Tom Hume

It's a little personal anniversary for me today - exactly 10 years since I started practicing Aikido.

At my age that still feels like a long time, and it's passed frighteningly fast. What's also strange is how different my life is now to then. I can't think of many things in my life that have lasted more than 10 years: no employment, no educational establishment, no relationship. The only things that spring to mind are family, a clutch of treasured friendships, and general geekiness.

10 years isn't a long time in Aikido terms - my instructors have more than 30 each under their belts, and still emphasise how much they have to learn. I hope I've been quite careful not to bang on about it here (or elsewhere), but I've been promising myself that once I got to this point I'd give myself license to talk about analogies I see between this stuff and the other things I do. I think there are commonalities between all sorts of craft and I'm sure that if I were a musician I'd see them there; it just so happens that the two things I've done most deeply are software development and aikido. Be warned: I might start writing about them here.

(Mmm, software development and martial arts. Why don't I get invited to more parties?)

And on a side-note, this also marks a personal best in procrastination. One of those little jobs I've been meaning to "get around to any day now" - for TEN BLOODY YEARS - is setting up a direct debit to pay for my classes. I have to do it now... or hmm, maybe leave it another 10...

A huge thankyou to Tom and Maria Helsby, and everyone at Airenjuku Brighton who's put up with me over the last decade. Now, mouth shut, hands open...

...I had a lovely weekend out, mostly spent catch up with Aikido folks in the south-east. On Saturday morning Mr Helsby and I took a train (and attendant rail replacement bus service) up to SOAS to train with Sue Smith and the Airenjuku London crowd, in the basement bunker which serves as their little shed.

Then the next morning 8 of us from Airenjuku Brighton drove over to Southampton to pay a visit to the Southampton University club - something we've been meaning to do ever since summer school in Chester this August. The Southampton guys made us feel very welcome, Alex Megann taught a fantastic class with Tom, and we sampled the delights of an indian buffet at Cafe Mumbai afterwards...

...driving back (or rather, being propelled half-asleep in my case: I was in the Land of Nod for the whole journey) just in time for our regular Sunday evening transmission.

Lovely, and not a mobile phone or laptop in sight ;)

And whilst I have your attention, take a look at these rather natty videos done by some aiki/tech lunatics with motion sensors and some interesting visualisation software: beautiful stuff.

Things will be quiet here for a little while. I'm now on 2 weeks holiday. Week 1 will be spent in Chester at the BAF Summer School, as is my wont. Week 2 I'm in Brighton recovering...

2008 is certainly kicking lots of new sand in my face; with Tom lending moral support to Mark's new venture, I've been taking the Tuesday classes at our aikido dojo. When I first started training I kept a diary online (much of which was lost in the Great Hard Disc Crash of 2005 - and may yet be restored); I may end up doing a similar thing for a little while now.

Whilst I've taken two classes so far (and they've both been rather small, with 2 or 3 students each), but a couple of things have stood out for me:

1. I have a sudden appreciation for how much I daydream or "tune out" when I'm normally training; in the classes I take, this isn't an option, and I really felt the additional attention I was giving it. The first time around the difference was striking, by the second it wasn't such a problem. But still: I've been spending far too much time asleep and am kicking myself (ineptly);
2. Having 3 other people in white pajamas copy your every move is a bit surreal. We were stretching this last week, and I became suddenly aware that, as I moved from rotating my left ankle to concentrating on my right, 3 others were doing the same. It's slightly sinister...

As for what we've been doing: really simple stuff. 20 minutes of makko ho stretching, a few warmups, and then taking a single idea and seeing how it's applied in a few of the simplest techniques. So the first class was looking at the circular kokyu arm-shape in ikkyo, iriminage, shihonage and suwari waza kokyu ho; in the second we went through the same set of techniques but concentrating on ukemi and stretching.

After a quietish summer, I'm on the move in the next month or so.

• In a couple of weeks time, on 14th August, I'm giving a talk at the £5 apps event about the gritty realities of setting up a software company;
• I'll be stepping in for Joh and hosting the Coding Dojo on 22nd August, at Future Platforms' offices in Brighton.
• Then I'm skipping across the pond with a trusty band of pals to Black Rock City. Can you tell how excited I am about that? ;)
• We get back from the US just in time for dConstruct 2007, which is looking absolutely fantastic;
• Swedish Beers follows on the 12th September. FP will be shouting loud about something then too :)
• On 18th September, I'll be panelling at Mobile Web 2.0 on the subject of "defragmentation";
• 25 - 29 September, I'm in Amsterdam for Come Out And Play and PICNIC07
• 14th October, it's the Future of Mobile conference, where I have the pleasure of speaking about mobile user experiences with Marek Pawlowski :)

So a busy couple of months... and closer to home, we have the lovely Loop Festival arriving in Brighton on the 18th and 19th August. And rumours of an interesting name in the Aikido world who might be paying us a visit in September - I'll post more here when I can.

Normally during this week in August I pack my bags and wander up to the British Aikido Federation Summer School up in Chester, but at the last minute I chickened out this year. I didn't feel adequately prepared for my next grading (having cut my training down to twice a week since Christmas, almost by accident), and given that my only other holiday this year is 2 weeks in the US incorporating a visit to Burningman, I fancied some time off to actually relax.

And it's been lovely so far. The weekend came and went in a flash, as weekends do, and on Monday Soph and I got up at a lazy hour and drove over to Barcombe. We've been meaning to get out to the country again for ages, and despite her enduring car problems and vandalism, Streetcar came to the rescue and got us out to greener pastures: a pub lunch in the middle of nowhere and a wander along country lanes.

Tuesday was more of the same: a late start, wander down to the beach for lunch at the Oh So Social (food: nice, service: OKish), then took a bag of books up to Queens Park and sat in the sun, alternating reading and dozing. The subject matter wasn't exactly restful (me: Robert Fisks The Great War For Civilisation) but the environment almost managed to make up for it. Then back home for a snooze and out to dinner at Mae Ped Ped Ped (food: very good, service: rubbish) followed by a cocktail or two at Valentinos whilst we watched the local youth mucking around with their bikes in the pedestrianised streets outside.

Today was a bit of a step backwards, as Devi and I got the train to Sussex University to see the MSc poster presentations. I was a bit disappointed this year - only 3 students actually did a presentation, and in the past I've found them much better attended; but there was still some good stuff there, and it's nice just to get out to the campus and chat to academic types. A visit to the office followed, and a 10-minute "I'll just reconfigure that router" turned into a 2-hour stressathon, which I've now completely forgotten thanks to sunshine, cats, and ginger beer.

Tonight: the coding dojo (and popping of my Ruby cherry), a chat with local agile-ish folks, and maybe some noodling with things that I have meant to noodle with for far too long. And tomorrow I'm thinking of dusting off a pen and paper (even if virtually) and actually writing something. Something non-technical. After that I'm half-planning to drive to Wales and go for a clamber around Snowdonia, but that'll depend on the weather and my accumulated lethargy....

Meanwhile, news from Chester: all the Airenjuku students passed their gradings with Marisa rokkyu, Yvonne gokyu and Steve sankyu. Nice one guys :)

There's a proposal out to ban "samurai swords". Why is it always "samurai swords", I wonder? Are they innately more dangerous than a broadsword, or are they just the nutters' weapon of choice?

Anyhow, as someone who's still working on being a jedi but occasionally likes to swing a wooden bokken around in the garden, or walks/drives/flies to courses with a bag of assorted, this makes me slightly nervous. It seems only a short step away from banning anything brown and sticky, when I'm sure there are more effective (but perhaps less headline-worthy) steps that could be taken to protect the public from the insane. I'm guessing that it's only the insane this law is targeting - criminals aren't known for their rigid adherence to the rule of law.

So for what it's worth (which tends towards zero over time) I've signed the e-petition asking the vicar to reconsider, and if you care about this sort of stuff, I urge you to too.

Psst - mind you, those guys with katana perched on the living room wall are a bit strange, aren't you^H^H^Hthey? ;)

W00t, Mark got shodan: "So what next - well I'm quitting aikido and taking up table-tennis"

Congratulations matey :)

At Aikido last night, Tom came out with a great Rumi quote which I've spent much of this morning trying to remember: "There is a field beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there."

Aiki-cake: "Those little people (and there are about 40 of them) are wearing authentic Japanese-stitched keikogi sewn by Masayo-san by hand and on Natsuko-san's sewing machine. And yes, the tiny hakama have miniature pleats down the front."

Ridiculously lovely :)