So it seems running an hour a week can help men live 6 years longer and women live 5 years longer.
Wow let’s do the maths. Say even 2 hours x 52 weeks x about 60 years if you start around 20 = 6240 hours.
Number of hours in one year = 24 x 365 = 8760 hours.
So for an investment of about three-quarters of a year – less if you start after 20 – you might live for an average of 5 or 6 years longer. Quantifiable longer life. Without even talking about the other health benefits of exercise. Worth thinking about.
Advice on the intensity:
You should aim to feel a little breathless, but not very breathless.
I wrote a blog post called silent running about Haruki Murakami’s short book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I was going to call it What I Talk About When I Talk About What I Talk About When I Talk About Running but I thought that someone might write a blog post about my blog post and we would end up with some seriously long titles.
Alright, listen up, people. Our fugitive has been on the run for ninety minutes. Average foot speed over uneven ground barring injuries is 4 miles-per-hour. That gives us a radius of six miles. What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area. Checkpoints go up at fifteen miles. Your fugitive’s name is Dr. Richard Kimble. Go get him. Tommy Lee Jones, The Fugitive, movie
Name: Richard Kimble. Profession: Doctor of Medicine. Destination: Death Row, State Prison. Richard Kimble has been tried and convicted for the murder of his wife. But laws are made by men, carried out by men. And men are imperfect. Richard Kimble is innocent. Proved guilty, what Richard Kimble could not prove was that moments before discovering his wife’s body, he encountered a man running from the vicinity of his home. A man with one arm. A man he had never seen before. A man who has not yet been found. Richard Kimble ponders his fate as he looks at the world for the last time. And sees only darkness. But in that darkness, fate moves its huge hand. Narrator, The Fugitive, TVseries
There is a penguin on the loose. Penguin no. 337 escaped from Tokyo Sea Life Park. It scaled a 4 metre/13 foot wall and got through a fence. Now it is hanging around Tokyo Bay which is full of fish. Apparently it will be difficult to catch.
This kind of news article is always popular in Japan. Occasionally a seal is spotted in a river, say, and then there is a mass media frenzy and even soft toys as the spottings and the boom last.
Zoological note. Or should that be an ornithological note. Penguin no. 337 is a Humboldt penguin. The penguin in the photo is a rockhopper penguin. Rockhopper penguins have that cool punk look. And why do penguins have that wild reputation anyway? The four penguins in the Madagascar movies and TV spinoff were all like special agents.
I went to karaoke last week. I go about once a year. Kara is empty as in karate and oke is short for orche – stra. Empty orchestra. The guy who invented karaoke didn’t patent it and didn’t make any money from it.
Once after an aikido event I went to a large karaoke bar with a few of the teachers. Sadateru Arikawa sensei came too. That was not so common. He didn’t like social drinking much and he didn’t like noisy places. He certainly didn’t like singing. He was always happy to talk about aikido but it’s difficult to talk against a background of karaoke.
Arikawa sensei didn’t want to sing but some of the teachers were insistent. So eventually he agreed. Reluctantly. He had damaged his throat when he was young. His speaking voice was very quiet and husky. And his singing voice was very thin. But he liked me to sing songs in English.
Sometimes I sing Japanese songs. One of them is Ue o Muite Arukou. It’s a positive and happy song with a catchy melody. I walk looking up. It was the first Japanese song to hit number one in the USA and it is one of the biggest selling singles of all time. It was bizarrely called Sukiyaki in English – a kind of grilled meat hot pot. The singer of Ue o Muite Arukou was Kyu Sakamoto. He died in the crash of JAL 123 on 12 August 1985. I remember that plane crash. It was the worst single plane crash in history. That night Ue o Muite Arukou had been playing when I had a meal in a Japanese pub. And in the following days I got phone calls from all over the world. Someone with a name similar to mine had died in the crash.
One of the songs Arikawa sensei liked me to sing in karaoke was Moon River. That brings us to moon in the water.
In Japan, family members play a major role in the decision whether a physician should inform a patient with cancer about the true nature of his/her illness. Physicians discuss the cancer diagnosis with the family before discussing it with the patient and commonly comply with the family members’ requests. There is a family hierarchy and Japanese patients generally do not become the master of their own cancer treatment. Instead, they deal with their disease while their family takes decisions. Consequently, in Japanese society only a small percentage of physicians (13%) inform cancer patients about their diagnosis. Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal
I noticed the link to the body maps under an article about the death of Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees. He died at 62. Colon cancer is apparently relatively easy to detect and treat if you get screened regularly. So perhaps his death might make people think about getting screened. Regular screening is recommended after 50.
Bobby Moore was the captain of the England football team that won the World Cup in 1966. He was one of the greatest English football players ever and one of the best defenders in the world. He shockingly died of colon cancer when he was only 51.
Bobby Moore makes a brilliant tackle on Jairzinho at the 1970 World Cup
Another English football player Vinnie Jones is an actor now. He appeared in a video using the Bee Gees dance song Stayin’ Alive – co-written by Robin Gibb – as the rhythm for CPR. If you sing the song to yourself while you do CPR you get the right rhythm for the heartbeat.
As the quote indicates in Japan even in the 21st century many terminally ill patients are not told about their diseases.
photo: Sky Moore – statue at Wembley Stadium by Steve Calcott
There were some events last week in London celebrating the unofficial British birthday of Punch and Judy. It’s a kind of puppet show originally from Italy. It was mentioned by Samuel Pepys in his diary 350 years ago. It became less popular in the second half of the twentieth century because of its use of domestic violence as comedy.
And in San Francisco last week a Japanese diplomat was indicted for serious and continuing violent assaults against his wife. It’s not the first time a Japanese diplomat has been charged with domestic violence. In Vancouver in the 1990s the Japanese consul-general famously justified beating his wife by saying it was a cultural difference. It is true that the Japanese police are reluctant to intervene in family problems.
But I trust in the law of the universe. Cowardly bullies always get their punishments. In this life or the next one. For now in San Francisco I hope it will be a long, long prison sentence.
First of all sorry to link to one of those articles that you have to keep clicking to get to the next image. MSN uses them a lot. Articles like 10 cool cars or Britain’s best fish and chip shops. I dislike them intensely and I almost always avoid them.
But this is a great article. There’ll be mysteries on here that you haven’t ever heard of. Guaranteed. And even the titles are so interesting. They sound like the case histories of Sherlock Holmes. The Voynich Manuscript. The Shugborough inscription. The Tamam Shud case.
You see, it was the eclipse. It came into my mind in the nick of time, how Columbus, or Cortez, or one of those people, played an eclipse as a saving trump once, on some savages, and I saw my chance. I could play it myself, now, and it wouldn’t be any plagiarism, either, because I should get it in nearly a thousand years ahead of those parties. Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
In red moon I wrote about a lunar eclipse. Tomorrow morning there will be an annular solar eclipse. People in Japan are very excited about it. Some schools are starting earlier than usual so that children can watch it safely. Hotels in the best areas to see the eclipse are all fully booked. There are boat tours to watch it from the sea and even plane tours to watch it from above the clouds. Special glasses to protect your eyes have been selling fast.
The quote above is from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain. There was a nice movie version starring Bing Crosby and William Bendix. You can imagine thousands of children remembering the dates of future eclipses after reading the book or seeing the movie. Just in case one day they got the chance to impress primitive civilizations with their power.
Interesting interview with a Japanese woman who has lived in Belfast for many years. I wrote about exiles before here and here. The word exile sounds somehow irrevocable but it’s much better than the ugly abbreviated expat.
This week another video clip of a cool swordfight. And how this clip and last week’s clip relate to aikido. It’s from Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai directed by Takashi Miike. It’s the trailer not the complete fight so try to get hold of the movie.
In it’s hard being a samurai I wrote about The Twilight Samurai directed by Yoji Yamada. There is a superb fight sequence. The actor Hiroyuki Sanada enters, breaks the balance, gets behind his opponent, and completely controls his opponent’s weapon. A couple of times he deliberately leaves an opening for his opponent to attack and then counters expertly. As I mentioned he has extensive experience in martial arts and in action movies and his sword work is very natural.
This other excellent recent samurai movie is Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai from 2011 directed by Takashi Miike. The Japanese title is Ichimei. Another movie directed by Takashi Miike I really liked is 13 Assasins. I’ll talk about that movie another time.
In fact Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai is a remake of a great classic Japanese samurai movie Harakiri directed by Masaki Kobayashi. The Japanese title of that movie is Seppuku. That’s another movie I’ll talk about some other time.
For now there is also a wonderful fight sequence in Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai. The kabuki actor Ichikawa Ebizo XI plays the main character. I doubt if he has any direct martial arts experience but I’m sure his long career in kabuki helped him with the fight movements. And he has charisma too.
There are some differences in the approaches to fighting. Sanada fought a duel. Ichikawa is a lone fighter against dozens of opponents. He uses them against each other entering and spinning and moving and letting them get in each other’s way.
There are some similarities in the two fights too.
Both of the samurai main characters use swords without real blades. They both deliberately spare the lives of their opponents. Although the outcomes of the fights cannot be compared both these samurai make the points that they wanted to make.
Great movies, both of them. Don’t miss them if you are interested in Japanese culture or in martial arts. And if you glance at the lines above again you will see: entering, spinning, breaks the balance, gets behind the opponent, completely controls his opponent’s weapon and spare the lives of their opponents. That’s a pretty accurate description of aikido.
I have an essay in a charity e-book put together by some writers and photographers to raise money for victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku on 11 March 2011. It costs $9.99.
Last week I left a book on a subway train in Tokyo. I was very disappointed because I was half-way through it and it was an old Penguin paperback that was probably irreplaceable.
But anyway the next day I went through the same station and I asked the man at the ticket barrier if a book had been handed in. He telephoned to a lost and found office and they had it there! I was so pleased. So thank you Tokyo Metro. But suddenly it reminded me of my teacher’s lapis lazuli ring.
My first teacher Kinjo Asoh Sensei always wore a striking lapis ring. It was a little unusual – older Japanese men are normally quite conservative about jewellery. After Asoh Sensei died his wife gave it to me. It’s a beautiful ring and the stone is vivid blue. I have often been complimented on it even by complete strangers. I don’t really like to wear it too much because I don’t want to lose it at training. So usually I leave it at home safe in a drawer.
Then one day I was burgled. The guy broke the balcony window to get in and even took his shoes off. He took some cash. And the ring. I was devastated. I should have worn it and taken my chances at the dojo. The only good thing to come out of it was I got to see the Japanese police at work taking fingerprints.
About a year later a detective came round. He smiled and he gave me the ring! They had caught the guy. The ring was clear evidence and he confessed to a number of robberies.
I still don’t wear the ring every day. I’m still concerned that I’ll lose it in a changing room. And of course I’m pretty confident that if it disappears from my house I’ll get it back one day!
And that brings me to my lapis ring theory of aikido. Your teacher shows you and teaches you many things. Many of them you won’t understand right away. But it doesn’t matter. You can let them go. Lose them. Then one day, years later maybe, there will be a knock at the door. There will be a detective outside, smiling and handing you a lapis ring. And you will say to yourself, “Oh that’s what my teacher was talking about!”
I had a link to a nice short article about the founder of Sony Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka for this post originally. There was a great evocative black and white photo too of the two of them armwrestling. But I got a comment that the link might not be secure so I’ve taken it out to be sure. Check out Akio Morita on wikipedia instead.
We all learn by imitating, as children, as students, as novices in the world of business. And then we grow up and learn to blend our innate abilities with the rules or principles we have learned. Akio Morita, Made in Japan
One last Walkman quote:
Now I know how Joan of Arc felt
As the flames rose to her Roman nose
And her Walkman started to melt Morrissey, Bigmouth Strikes Again
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in rain.
Blade Runner
