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I went to the Kodokan for Judo practice tonight. In order to move up to the next level of class, I have to go 13 times in the first month. This is the second week and I have only gone 3 times now so I will have to make up for it later in the month if I want to go to the next level next month. As you can see, Judo is a pretty big commitment. Considering that there is no class on Sundays and February only has 28 days, 13 times this month means going to the Kodokan for practice more often than every other day!

In any case, my body doesn’t feel as sore after practice this time but that might be because the work we did in class today involved work with the legs and sweeping and didn’t involve as much somersaulting or falling to the mat like last time. I’ll have to see if I am sore tomorrow or not. I was thinking about going to Judo again tomorrow but I realize now that tomorrow is actually a national holiday so I don’t think the Kodokan will be open.

According to Wikipedia’s page on Public Holidays in Japan, tomorrow is “National Foundation Day” (建国記念の日). Wikipedia says about this day: “This national holiday was established in 1966 (and first held in 1967) as a day to reflect on the establishment of the nation and to nourish a love for the country. From 1872 to 1948, February 11 was known as Kigen-setsu (紀元節^?), a holiday commemorating the day on which—according to the Nihon-shoki—Emperor Jimmu is said to have acceded the throne in 660 BCE.”

So, it looks like this is a holiday originally from just before and during Japan’s imperial times that was converted into the more democratic “National Foundation Day”.

Today I was looking through my work records from last year and realized that I didn’t start working until May. I worked hard for about 2 months and then coasted for the rest of the time (or at least, I may have worked hard but did not make much financial progress after those first 2 months).

So, the way I see it, this year I am starting work almost 2 1/2 months early. Also, this year, compared to last, I have a lot more experience, a lot more contacts, a lot more knowledge and a lot of sites left over from last year so I am looking forward to getting back to work and making some money.

One thing I forgot to mention regarding Judo is that you can get your name (or whatever you want) embroidered on your gi (uniform) or belt. So, I got my last name in Japanese characters (クンズ) embroidered on the left side of my belt in black and I got the Japanese word for “profit” or “profitable” (利益) on the right side of my belt in red. The reason I have 利益 (rieki) is because I want to become profitable and also make profit in my work. I originally got these characters on my business cards that I made when I went to an internet marketing seminar (by Eben Pagan) last summer. So, when I found out I could put another word on my belt besides my name, I went for these characters. I chose red because red is my favorite color although on further reflection, perhaps I should have chosen black or green for the characters since red is usually associated with loss in business. I don’t suppose it matters that much and besides, it looks very nice in red.

I woke up somewhat early today and tomorrow I intend to wake up earlier so I should prepare for sleep now. Hopefully I can get some good work done tomorrow early, as well.

Last Friday, I went to judo at the Kodokan for the second time. This time, the instructors said I didn’t have to participate in the part where people were doing somersaults since I hadn’t learned how to do it properly yet. For the second part of the class after the warm up, we are all split up into our separate skill abilities. My class had just one other student in it so I got to learn a lot. We practiced falling a lot and also a type of somersault which led to hitting the mat afterwards to stop the somersault. It gets pretty tiring having to do somersaults and falling from standing up again and again!

As I was leaving the Kodokan, the elevator doors opened up and there was only one guy in the elevator going down. It turned out to be Ryuta (隆太), a friend of mine who I had met a couple years ago. I met him for the first time when I went to a boxing match that my other friend, Ebine, was participating in. Both Ryuta and Ebine I met through my friend Alex. Apparently Alex met Ryuta through the Kodokan while practicing there.

In any case, it was a chance meeting to happen to get into the same elevator at that particular time. I think Ryuta said he was injured so he had been watching Judo practice from the 8th floor observation stands. My practice on Friday took place on a different floor… I think it was the 6th floor. In any case, I got the chance to talk to Ryuta for a while after I met him again.

My birthday was yesterday (February and I got the chance to go out to dinner. Overall, I feel pretty optimistic about this upcoming year and hopefully I will be able to succeed in my various business projects while also learning new languages. I received many e-mails, IMs, messages and posts on my Facebook wall about my birthday so thank you to everyone who contacted me!

Today shortly after I woke up, I went out on to my balcony and realized that it was very warm. In fact, today, it went up into the high 60s! So, I went outside and took a walk around my neighborhood without a jacket. I was able to get to see a lot of areas that I had not yet seen since I haven’t really explored this area much at all yet. I think I still would rather prefer to live closer in to the city but I really cannot complain about the spaciousness of the apartment I am living in now (especially at this price).

Tomorrow hopefully I will go back to Judo for a third time and also begin working hard again on my business projects (I am planning on waking up early). We will see how this goes though!

I went to judo for the first day today. The beginning was a kind of warm up that everyone did. We just stood in lines and did various exercises across the mat. At one point, we had to do somersaults… I don’t think I have attempted to do a somersault in over a decade but I just went for it and it didn’t turn out too bad.

After the warm up, the class was split up into two parts and I was in the part with a few other guys who just started learning so I got more instruction about what was going on and learned a few things. It was nice to get some exercise and also learn a new martial art.

Although it was raining today, when it became night time and I had to return back home from judo practice, the rain turned to snow and it was snowing pretty hard. There is snow on the rooftops now which is an interesting sight since it rarely snows in Tokyo, perhaps once a year.

In any case, I also got a lot of Tagalog studying done today and have learned 405 cards now… since there is one card for English to Tagalog and another card for Tagalog to English for the same word/phrase, this is about 202 total words/phrases.

I checked one of my business projects and although it is progressing a little, it seems to have hit a wall in some respects and it is certainly not earning me enough money for the amount that I am spending each week to keep the project going. I am not sure what I am going to do regarding this. Either I will scale back the efforts so that I spend less money until I can start earning money from the fewer sites that I focus on or I am going to try to bring in some new tactics to help boost the efforts. At any rate, because my income is so low right now, I cannot really afford to keep this project going at the rate it is since it is costing me too much each week. I will have to either add some new tactics to the efforts and hope that the project as a whole starts earning me money quickly or I will have to succeed in another project to gain me the money I need to keep this one going for a little while longer. We will see what happens.