The biggest change has been to the blog categories. If you take a look to the right, you’ll notice that I’m not using a drop down box to maintain categories anymore. Instead, it’s an expandable menu now. Currently, there are 32 categories, including parent categories, and many more to be added as I increase the breadth of my postings. With that came a complete tagging of all my posts, and an updating of how titles were handled. So yes, from now on, everything will be much more organized.

Along with that update, a minor error was also fixed. When clicking “view previous posts” or something to that effect, a 404 was thrown. I have updated permalinks and changed around some of the page code so that it works like a charm now.

The next and final website update is the addition of random quotes! They’re right under the title. Currently there are 4 witty quotes from pretty famous people. The best part of all the quotes is that they make you think. Because, in my opinion if a quote doesn’t make you think, it’s a pretty useless quote. If you refresh the page a little, you’ll no doubt encounter them all.

All righty. Now onto my life. The biggest change, and the only one really, is that I’ve finally devoted myself to a martial art. I will be starting aikido in a few weeks. Currently, I’m strength training, and running a lot to get in better shape. I haven’t even started aikido yet, and my life has already taken a turn for the better. I have a daily routine now, and I feel great. I find that doing all of your training in the morning is a lot better than doing it later in the day. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the getting-it-over mentality I have while doing. Maybe. But I don’t do it because I think I have to. I do it because I enjoy it, and I really think it’s having a good impact on my life.

I wasn’t lying. That was the only update to my life. But I’d like to further digress on why I chose aikido over another martial art. I think the explanation is pretty interesting from my standpoint, but that’s just me. Ever since I was very little, I’ve always wanted to do something like karate. So this ambition to do some sort of martial art has been manifested in me since I was very small. But why aikido now? Well, almost like any Japanese martial art, there isn’t just a physical component, there is also a mental component. The mental aspect of aikido strongly appeals to me.

From wikipedia: Aikido is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. The religious beliefs don’t apply to me, being an atheist and all. Not that O’Sensei (Morihei Ueshiba) had Christianity, Islam or Judaism in mind while creating aikido. The religious aspects were centered around ki/life force and extending love and compassion. Life force. The way I interpret this “life force” is as the spark of life. The willingness to live life. If the ki is weak, then your willingness to go on, and understand the things around you are low. However, if your ki is high, then the exact opposite is true, and you see beauty in living and in the things around you. You don’t really need ki for this interpretation, since one can live life like this anyway, but it certainly helps define what I believe the religious aspects to be. At least for me.

The philosophical side is even more interesting. Ueshiba’s goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury. Which relates to the religious aspect, but this is a lot more practical. I don’t think I need to elaborate on the benefits of this, as any half-wit would be able to see them. But yes, this is why aikido seems so appealing to me.

I will not stop my training here, though. I intend to practice jujutsu and kenjutsu some time in the very near future. I want to be well versed in all of these arts.

Ah well, this post is getting long enough. I’ll see you all later. Take care.

Edit: After posting this, I realized that just a wikipedia link to aikido didn’t make me happy. So here is a video I just found that can help some people see what aikido looks like.