Overall really enjoyed it. Bought a copy to lend out to friends at the dojo so I don't have to give mine up. I especially loved this piece of wisdom from one sensei (I need to revisit the text to remind myself who said it - Paul, maybe?) (paraphrased) - he points out there is a triangle of things that work together that are the secret to aikido: Balance, Center, and Confidence. They each feed each other. He has also written for newspapers and magazines such as The Daily Telegraph, Maxim and Esquire, and has published several poetry collections, including one in 2003, with Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing. In addition, Twigger describes other aspects of Tokyo and his life there, including his relationship with his girlfriend and her family, his work at a Japanese high-school as an English teacher, and stories of living with his two flatmates. He also gives thoughts and observations about Japan and Japanese culture. [3] At this point, I've been practicing Aikido for a few years and related to what I was reading about. I could make comparisons to my own experience. I could appreciate the insight into Japanese perspective that Twigger offers, as well as some of what he learned about himself and Aikido. I sussed out more of what I liked about my current practice (Shimbokukai), and what would not appeal to me in Yoshinkan. It made me think about my Aikido, and the blend of what I'm learning with what I want to carry forward in my own practice and philosophy.

I finally had a chance to sit down and re-read this. The first time I'd read it, I'd done some Aikido in college, but it had mostly faded in my memory other than I remember how clearly-out-of-shape I was at the time, and feeling like such a badass whenever I "got" a technique right. In 1997, whilst on an expedition in Northern Borneo, he discovered a line of menhirs crossing into Kalimantan. In 1998 He was part of the team that caught the world's longest snake- documented in the Channel 4/National Geographic film and book Big Snake; later he was the leader of the expedition that was the first to cross Western Canada in a birchbark canoe since 1793. Most recently, in 2009-2010, he led an expedition that was the first to cross the 700 km Great Sand Sea of the Egyptian Sahara solely on foot. The writing is fine, and in an unobtrusive style which depicts events and observations clearly without becoming distracting - quite a feat in a book which could just as easily have become a hubristic memoir as a play-it-for-laughs. Quotations from Tesshu, Mr Twigger's 19-th Century samurai-poet-swordsman hero are interesting, and are nicely interwoven with the text. Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-1-g862e Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9659 Ocr_module_version 0.0.15 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-WL-2000087 Openlibrary_editionAngry White Pyjamas is a book written by Robert Twigger about his time in a one-year intensive program of studying Yoshinkan aikido.

As a newly minted ShoDan in Shiho Karano Karate, I have to be skilled in knowledge as well as technique. To that end, I've been reading a number of books about the martial arts. One part of that genre are the autobiographical accounts of Budo practitioners. I want to gain deeper insight through what others have experienced, learned, and how they changed as a result of martial arts training. "Angry White Pyjamas" is one such tale, written by a Brit who studied Aikido in Japan during the 90s. Robert Twigger, a disaffected thirtysomething teaching English to Tokyo high school girls, decides that he is incomplete as a man without some sort of physical challenge. Martial arts training appears to fit the bill, so he and his two expiate roommates enroll in a local aikido dojo. While taking regular classes, Mr. Twigger is drawn to the dojo's toughest mode of aikido instruction: an intense yearlong course normally taken by Japanese Kidotai (riot police) as a job requirement. Despite his initial misgivings and warnings from others about the course's difficulty, he goes for it and resolves to finish no matter what. "Angry White Pyjamas" chronicles Mr. Twigger's struggle to prove himself by successfully completing the Kidotai Aikido course. In Angry White Pyjamas Robert Twigger skilfully blends the ancient with the modern - the ultra-traditionalism, ritual and violence of the dojo (training academy) with the shopping malls, nightclubs and scenes of everyday Tokyo life in the twenty-first century - to provide an entertaining and captivating glimpse of contemporary Japan. I was recommended to read this book when I started Yoshinkan Aikido last year. Regardless of how interested in aikido you might be, this is an amusing, at times fascinating, depiction of Japanese martial arts culture from the perspective of an outsider. Yoshinkan Aikido is a pretty small world it seems, and some of the characters in this book, although sometimes given a kind of fear/awe-filled celebrity by Twigger, are likely to cross your path if you take up the art. Robert Mustard in particular tours quite a lot and attends seminars internationally.At more than one point throughout the year-long course that would change him from pondering intellectual to "bodyguard" for two elderly Japanese women, Twigger thought of quitting. So what kept him going--his friends in Fuji heights, Chris and Fat Frank? Sara, his Japanese girlfriend? A Zen belief in overcoming the will of the self? It was more to do with sheer grit and determination-- a refusal to be beaten. He starts out by pointing out the profusion of power lines in Japan. On he continues with a humorous and interesting perspective of a white guy's experience living in Tokyo and taking the Riot Police course. Soon after beginning regular training, Twigger decides that the only way to truly experience aikido is to do the Yoshinkan Senshusei course, [1] a gruelling 11-month program to train up instructors of Yoshinkan aikido. The course consists of four hours of training, five days a week, in addition to dojo-cleaning duties, special training weekends and demonstrations.

There is noting interesting here in terms of literature beauty. As for the aikido, it focuses on the physical parts, and it fails to enlighten us even a bit because it aikido needs to be seen, not read. The spiritual part, which is what makes this sport distinct, is mentioned in passing and always about pain and death rather than channeling your energy. How Does a Man Prove Himself in the Age of Nintendo? -- Beginner's Mind -- Cannibal Talk -- Foaming at the Mouth -- Police Academy -- Zen and the Art of Being Really, Really, Angry -- Challenge -- Good Cop, Bad Cop -- The Hottest Summer Since 1963 -- Punch-Up at a Funeral -- The Bad Guys Have Hairstyles -- How to Commit the Perfect Murder -- Survival -- Natural Nazis -- The Mount Fuji Test -- Breaking the Mirror -- An Honourable Exit -- Unlikely Bodyguard The author, and Englishman working in Tokyo, took up the martial art of Aikido. His dojo ran an intensive and brutal aikido course which is used to train the Japanese riot police. He signed up, and this is the account of what happened. I want to re-read and make some notes on a few different things they practiced or teaching techniques, some quotes from the senseis and bits of wisdom. I'm curious about Kancho's book and to learn more about O'Sensei's life. I love that the author used the real names of people, so you can look up Robert Mustard or Chida Sensei and learn about them. Communicates the existential purity of his elective regime with irrepressible passion ... it also has the unmistakable stamp of authentic experience ( Daily Telegraph)It also as exciting as a novel: you watch the characters with fascination as the class fight (literally and metaphorically) through the challenges of the course.

Adrift in Tokyo, translating obscene rap lyrics for giggling Japanese high school girls,, "thirtynothing" Robert Twigger comes to a revelation about himself: He has never been fit nor brave. Guided by his roommates, Fat Frank and Chris, he sets out to cleanse his body and mind. Not knowing his fist from his elbow, the author is drawn into the world of Japanese martial arts, joining the Tokyo Riot Police on their yearlong, brutally demanding course of budotraining, where any ascetic motivation soon comes up against bloodstained "white pyjamas" and fractured collarbones. In Angry White Pyjamas, Twigger blends, the ancient with the modern--the ultratraditionalism, ritual, and violence of the dojo (training academy) with the shopping malls, nightclubs, and scenes of everyday Tokyo life in the 1990s--to provide a brilliant, bizarre glimpse of life in contemporary Japan. This is a splendidly written adventure, something sane at last on the craziness of martial arts ( Independent on Sunday) Robert Twigger is a British author who has been described as, 'a 19th Century adventurer trapped in the body of a 21st Century writer'. He attended Oxford University and later spent a year training at Martial Arts with the Tokyo Riot Police. He has won the Newdigate prize for poetry, the Somerset Maugham award for literature and the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award.Full Book Name: Angry White Pyjamas: A Scrawny Oxford Poet Takes Lessons from the Tokyo Riot Police