the phagos blog

‘An unexamined life is not worth living.’ - Socrates
This line of thought finally coalesced Saturday night while doing my food prep, and it was a phone call I received at lunch on Friday that triggered it.  It’s something I’ve been thinking about and and off for a while in bits and pieces.  I’m not talking about the big ‘Why?’ that spawned the fields of religion, philosophy, and science, but rather something a little closer to home.   My question is this: why do I do the things I choose to do?

(more…)

I actually started writing this post some weeks ago, and it’s changed a bit since then, as I’ve had other thoughts that have made me reconsider what I was originally going to say.

(more…)

It is my privilege to announce that at jujitsu class tonight, I was promoted to the rank of nikyu, 2nd degree brown belt!  I am one step closer to achieving my black belt and beginning the real work.

(more…)

For those of you who haven’t been reading the blog for long, I had four main goals I wanted to accomplish this year, and they were ambitious.  The first I gave up on months ago, there simply wasn’t any time to work on it.  Now I find myself in the position of having to give up on a second one as well.

(more…)

I know I haven’t been writing as much lately, about once a week or so, I’ve been quite busy.  It’s quite possible that my blogging may become even more irregular for the next few months.  It occurred to me the other day that the Palmetto Fall Clinic is just 5 months away - meaning my black belt test could be just 5 months away.  Problem is, I haven’t really gone to class the last couple months, so I may not be ready for the black belt test in November as I planned.

(more…)

The martial art I practice has a healing art associated with it.  It goes by various terms - seifukujitsu, Okazaki Restorative Massage, Dan Zan Ryu Restorative Technique.  Whatever you choose to call it, it’s a form of Asian based body work.  Three years ago I was fortunate enough to go through the first of four modules and learned the fundamentals of Traditional Chinese Medicine, anatomy and physiology, history, ethics, and of course, the basic form.

(more…)

For almost four weeks I’ve been posting my daily eating habits and measurements on this blog, thinking that might make a difference in sticking to a raw food diet and motivating me to exercise or go to jujitsu class.  After an unexpected visit from my girlfriend and totally going off my menu, I reflected over the last four weeks and reached the conclusion that this just isn’t working.

(more…)

After a 40 day layoff, I finally made it back into the dojo last week.  I didn’t mean to take that much time off - but I didn’t have much of a choice.

(more…)

In which an element essential to success of projects is discussed, the need for one,
the benefit of the other, and the difference between them.

(more…)

Whatever that is…  Anyway, the 2007 Palmetto Fall clinic ended yesterday.  It was four days of classes with some of the best martial arts instructors from all over the US, including Hawaii.  Every year is better than the last, and each year I think it can’t get any better, and so far, every time I’ve been wrong.

(more…)