Better Things To Do…

1:40pm EDT: Frankly, I’ve got better things to do than to watch this crap tape – this is getting painful. Trying to keep productive, so here’s something to chew on for your channel surfers:

Anyway, I’ve got some reading to catch up on and then there’s that Steven Seagal movie Mrs Evil refuses to watch with me. So, I’ll be pretty quiet until the bell when I’ll post the daily wrap up.

I studied Aikido for several years and – no matter what you think about Steven the man or his corny movies – he’s one of the best martial artists I have ever seen. He goes way back and studied with O-Sensei back in the days – he’s one of the highest ranking Aikido experts outside of Japan.

The problem with Aikido is that it doesn’t work very well on the big screen – because the techniques are very subtle and fast – however, extremely efficient and painful (trust me). I remember seeing several ‘big tough guys’ come to the dojo and try their luck – most of them never came back.

What I loved most about Aikido is that it was completely different than any other martial arts I ever studied before. It felt like I had to start from scratch all over again. There were plenty of times when I felt so humiliated that I left the dojo with tears in my eyes – which I had barely held back during the session. It wasn’t the physical abuse – it was all mental. My Sensei was extremely tough on me and made my life hell which I deserved – he systematically chiseled down my ego piece by piece. Probably some of the worst and best times of my life. I later realized that he probably cared more about the ones he criticized than the one’s he praised.

My Sensei was very traditional and taught ‘Eastern Style’ – so, he was very tough and didn’t care about being your buddy. He was also an ordained Buddhist priest and you basically could not make up a better martial arts instructor – he was Mr. Miaggi on steroids.

Kensho Furuya - my late Sensei

The day of his death he was at the dojo teaching – after the class he sat down and had a little chat with his students. One of them pulled a little joke and he laughed – fell over on his face – and died – heart attack. Can you imagine a better death? At his funeral I cried like a baby – realizing that I had lost something that could not be replaced.

Many of the lessons I learned in Aikido I have taken into trading – in a way trading is the art of blending your activities with the gyrations of the market. You cannot fight it head on – you kind of ‘ride along’ and you cannot use brute force.

Let the market do the moving for you. Hey, that sounds like a Zen riddle to me 😉

3:03pm EDT: Geronimo just scalped its 6th winner in a row – sweet! 🙂

3:55pm EDT: Geronimo profit graph – manually tracked by our intrepid Eric: