HAPPY NEW YEAR! The years keep whizzing by, and now it’s gone full cycle for me! When the Lunar New Year arrives, it will be exactly my birth year, the year of the New Cat, which occurred 60 years ago precisely! Asian zodiacs are not just a simple matter of twelve animals crossing the firmament; they are also combined with ten “stems” or qualifiers. The permutations are such that only once every 60 years does the exact same combination recur… I wish everybody a very healthy and safe new year; I know mine will be very exciting.

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(Originally Posted December 2010)

WHAT HAPPENED IN JUNE: 

OSHIRO SENSEI’S SEMINAR IN BROOKLYN, SAT 6/26:

Kowa Chhe brought Oshiro sensei back to his Brooklyn dojo on the occasion of his 17^th anniversary. Mike Boasso, Miro Musulin, and I left Caldwell at 11:00 a.m., figuring we’d arrive by 12:00 noon and show Sensei some moral support. Even though my GPS did her valiant best to send us by the most direct, toll-free route, we didn’t arrive until 12:30, just in time to see Sensei leave the premises. So we proceeded instead to the seminar site, the recreation room of the Most Precious Blood Church, up the road.

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WHAT HAPPENED IN APRIL: 

OSHIRO SENSEI’S YAMANNI-RYU SEMINAR, 4/24-4/25:

It’s rare that picking up Oshiro sensei at Newark International Airport can go without a hitch but there it was: Sensei’s plane arrived on time Friday (7:46 p.m.) and his luggage came out of the carousel without delay and among the first three. How rare can that be? I knew it was a good portent for the rest of the week, aside from the rain on Sunday. Having missed his trip to Germany the week before (he didn’t know his flight had been cancelled until he went to the airport) he was ready for us. He was as sharp as ever, but temperament-ally, he had mellowed quite a bit.

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