legs but in front of the body wit less of a bend in the knees, you can see a video of a Bujinkan guy teaching it here It's approximately the same for me in terms of high jumping with a running start but I haven't experimented with it much yet. Gonna start stretching around the hips to get it to work better.

General update

I painted the corner blowgun black, would of liked brown but I don't have the paint for that. Recently got a new knife, old one got confiscated t an amusement park. Looking forward to Friday when there's a huge game of CTF, hope to put various skills to the test (parkour, stealth, speed etc...). Other than that, id d a bit of low movement training, various QM stuff, rolling and crawling. Some sword training on the side as well. Internet is broken at the moment, don't expect too much activity.

Kenjutsu and Choreographed fights

Today the day started with kenjutsu in the park with Ken, I learned a fair bit about parrying and riposting with the katana. Almost broke the tsuba on the sword, once it's broken I'll take it off the bokken. After some training in the park (we did some empty hand stuff on the side), we met up with Crisis and some other friends.
We moved to a parkour spot and jumped around a bit. After jumping around Crisis and a friend decided to choreograph a sword fight with my and Ken's bokken. We moved to a playground, where they finished their choreography with a bit of input from me and Ken. It looked great. I decided to try it out, me and Crisis did a short parkour chase/street fight martial arts choreography. Needless to say little kids loved it, watching us go at it with swords, jump over stuff and pretend to beat each others faces in.
All in all a good day and a great learning experience in fight choreography and swordsmanship.

E-books and sparring with Ken and some other stuff

Today trained with Ken again in the park, it's happening often (but irregularly). We had a sparring session basically with a small break where I taught him how to roll with the bokken. Was good to go at each other full speed (but a bit painful), I learned to better use my environment to distract the eyes or take advantage of the environment to trap and hinder the movement of an opponent. I'm probably going to write a bit about ninja no ken (ninja sword fighting) based on Bujinkan footwork when I learn more. Ken is a great learner and since he's running on instinct mostly at this point it's great for me too because I get to see how someone without extensive training would react instead of someone in a dojo. Also saw more people doing slack rope in out training spot, they didn't know the other people that came the day before, I guess it's just a good slack rope spot. Ken bought "The Tao of Jeet Kun Do" by Bruce Lee which I look forward to reading when he's done.
Also I uploaded some of my writing on ninja stuff (a stealth guide and a fire escape guide), you can get them here or here.
On a side note I saw Crisis again yesterday, for the first time since last break. He's really into Pick Up so I might use this summer to actually get out there and practice and fool around. Despite what I though Crisis has been pretty active ninja-wise during the year despite being in a frat (eww). Glad it's summer :)

Swords and Jumps

I've been doing lots of parkour and bokken sword fighting. It's great, not long ago I was training with Reaper and he showed me a cool playground and explained how I could improve my cat balance. The BSODtv guys are doing a camping trip next month and that sounds like a good time so I might show up to that.
Also the sword fighting, I've been training a lot with the guy who I bought the bokken with, (we'll call him Ken because he likes swords and streetfighter), Ken's been learning some parkour from me slowly and we're developing a kenjutsu style based on budo taijutsu footwork. Yesterday as we trained in our usual spot in the park we ran into a guy and a chick walking slack rope so after training a bit we went and tried it out (it's really technical) and hung with them a bit before going to a playground and fighting at half speed with the bokken to develop techniques. We did that until a security guard told us the park was closed (the gate was open though)...
So far summer is great, hopefull Pines will come by a bit and meet the rest of BSC and possibly join us, I feel Ken has potential if he trains often and could be BSC material as well.

Weapon Store

I was hanging out with a friend in Chinatown yesterday, our goal was to get bokken. We found a great martial arts store in the process, it sold all kinds of weapons, clothing and books. We each got normal bokken and checked the store out. They even had shuko and Ashiko, along with other ninja weapons. I want to go back to check the shuko out to see if they're good for for both climbing and fighting.
Later I trained with the same guy in the park, some parkour and some martial arts. Using Bujinkan stuff to use the sword.