I often get comments on our photos claiming masks are bad for breathing. I just delete those replies and block the person tweeting them, but this time, I will cite some of the science we in the dojo depend on. "Face masks can be worn during exercise with no influences on performance and minimal impacts on physiological variables."

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Few would dispute the possibility of radically transforming your body through good nutrition and exercise. We understand that we can greatly change our physical selves, even if most of us don't. That can start with something as simple as doing push-ups regularly. Corporeal transformation is an alternative trope for learning. When education is conceived as the acquisition of skills and knowledge, it's as if those are objects you can possess. Hence the metaphor of adding to your toolbox. What you've learned is what you have.

A few days ago someone told me they wondered about the effectiveness of karate as self-defense, especially compared to Brazilian Jiu-jitsu or MMA.

It's a legitimate question, one that's been debated by both experienced martial artists and keyboard warriors for decades. Often, it gets framed as, "Which martial art is best?" That was the hype for the original UFC, which pitted BJJ against karate, kickboxing, kung-fu, savate, sumo, and other methods.

When I was a boy, I practiced judo. Before class, the sensei, Vic Hunt, would always wash his feet before class in the dressing room. I was puzzled. It seemed the opposite of athletes hitting the showers after hard workout. Years later, I read the marvelous memoir about karate in Tokyo, Moving Zen, by C W Nicol. He wrote of two Canadians who were tough fighters, but habitually wore dirty uniforms. Worse than that, they reeked horribly.

Recently, a public figure I follow and deeply admire tweeted that they had been honoured with a very prestigious award.

It made me disappointed. Not because they weren't deserving. They were. Their achievements were major and have made the world a significantly better place. Compared to them, my abilities are meager and my accomplishments mundane. Those are truths which cannot be denied.

So what made me disappointed?

Someone on Twitter this morning suggested that before making New Year's resolutions, people should celebrate and tell others what they did and were in 2022.

I understand the intent was good, but I also think the sentiment is very much bounded by this culture. Here, if you do something very well, you expect recognition and praise. In Japan, if you do something very well, you expect to be asked how you could have done even better.

This is part of hansei 反省, a reflection on the self deemed necessary.