The original seven members of Portland Aikikai were: Ty Barker, Scott Margraf (“Little Scott”), Andre Nguyen, Steven Shane, Michael Cavalle, Rowan DeSantis, and Scott Schanaker (“Big Scott”). We had separated from the coalition of teachers that comprised Two Rivers Aikikai at that time – and began training in the gym of the French American School.Continue reading “PORTLAND AIKIKAI – Testing 1993”
Category Archives: Reference Materials
Neptune’s Fountain
Las Vegas is a temple of the ersatz celebrating the vacuousness of gambled fortunes. For all the glitz and neon grandeur (quickly being replaced by LEDs), Las Vegas is usually an honest thief. Everyone knows that isn’t the Eiffel Tower, nor the Montgolfier balloon in front of Paris; New York, New York’s scale is wrongContinue reading “Neptune’s Fountain”
World Happiness
I was never overly impressed with self-reported happiness indices and country rankings, until I read this 2022 working paper by Blanchflower and Bryson. The paper still uses self-reported data but this time, they add the negative dimensions of personal experience to tabulate a net happiness score. Combining data on around four million respondents from theContinue reading “World Happiness”
Protective Arts 