Added a thumbs-up rating feature for each post. Both registered members and guests are able to rate your posts now. The reason for this is because if this system is useful, it will be incorporated into the search engine. That is, most popular posts on a certain waza will appear near the top as an option, for example.

On the sidebar there is a sub-menu for all the people tagged in posts and videos as supplied by the posters. This should make it easier to find content about a particular person. Note that if you want to find posts that a person has written, search for them or click on their author name to view all their posts.

Japanese names are ordered by last name first, and all other names are ordered by first name first.

I went back to every video and added tags of the people in them. From now on the policy on tags will be to tag a post with the name of the person who taught the technique, is the subject of the post, or who are the principle participants in a video clip, if known.

Most of the videos from YouTube and from our personal collection have been increased in viewing size by almost 20%. Enjoy much larger videos.

Tamura Nobuyoshi Shihan, 8th Dan, passed away on the night of July 9th, 2010. He was 77 years old. He entered Hombu Dojo in 1953 and has been practicing Aikido for 57 years. He started Aikido when he was only twenty. His wife is a fellow Aikidoka and student of O-Sensei. He is an inspiration because his professional and personal lives centered around Aikido.

I like the story of Tamura Shihan and the two main Aikido organizations of France. His story parallels our own. Read, and you know will know what I mean.

“The French Aikido Federation was split into two in the 1980s purely because of political reasons. Those who decided to stay loyal to Tamura were for an independent aikido federation created the fr:FFAB (Fédération Française d’Aïkido et de Budo) from scratch, while those who preferred to remain under the Judo federation (FFJDA or Fédération Francaise de Judo et Disciplines Associées), later became independent as the fr:FFAAA (Fédération Française d’Aïkido, d’Aïkibudo et Affinitaires) under the technical leadership of Christian Tissier. The two once rival federations are now regrouped under the UFA (Union Française d’Aïkido).”1

We will all get old and die, so it is important to do the Aikido which brings us the most happiness and love for our fellow person.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobuyoshi_Tamura [↩]

Photos of Ben Sensei drumming on the Chinatown Centennial float in the 2010 Calgary Stampede parade have been uploaded to the photos section. They won two prizes, as Ben Sensei was drumming in turns on a 5-foot taiko. Enjoy.

It was reported that some categories didn’t show up. Members should now be able to port to these additional categories:

Aikido Science
Book Reviews
Events & Seminars
Interviews & Articles
Quotes & Analogies, and
Teaching Feedback (new)

Added the top-level category called ‘Teaching Feedback’. Some teachers just understand students. We want to capture their style, their mannerisms, and the way about them that makes the learning process so enjoyable to look back on when we become teachers one day. Please feel free to post publicly or privately and use this opportunity to praise your favorite teachers, or anonymous teaching styles.

Three new background images have been added. Also, a new menu item was added called ‘Updated’ which lists entries in the order they were updated from newest to oldest.

When you write an entry in the journal, it can now show up automatically on your Facebook page. On your account in Facebook, edit your Wall to import your RSS/Atom. When it requests the URL of your blog, you can enter

http://wazajournal.com/author/yourloginnamehere/feed/atom