2011 Gingerbread - Thank you Alton Brown

I wrote this years ago now.  Alton Brown remains one of my favorite TV chefs.  I see everyone clicking on this post as they are looking for his gingerbread recipe.  I don't know if he has one.  If have posted my own here, and a clip of him teaching sugar cookie recipes which are now my gold standard go-to sugar cookie recipe.

Want a gingerbread recipe?  It is here.

Alton Brown is a TV personality who has several cook books out there.  While he has been a commentator on the American version of Iron Chef, my favourite show of his is Good Eats.  He doesn't show off or gloss over the techniques, or the why of a certain step.  His show is hilarious and a little campy.  Some cooking shows out there are completely worthless for someone wanting to be educated, even if they are good entertainment.  I learn stuff watching his show.  Top Chef is my only other cooking show that I watch, but I have to say I learn as much about how to cook as I did about how to exercise watching Kiana Thom's "Flex Appeal."

He had an entire episode that was just on sugar cookies.  Basic, no frills sugar cookies.  The episode took longer than the time it takes to make and bake a batch of cookies, and I appreciated it.  My mom had several cookies that she always did every year for Christmas including the Gingerbread house, but she almost never made a basic sugar cookie.  Later, when I worked in a kitchen the cookies all "fell off the truck" in boxes of frozen dough that just needed to be baked.  So, I had never done a sugar cookie.  Here's his link:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/sugar-cookies-recipe/index.html


I was interested in sugar cookies because I had tried to work with sugar in the past and been disappointed.  I was given a very good lollipop recipe by the one local Rocky Mountain Chocolatier specialist, and I was grateful for it.  The thing is, sugar is supposed to stay dry.  If the house was only up for a week, it was all fine.  For a few weeks in North Carolina, the sugar sculpture always turned into a puddle eventually.  The humidity this year completely destroyed some test pieces.  I had an image of doing the same thing I did with sugar cookie batter filling windows that I had done with sugar caramel in the past.  I asked a chef how to keep a sugar sculpture intact for a length of time, and I was only told it had to be kept dry.  North Carolina is too humid to promise that.

The lollipop stained glass effect looks nice, but the final effect isn't always worth the work.  It seems store bought lollipops have some form of stabilizer in them that lets them last longer in humidity, but you need to crush them all by hand, and each bag of lollipops will have several colours so for a large project you need several bags...  Only yellow really shows up in a house (purple just looks black) because there are limited ways to get light inside the house with construction.  The one house I had designed with several dozen windows and completely open inside to allow all light from all angles (instead of a series of boxes placed adjacent) was a huge amount of work, and less stable to build on.

Basic physics:  You can't shine light through a red window on one side and a green on on the other without losing the visual effect - we see the colour because a portion of the light spectrum is reflected and a portion is absorbed.  So, to attempt to be more colourful leaves less visible colour. 

Dad had recommended a light inside the house and the house built around it, but I was worried about the heat melting the sugar or causing a fire. 

I tried to put sugar cookie batter inside a hole cut in the gingerbread.  The gingerbread cooks for 17 minutes, and the sugar cookie cookies for 9 at a different temperature, so I did the gingerbread first alone.  I would usually double bake my gingerbread anyway, so I would add the sugar cookie batter when I did the second bake.  A test bake went sort of well.  The sugar carmel was a much stronger building material than the sugar cookie, and the hole cut in the gingerbread cost me stability.  A series of experiments showed that I could put the sugar cookie right on top of a solid gingerbread slab, and even stack the cookies.  I tried to alter Alton Brown's recipe as little as possible.  I didn't need to use icing to join the cookies.

I ended up with five dough colours as well as the gingerbread.  I was able to make a much more vibrant colour (compared to the stained glass caramel technique) with the concentrated food colouring.  Food Lion had some food colouring for icing that made the whole cookie dough slimey and less likely to keept it's shape in baking, so don't use it.  I needed to use the most concentrated food colouring in the least volume possible or else add some flour if the dough was getting sticky.  I had balls of Yellow, Red, Green, White and Purple.

It was a very cool outcome.  I had less candy being used.  The construction went faster, and the harder to reach areas that are hard to decorate afterwards all got at least partially decorated before construction.

The one for the ward:

Red and green sugar cookie door baked on gingerbread, with purple sugar cookie snowmen and a yellow sugar cookie star.

White cookie with a yellow angel on top with green hearts on top of red hearts.  Some of the cookie cutters I had like the angel have seen little use over the years as the wings would just burn.  With a recipe that needs only 7-9 minutes, the cookie looks great.

The trees on the side was another good experiment - the trees were baked cut in half, then assembled, then attached to the walls of the house and left to dry.  No problem standing the wall up at all.

Rear view.  Chocolate bears from Walmart.  Green sugar cookie tree with yellow stars on top of purple stars.

I found this interesting enough to work with, and then a coworker asked me for one for her daughter's daycare.  I had time, and plenty of dough left over:

More use of sugar cookie dough

Assembled, rear view

Sugar cookie roof tiles.  I'm going to play with this more next year.

Final front door assembly.  I had a giant candy cane on the roof line that my wife hated - so I covered it with icing and skittles.  Then, it started to melt and leaked red fluid on the front door step.

So, I feel confident I have seen the rise of the sugar cookie, and the death of the lollipop window unless someone can teach me a new trick.

Ukemi Rant

Our dojo has had the same comments from visiting instructors from Japan and India the last few months.  Our ukemi is lacking.  Not the actual fall, but the intention in the rest of the ukemi.

Typically, ukemi is taught as the final piece, the actual fall.  This is something I refer to as “gymnastics.”  We practice basic tumbling, but we do it in isolation of any external stimulus.  This is not really anything to do with ukemi at all, but it provides a necessary foundation.  Gymnastics is to Aikido what a baby learning to walk for the first time is to a marathon runner.  Learning to roll is learning your A, B, Cs.  Actual Ukemi is writing a novel.

The ukemi starts with the attack.  The attack is full of intent and aimed at a specific target, and it is cutting through that target.  An attack that stops short of the target is not something that can be blended with.  An attack that misses the target is not something that gets blended with.  An attack that misses Nage altogether is a waste of time to practice with.  For Aikido, we need a real attack.  There is no blending with an attack if there is no attack. 

A Nage who tries to stay within a kata when the attack has no place in that kata will lose sensitivity and ultimately, their Aikido will be worse for it.  When an attack is too low, trying to work with a kata created for a high attack means much more force gets used and the kata is more difficult.  If the uke doesn't attack for the kata, then Nage never gets to actually practice the kata and the blending with an attack that is supposed to be learned never gets learned, because neither side ever has a chance to feel the blend. 

An uke who stiffens up and refuses to feel kuzushi can only do so because they know what is happening.  Nage is stuck within the “rules,” so uke can stick their hands in their armpits and feel they have a victory.  Of course, stiffen up and stick your hands where no one can reach them is the height of stupidity in any martial situation and this reflex will get you killed.  The uke can run in the opposite direction from the nage and feel they have a victory.  No one practices.  Nage hasn't learned to deal with an attack, uke hasn't learned to attack or blend.  It's not like sumo or wrestling where landing on the mat is a loss of points.

Freestyle practice starts to create a chance to learn to blend.  A kata that calls for a high attack while the uke attacks very low requires more force and probably more clashing, but a technique for a low attack will work well.  Make something difficult, something else gets easy.  But, Nage hasn't practiced with feeling the difference between high and low attacks.  Uke hasn't practiced being thrown by a well blended technique.  Freestyle will be more frustrating and more scary for both sides.

After the initial receiving of the attack, uke responds somehow.  If the kata is kaitenage and uke tries to stand tall, the kata is rougher and less beneficial.  Nage should be learning to go with an uke whose balance has been broken forward and downward in kaitenage.  For the instructor from India, he taught us kaitenage and the class was full of people standing tall and refusing forward kuzushi.  His next movement was to follow an uke and break their balance upward.  Several senior students then started doing the ukemi they were supposed to do for kaitenage and fell on their face (making the new kata impossible).  There was no way to follow them upward to break their balance, as they never went upward.  Made the kata impossible to practice, and nage doesn’t learn to follow the movement of uke.  The time came to practice kaitenage, and people had to be bludgened downward, and they had to be physically powerlifted to get of the ground for the kokyunage.  Neither side learns to blend.  Uke has not made a more realistic attack, nor does adding more resistance make someone's technique better.

Freestyle corrects some of these flaws, as the Nage doesn’t have to pretend to lead out a contracted, hesitant, badly aimed attack.  The opening given is the opening taken.  This makes the ukemi more demanding, and ultimately more dangerous for uke as they never did learn to blend.  They have no way to read what is about to happen to them, and they are constantly surprised.  The whole movement feels shocking and frightening, as they've never moved with even gentle force being applied.

For the Japanese instructor, people were attacking in a very static fashion.  They would quietly approach, hold back (their face and body completely exposed), and then grab his shoulders with both hands – and stop moving.  There is no attack that is standing testicles, ribs and face wide open while holding someone’s lapel.  We are not getting ready for Prom; we are not asking someone to pin a flower on our lapel.  The Japanese instructor’s comment was, “I just want to hit you guys!”  He was right.  That was the opening there, there was nothing else.  Try to blend or do a tenkan with that movement?  There was no force being applied, so nothing to blend with.  Some Uke's then complain about a Nage who does Irimi movements too often.  This becomes their excuse to do less forceful, more hesitant attacks which require much more Irimi on the part of the Nage.  It leaves the Nage of either stopping practice, or constantly attacking which really has no place in Aikido.

A friend in Canada was doing his Ikkyu test and he had a randori.  One of the attackers had been watching too many Brazilian jujitsu videos and tried to cling on after he had been thrown.  He got stepped on, and probably by both the other attackers and my friend.  I had a fellow student who tried to cling on too long myself and in moving through I accidently put a knee in his face.  I figured if it happened by accident, it could certainly happen on purpose but I felt bad.  The Japanese instructor was very clear we should take the fall after a certain point.  I think my training back home agrees with this.  Too much holding on leaves the uke too vulnerable, and forces the Nage into atemi.

Some uke also like to clump up or attack too close to the wall or the edge of the mat – this sets up collisions or severe injuries.  Nage doesn’t learn to take the movement that is there, they learn to stop the movement and fight the momentum and the uke feels like they were run over - but this is all done to keep the uke safe.  To just blend is to throw the uke off the mat or into the wall.

As a nage, I find I need to move faster with some ukes because the genuine movement I illicit with genuine kuzushi is not going to last.  Uke already wants to break with the kata and is trying to cover up.  I made an opening, and I follow it because that is the blend.

The kata can be practiced slowly – but it requires an uke that is ready to “lose” and who is willing to move at slow speed the way their body moves at fast speed.  With slower speeds, uke can adjust several times and they can perceive what is coming next.  Uke can stuff the technique a dozen different ways at slow speed, but they never could at real speed.  They need to follow the kata.  Uke’s job is not to protect themselves – their job is to teach and give feedback.  Without good ukemi, there is no teaching and no learning.

Bowing

Bowing is on the 6^th Kyu test requirements for the USAF.  I would like to talk about the specific bow described in the USAF literature, as well as some variations that I was taught.  As an oncology nurse, I find when my patients understand why I ask for something, they are more likely to remember it and more likely to follow the precautions they are asked for.  When you understand the why of bowing, you can figure out how to deal with new situations on your own.

A disclaimer:  Aikido formal etiquette goes back to feudal times and is a part of Japanese heritage.  The culture that gave us strict rules for how many lines and syllables in a poem, the classes in flower arranging, the deep ritual for how to make and drink tea – there are many things in the West that we gloss over and consider beneath notice that formal Japanese culture does not.  There are many layers and etiquette is much, much more complicated than anything I am going to write about here.

A second disclaimer:  The rules change in how they are understood and how they are enforced everywhere you go.  When in doubt, it is always good to bow.  Other people are going to have their own rules for their own dojo.  If a person of rank and respect in the dojo you are at is showing something different than you are used to, follow them.  When in Rome…

At our dojo, a standing bow at the doorway to the dojo, in the direction of O Sensei to start with.  Actually try to make eye contact with O Sensei, then lower your eyes.  Bow from the waist, about 30-45 degrees.  You should not need to throw your hips backward to stay upright.  When leaving the dojo, turn and face O Sensei again and bow in the same fashion.  If there is no picture, bow to the room.  Do not obstruct the flow of people to and from the dojo, and if they are blocking your view of O Sensei do not draw attention to this nor demand that they move out of your way.  You have already started to practice! 

Leave your shoes at the door.  Some dojo will request you wear a second set of indoor only shoes from the doorway to the mat.  These shoes should be left at the edge of the mat facing outwards with the heel against the mat and the shoes set neatly side by side.  If you are at such a dojo, never block the oncoming traffic with your shoes especially if it is the Sensei.  Do not take the spot right between the mat and the change rooms or the main exit or the Sensei’s change room.  If you are later than the other students and the mat edge is full of footwear, unobtrusively get your shoes set up in a second row.

Whether or not you have shoes, I was taught a standing bow off the mat facing O Sensei, then a kneeling bow once on the mat.  The standing bow is to the training space.  The second bow is to O Sensei and both hands go down together.  Your index fingers and thumbs touch.  You make eye contact before you bow, you lower your head and lose eye contact but not to the point that you need to put weight on your hands.  Bow in this same fashion when leaving the mat.  What you do with your shoes is also true of what you do with yourself – never stand where you are blocking other people’s practice or their ability to get on and off the mat. 

There is a bow where you put both hands together in a prayer formation in front of your third eye and then proceed.  Kawahara Sensei saw me do this once, and told me if I was not a practicing Shinto worshipper, I should not do this.  I respected his correction and I still do.

After lining up, the instructor bows to O Sensei with you, and this is the same bow as before with both hands going down together.  Then the instructor turns to face you.  In the past, your sword was on your left side and would be drawn by your right hand.  There were tricks around this, but this was the convention.  You make eye contact.  Your left hand lowers first, releasing your mental scabbard.  Then, the right hand leaves your waist and lowers to the ground after the left has touched.  You lower your head, but don’t put weight on your hands if you can help it.  You should not need to stick your butt up in the air to bow.  You keep a straight spine, and keep your connection to your root.  You start to bow before your instructor, and you finish you bow after he is finished.  Your right hand returns to your side first, with your head down, then the head comes up then the left hand hand returns.

To make eye contact is to identify whom you are showing respect to (make it personal and real), but you do not want to make this a challenging stare.  You are the junior, and it is not your place to demand eye contact if the instructor does not give it to you.  You are putting yourself in a more vulnerable position when you bow first and hold your bow longer, and that is a sign of trust.  In acting as though you have a sword, you are remembering you are asking to be part of a lineage and a history of a martial arts system.  Your instructor is teaching you this art; this is one way you show respect for what he has taught you.  To show too much deference, especially to a stranger is to show you are nonchalant and completely unconcerned about their abilities or that you aren’t paying attention and your mind has drifted somewhere else. 

The straight spine and rooted seiza is a position that you can do martial techniques from.  This is another sign that you remember that you are part of a martial lineage now and a sign of respect to your teacher.  To let your structure go when you bow shows that you didn’t pay attention in class, your practice is not mindful and that you don’t value what you are being taught.

You pause when your head is lowered.  The pause should be present, but not too long.  This is also a sign of trust and respect.

Between equals, bow at the same time.  Each piece of the bow is done at the same time.  Don’t interfere with the larger class or hold the class up! 

There is a common mistake to lower the hands one at a time, then lift them both together.  Kawahara Sensei once saw this and told us this was never a correct variation in any circumstance.  I assume the same goes for lowering hands together then bringing them back one at a time (usually seen when the student can’t handle their own body weight).

Be aware of Ma-ai!  Do not bow so close that the other person might bump heads with you.  If you both have weapons, bow from even further away so that the weapons will only make slight contact at the tip if drawn, or no contact at all. 

When your practice involves a line technique, you are finished being thrown when you have gotten right out of the way of other people throwing and falling.  This also shows awareness of Ma-ai, as well as concern and respect for the rest of the students.

An overly abbreviated bow that makes no attempt to pay attention to the person you are bowing to shows you really aren’t present or ready for practice.  In the past, this was an insult.

When the instructor calls for your attention, you need to briefly conclude practice with your partner (bow) and then watch the instructor (bow in gratitude for the instruction) and then bow to your partner again to resume practice.  If you just switch your attention to the instructor immediately, you could end up getting hit.

To test, you have bowed at the door and coming on the mat.  When you are called up, you come to the front of the dojo and you bow again to O Sensei.  Get in line, and bow at the same time as your uke. 

Kawahara Sensei did not demand we bow to him, but he was grateful when we did.  Here, it is convention that you bow to the examiner as you would an instructor.  Your instructor will be in a different place in the dojo, so you will have to move.  Do not stick your buttocks in the direction of O Sensei.  Again, get side by side or in a line and bow at the same time, moving at the same speed.  This will get you in the right frame of mind for your test with your uke.  Nage is not following Uke, nor is Uke following Nage.  You are together, moving as one.

Then, bow facing each other far enough apart that you cannot touch.  Take the time to line up cleanly before you bow, but line up quickly.

You can see each bow is like entering a new room:  The Dojo, the practice area, O Sensei, your instructor, your partner.  With each bow, you are entering deeper into practice.  To finish practice with your partner, you need to leave that room (bow to your partner).  To leave the test, you leave your partner, your instructor, O Sensei, the Tatami and then the Dojo.  You bow in the reverse order to how you entered your test.  If you have to leave class early, or you have an emergency, you follow this order.

When you know etiquette, it is tempting to use this as a means of judging someone else.  Etiquette should not be used as a substitute form of violence.  It is possible to show contempt for a person while following etiquette exactly, but this defeats the true purpose of Aikido in my opinion.  It is possible to communication respect and concern while making mistakes.  It starts with what is in your heart and mind, and I believe this is as important to Aikido practice as the external form. 

Once, I was driving Kawahara Sensei to the dojo to teach a class.  An elderly man had slipped on some ice and fallen and I apologized to Sensei, stopped the car and made sure the man was alright.  It was wrong for me to make Sensei late for class, but he seemed happy that I had stopped.

We have had Muslim students at our dojo recently.  O Sensei wrote, “The Art of Peace is not a religion.  It perfects and completes religions…The world has eight millions gods and I cooperate with them all.”  The Prophet wrote in the Quran that his followers should not bow to any man, and this is a centuries old practice followed by Islam.  They bow to God alone.  I respect this.  I can see if a person feels genuine respect, trust and concern no matter what their external body is doing.  Communication before class is important, and polite.

It is important to never be late, but it can happen.  Usually, it is accepted that we wait until being acknowledged.  One school had a very involved ritual around coming late, but I never learned it.  Another school let everyone come and go as they pleased in the middle of practice, and being late was no problem.  This is rare, and not to be counted on.  In a seminar situation in the CAF, it was expected that you would not interrupt the larger class and would quietly come on when the local instructor waived you on – different instructors will have different rules and waiting is always safer.  I was told in Hombu Dojo once that by waiting for the instructor to bow to me so that I could bow on, I was distracting the whole class and the instructor and that this was rude, selfish behavior.  The only sure-fire correct thing to do – be on time.

I was taught a standing bow with a weapon.  Some people like to do kneeling bows, of which there seem to be several variations and I am not an expert.  There seems to be a lot of confusion over Tachi-dori bowing.  I am of the opinion there never was a traditional, respectful method of a samurai taking someone else's sword away and then handing it back saying, "Best 2 out of 3?"  It would probably be an insult and a fatal mistake.  There are several ways.  I was taught to back up, put the weapon on the ground and then back up some more.  In the USAF, I was told this would slow the test down and draw things out.  The weapon gets handed back, without the blade or the point facing uke.

World's Simplest Plain Cheesecake Recipe

The very first cheesecake I ever made was a Chocolate Vanilla Marble with a chocolate crust.  The second I ever did was a Raspberry Chocolate Swirl.  I never actually did a simple cheesecake.  I made a wide variety of different flavours, but I always believed I had a basic recipe.  I just never actually made a plain, basic cheesecake.

I finally had a chance to try this for an Aikido Potluck.  I took most of my recipes and pared them down to the most basic essence.

Preheat an oven to 300.  I prefer to use convection.

For a 10x12 Pyrex pan, I made a crust with:

2c ground up chocolate animal cookies from Whole Foods.
4 tbsp of butter that was melted in the microwave.

I have done 1 lb of chocolate cookies with one stick of melted butter,a nd it worked very well.

In an earlier attempt, I used some organic graham crackers that I really didn't like the taste of.

Press the crust into a pan.  No need to butter the pan.  Put the pan with the crust in an oven at 300 for 10 minutes, then press more firmly as it slightly cools.  Let the crust and pan cool completely, or the edge of the cake will cook faster than the center and the cake will deform a bit.

For the batter:

Bring out all the ingredients and bring them up to room temperature, especially the cream cheese and the eggs.

6 packages of regular cream cheese at room temperature (I prefer Philadelphia)
1 1/2c of granulated sugar

Beat the two together in a mixer until smooth.

Add 1 tbsp of vanilla and blend in.

Add 6 eggs.  Beat until the batter is smooth.  Don't over beat the cake batter; you want smooth and not frothy.  Over beating the eggs makes the whole cake texture more bubbly and less smooth.

If the cream cheese is too cold when you start to mix it, the batter will be lumpy, the colour won't be uniform, and you might end up wrecking your mixer.  It is okay to leave the lumpy batter at room temperature for a little while and then try to blend it again if you were in a rush and didn't get your cheese to room temperature.  There will be fewer lumps if you leave the eggs on the counter for an hour or so before you mix them in.

I then pour the batter over the crust.  It will be fairly liquid.  There is no need to smooth it out - the heat of the oven will melt the cheese and the batter will smooth out nicely.

I put a 9x9 pan 2/3rds full of water on the bottom rack, and I put the cake on the middle rack.  This step helps prevent the cake cracking, which is really just a cosmetic thing and not essential.

I give it 25-30 minutes in the oven (no more).  Keep the door closed.  The top should still slightly jiggle when the pan is moved, but as it cools the cake will become more firm.  The cake will also sink slightly as it cools.  Cheesecakes are not tested with a toothpick or knife like other cakes.

The cake does not need to come out of the oven right away - leave the door cracked open and turn the oven off - this is my preferred way to cool it.

I had a friend bring jars of strawberry pie filling to work for this cake, and that worked well as a topping. 

I did make one with a pineapple pudding layer, then toasted coconut merangue on top.  It's fine to bake other layers on top, but it is very important that the cake and pan be fully cooled in between baking or your topping will bake unevenly and probably leave a layer of clear sweet liquid between the cake and the topping.  I either bake the topping first on the stove or I try a topping that can bake in 10 minutes in the oven.

*  For a gluten free cake, just use gluten free cookies ground up into crumbs or omit the crust.  There is no flour in this cake.

"Run to the side of the room"

“Sometimes you’re in a fight and you keep hitting the other guy with your right hand ‘cause that one’s usually the strongest.  Then, they start to figure it out so you hit them with the left and that’s called strategy!”  Towers in Space.

Randori used to be about fighting a group of attackers.  Today it is usually just to show that a student can respond to freestyle movements with little time to think about their responses.

Jiyu waza is difficult, and therefore often watered down for safety.  Many schools have taken safety concerns to the extent that learning how to deal with more than one committed attacker is not part of the practice.   Two attackers working together are much, much harder than one actual attacker with three people standing around at a safe distance waiting their turn.  People like to have a plan, so there are old strategies that get trundled out to deal with a far too modern situation.

I have heard many students and teachers say, “Run to the side of the room” without having a clear idea why.  The concept is time honoured, and very powerful when used properly.  This is battle strategy, and all strategies can be countered or used wrongly and all strategies will need to be abandoned or changed as the situation changes.  The original strategy was for dealing with people moving in a definite formation.  It usually has no purpose in modern randori where the attackers are trying to do the exact opposite of formation fighting.

Strategies from years ago are influenced heavily by rank-and-file swordsmanship.  The sword is held in the right hand, with the scabbard on the left.  Several people can do shomenuchi or tsuki for hours and not worry about cutting their fellow soldier to their left or their right.  The sword moves in a small corridor. 

Side to Side motions cut the people you are trying to fight alongside, which lead to doh cuts and yokomenuchi attacks either being excluded or modified (done at a sharp diagonal) so that you didn’t destroy your own line of defense.  When you are in formation, you really cannot run left or right to dodge an attack.  The wings of the formation have some leeway to their open side but the whole formation cannot be brought to bear.

There were no left handed swordsmen until the Europeans started dueling, and paired weapons were for use in a free-for-all or against a group; they were not used in a front line.  Someone using a weapon in their left hand while standing beside someone trying to use a weapon in their right would lead to the two soldiers cutting each other.  Someone with an empty right hand with a right handed swords man on their right leaves a gap in the front line – a full charge would not meet a weapon at that spot.  This is especially true for Roman sword and shield techniques; one could fall on the shield and find an opening.  On the other side, the soldier’s weapon hands have been cut.  As the shield bearer’s fly around, they cut each other in turn.  One attacker has opened up a gap in the frontline three people wide in a second.  Left handed people are definitely unlucky for the entire medieval military.

With cavalry, to attack their flank meant to strike a larger target.  Facing a horse head on meant to be facing a smaller target, and even if you dealt a killing blow a one ton armoured Clydesdale with an armoured rider was going to land on top of you. 

When charging, the cavalry saber was used to slash up and down, while the lance was used to puncture straight forwards.  A horse could not change direction easily in the middle of a charge, nor could the rider attack directly sideways without a great deal of specialized training.  So, eventually this evolved to chariots with two riders (one driving, one using a bow and arrow) and eventually tanks with independent drivers and gunners in one vehicle (groups working in concert). 

When a medieval soldier broken through the front line or outflanked the enemy, that person could attack the front line from behind.  The front line could not turn away from the opposing front line they faced without being stabbed in the back, but they could not individually defend against being stabbed in the back by the people who were behind them.  In chess, this is why a pawn that makes it to the far side of the board becomes a queen.  The balance of power is tipped greatly when the front line is breeched.

Aircraft fly in formation, because like the sword bearing soldiers, pilots attack forward.  When aircraft fire in formation, the largest possible target area gets attacked while lessening the risk to the individual planes.  Small aircraft are vulnerable from behind and from the flanks.  Larger bombers have free turrets that are independently operated, but this is an example of a group working in concert.  Formation was still held so that friendly fire did not decimate the attacking force, and it still allowed for more even bombing while making sure no one ran into bombs deployed by their own force.  The original idea of aircraft in war was a method to outflank the ground troops, bombing them from above and attacking them from vectors they could not defend against.  Air superiority has decided every major conflict since. 

The modern rifleman also fires in a specific direction, and if working in a group can’t fire in every direction without killing his fellow soldiers.  The flanks are the most vulnerable part of a fighting force.  The Aikido maxim about going to the side is to learn about the vulnerability of the flank.  When the flank is attacked, the other members of the front line cannot turn and attack without risking cutting their own, or exposing their own personal flank to the opposing force. 

The irimi technique is very much about finding the individual’s flank and blind spot, a flanking maneuver does the same thing for a larger fighting force.  As Musashi said, fighting one to one or ten thousand a side is the same.  To face a group in a tight line formation, the flanks are the safest spot for the nage and the easiest place from which to control the pace of the fight.

Trying to outflank your attackers and failing to do so can happen.  If the room is too small, your uke can get to the wall sooner than you can.  If they anticipate the strategy, they will be stretched across the room or leaving the center open.  If they are far away from you, they can respond to your actions easily and run you down.  They have time to adapt if you have committed.  As we don’t require it of uke today, they probably will not even advance in a linear formation.  We’ll correct them if they even try.  So, you can’t respond like you expect them to move in this fashion. 

Running to the side of the room leaves you surrounded if everyone is moving at a different speed and hoping to ‘wait their turn.’  You’ll get past one person and maybe the second and the rest will be in position to corner you.  Like all battle plans, you can spend months planning, but it comes down to a couple of seconds before you engage.  You need to be responsive.

If you have run to the side of the room against the wall and not ended up at the rear of a line then you’ve become trapped as you can only move in a 180 degree area (you can’t run through the wall), and can only move forward.  This is a problem for Aikido practice, particularly for nice people who try to avoid irimi and would never risk hurting their partners.  In a real situation you would throw someone against the wall, or into another person.  You do not want to do this in practice with friends, so therefore you cannot tenkan unless you control your technique. You can only safely drive a person backwards with irimi techniques provided this won’t cause a collision.  Your options are very limited, and your attackers are in a good position to predict and respond to your choices.  Or, a choice you make causes someone you should be looking after to have an injury. 

The same situation can happen with individual throws anywhere in the room.  You have to make sure that the throw’s vector is not straight down.  Not only is this weaker and potentially lets uke back into their strength; if uke falls they will probably land in contact with you or very close to you.  You have lost a direction to travel in, and now you need to run away. To throw someone on the ground at your feet is much the same as being up against the wall – you don’t want to step on someone you are practicing with, and you don’t want to throw your training partners on top of each other.  You have a very restricted window of safety before the uke on the ground can get up, and they may still be holding you for the other attackers to finish you.  In the dojo and the real world this means both a delay in your ability to respond and a restriction in your available responses to the next attack.   In the real world, the hope is that the straight downward force will seriously injury the attacker, and throwing a second person on top is even more damage to both.  You still need to get clear of that area very quickly.

Are you involved in many “accidents” in regular practice?  If your ukes are colliding with people or the walls of the dojo or falling off the mat you need to wake up.  You’ll never handle two attackers in the environment if you are too inwardly focused to safely handle one attacker.  Know what space you have to work in.  See the people around you.  Know where the mats end and the walls start, even when you’re the one being thrown.  The most basic level of awareness needed for good randori starts in everyday basic practice.

While we don’t practice fighting as a cohesive group, the group will spontaneously try to encircle you, charge you, or block you.  Even when not working together, the group will adopt a triangle, a square or a circle in relation to you.  Use straight lines with circles, and circle triangles and squares.  Treat the group as one unified whole, even when then members of that group do not think that they are.  They are unified in their objective and their training in the dojo.  Accept controlling a group as possible, and you will find a way to make it happen.  See several people as an individual, and do nothing different than you would in dealing with an individual.  Explore classical techniques – they were made for dealing with groups of attackers.  There is nothing new to learn in being able to control a group, only something new to accept. 

Cheesecake improv

Cheesecake

So, I did mention early on that I would be blogging about food too, but I really haven’t done much yet. 

I like to make cheesecakes.  There aren’t many ingredients to a basic recipe, and I hate to follow recipes anyway.  But, baking is different than cooking.  You can add more ingredients to a stew if it’s “missing something.”  You can only add more garnish to a cake.  Even when a cake is under baked, it’s done.  Everything needs to be correct up front.  So, how do you get creative with this?  I have a basic recipe that I use for a canvas, and then I play around from there.

Pan preparation:

I have two spring form pans, one is 7”, and the other is 10”.  Most of my recipes are for my ten inch pan.

I use baker’s parchment on the bottom and sides of the pan.  The bottom can usually be covered by placing the parchment inside, then closing the side of the pan down.  I use a very small amount of canola oil on the sides of the pan to help the parchment stick.  I just dip my finger in the oil and rub my finger on the pan.  There is no need for more.

It’s okay if the parchment is higher than the sides of the pan.  I’ll cut a piece of parchment down the middle and this leaves the paper 3” or so above the pan.  Let the ends of the parchment overlap so that the batter can’t seep through.  A little bit of canola oil between the ends of the parchment helps it to hold its shape.

The crust gets put into the pan next.

Crusts

Cheesecake can be well complimented by a wide variety of crusts, or the crust can be omitted.  I have used a regular graham cracker crust, and it’s easy.

Two cups of Graham crumbs

½ a stick of butter, melted.

Mix the two together, and then push the crust into the bottom of the pan.  If you have more crumbs, you can shape the crust up the side of the pan.

I like to use a variety of cookies for the crust.  I’ll grind up 365 brand gingersnaps and add the butter as above for a citrus cheesecake.  I’ll use Oreo or plain chocolate cookies ground up in a food processor for most types of cheesecake.  If I do a coconut cheesecake I’ll put coconut into the crumbs about 3:1 crumbs to coconut.  When I do an almond or a hazelnut cheesecake I’ll put ground nuts into the crumbs at equal portions or less.  The nuts can be lightly toasted, but they are going to bake so don’t over toast them.

The pan then goes into the oven at 300 for 10 minutes or so to set the crust.  The crust will be easily shaped further while it is still warm.

Batter:

This is my basic recipe.

Four packets of cream cheese (one pound) at or close to room temperature  (Product shot:  I like to work with Philadelphia the most, but I do use organic brands for my wife.)

4 eggs

Put the cream cheese in a strong mixer and mash it until it’s creamy.  Then add the eggs and get the batter to a uniform consistency.  If your mixer is straining, then add the eggs or let the cream cheese get a little warmer – the colder it is, the harder it will be for your mixer.  I’ve blown out a few motors by trying to rush things.  I now use a Kitchen Aid Pro mixer.

To finish off a very basic cheesecake, I add one cup of sugar and 1-2 tablespoons of vanilla and mix it well.  If you want a basic cake, then add the sugar with the cream cheese early on.

I will often not put the sugar in at the beginning.  Wait, No Sugar?!?  I sometimes don’t use sugar and use coffee syrups instead.  If I am using new flavours, I will add the sweeteners LAST.  If I am adding fresh fruit to the mix, I get the fruit pulp into the cheesecake and then determine if the batter is too sour or if I think it really needs more sugar.  Maple syrup and molasses will also work, but the flavour is much stronger than regular sugar so you might need to mix the various sugars to taste.

BECAUSE, my real trick with cheesecake is that I finally figured out that the batter will TASTE very similar raw compared to how it will taste fully baked.  So, I taste the batter often while making a new flavour (yes, raw eggs and all.  Use your own discretion, but that’s my secret to working with a new flavour of cheesecake).  So, if the batter tastes slightly more sour than I want after putting in fruit, I will then add an additional 1/4c of sugar for every 1c of fruit like strawberries or blueberries but I add the sugar one tablespoon at a time and I taste it after each tablespoon and when I like the flavour, I stop.  Actual sour fruit would probably need much more sugar to get a batter to my taste. 

Some recipes will call for jams, and I will do this again adding slowly until I like the look and taste.  Things like peach jam will be overwhelmed and too subtle, so I prefer to use the actual fruit.  On the other hand, I prefer to use seedless raspberry jam as the batter will have an almost sandy texture if I use the actual fruit.  When using jam, flour will almost certainly need to be added, about 1 tbsp for each cup of fruit.

Consistency is a bit of a trick.  I want the batter to be more on the stiff side.  I go for a honey consistency.  If the batter is too liquid after adding my flavourings, I will add a tablespoon of flour at a time until the batter looks a little more gelatinous.  I never add more than 3 tablespoons of flour. 

If the batter is liquid, it will bake, but it will probably need more time and it’s harder to try to make the batter a little bit fancier.  Fruit and nuts will fall to the bottom, and any attempt to mix contrasting colours and flavours will just make a mess unless the batter has some ability to stand up.

Some batters will come out very stiff, and that’s okay.  For a chocolate cheesecake, I will put 1 lb of dark chocolate in a pan with three tablespoons of butter and 1c of sour cream.  I’ll add a 1/4c of cocoa when the chocolate has melted.  I keep the stove top on at the lowest possible heat and I stir often and usually turn off the heat and let the chocolate finish melting without direct heat.  Use a double boiler otherwise, but don’t get any water in the chocolate.  This will make a bit of a ganache consistency, which makes adding the chocolate to the cream cheese much easier.  When the chocolate mixture is added to the colder cream cheese, the batter will get very stiff and a spoon will stand up in it as melted chocolate will solidify, but will become liquid again during baking.  I don’t use the melted chocolate without something added to it to make it more liquid, as it will become a very solid lump as it gets rapidly cooled.  You have been warned by the voice of bad experience. 

You can add nuts if you like, but put them in before the chocolate.  I’ll use Hazelnut coffee syrup for this batter and there is no problem with the extra liquid.  Do not add any flour; you won’t need it for this one.  The chocolate will melt and the batter will become smoother during baking, so there is no need to mash the batter down in the pan.  So, pay attention to your ingredients.

I have divided the basic batter into two or three and then added different flavourings to each one.  One batter can be a little more liquid than another, but batters still need to be soft enough to be mixed when a knife is run through the batter at the end.  Pour a portion of the batter in, and then add spoonfuls of another, then more of another batter until the pan is filled (read below first).  Don’t try to make the various dollops too small, or there will be no distinction between them.  Take a butter knife and swirl through the cheesecake a few times, trying not to scratch the crust.

Baking:

The whole pan gets set on tin foil and the foil closed up around the sides (not over the top obviously).  The pan then gets set in a roasting pan with water on the bottom of the roaster.  I have heard of water being put half way up the pan, I do an inch of water because my roaster is shallow.

The batter gets poured in, and then the roaster pan with water and cake goes back into the oven at 300 for an hour and a half.  Check the cake very infrequently because the steam will be released ever time the door to the oven is opened.  I use the convection bake setting on our gas oven, but I’m not certain how much that matters if you don’t have an oven with this setting.

Let the cake cool down fully before opening the pan.  I let mine cool for an hour, then refrigerate overnight.

Decoration:  Be careful with caramel or chocolate as these will be stronger and harder to cut than the actual filling and the cake will be crushed out of shape when you try to cut it.  I will melt the chocolate and then take a spoonful and wave it over the top to get very fine threads of chocolate.  Crushed nuts, chocolate flakes and candy can be put on top quickly while the chocolate is still not fully cooled, then add more chocolate threads overtop again.

I have done glazes in the past, but rarely. 

3/4c of water  

2 tbsp of cornstarch or some other thickener like kudzu

sugar to taste, about 1/2c but some fruit requires more.

2c of whatever fruit you wish to use, divided with half the fruit crushed up.

Heat the water and sugar in a pan, take half the fruit and crush it.  Then, take the other half of the fruit and place it on the cake top then pour the glaze over top.  You might prefer to leave the side of the pan on for this step.  Then, refrigerate the cake again for two hours or more.

Specific recipes available if anyone wants them.

Chocolate almond cheesecake

Four packs of creamcheese

four eggs

Mix these two at room temperature in a mixer

16oz of dark chocolate

3oz of butter

1c sour cream

Melt the butter and chocolate together in a saucepan, then add the sourcream when the chocolate is liquid.

1 1/2c ground almonds lightly toasted

1 1/2c chocolate cookie crumbs

1/2 stick of butter

Mix the crumbs and ground nuts together, then add the butter.  Press the butter into the pan and bake at 300 for ten minutes.  While waiting, add:

Almond coffee syrup to taste (about 1/4 to 1/2c) to the cream cheese mixture

Scrap the chocolate mixture into the creamcheese mixure.  You can add additional chopped almonds to the batter at this step.  Bake in a pan prepared as above for 90 minutes on 300 (specific baking instructions mentioned above).

Red, White and Blue Cheesecake for July 4th, 2011

This cake starts like my basic, then gets divided into three equal parts.  I would probably try each piece in isolation in the future.

Graham crust as above.

Four packages of cream cheese

Four eggs

1c sugar

Take three bowls and divide the batter into three, about 1 1/2c per bowl

1st bowl Do nothing, maybe add some vanilla

2nd bowl Add 1c purreed strawberries and maybe some food colour

                Add 1-2 tbsp of flour to make the batter thicker

                Then, add 1/4c of sugar to help the sweetness of needed.

3rd bowl  Add 1c purreed blueberries and maybe some food colour

                Add 1-2 tbsp of flour to make the batter thicker

                Then, add 1/4c of sugar to help the sweetness if needed

                 With 2-3 tbsps of flour, you should be able to add fresh berries without them sinking to the bottom

Prepare the pan and crust as mentioned above, then add the different batters a part at a time.  Make sure the batters don't over mix and are stiff enough to be around other colours.  Run a knife through the batter at the very end of all the pouring, then directly into the oven at 300 for 90 minutes, using the water bath as described above.



Chocolate hazelnut cheesecake pieces.

Use a heartshaped mold in a water bath and use hazelnut coffee syrup or frangelico for the sweetness

Plain cheesecake with Raspberry collis

Kawahara Shihan

With Sensei in Japan in 2003

Yukio Kawahara Shihan, 8th dan, the technical director of the Canadian Aikido Federation, a direct student of O Sensei and a very gifted, very generous and gracious man, passed away late on June 2nd. According to the shidoin who phoned me, he was surrounded by his students.

I've tried to blog about Sensei several times, and I always end up deleting the entry. He was a private man by choice and never sought the limelight. He was also careful about his legacy and cautious about what he taught to whom.  He was a strong advocate of practice, and I think he considered our practice more important than any ceremony directed at himself.

He had a mischievous sense of humour. There are many stories of a camera being brought into a class, only to have him "accidentally" stand with his back to the camera and say things like, "This hand work is very important!" His students learned to never sit anywhere near the camera because we'd never see much of his hands.

He was a real prankster. After he got his first vehicle with a key fob, he took great pleasure in acting innocently nonchalant while walking with his students to his car in the parking lot, only to secretly set off his car alarm to see if we would jump. Once, I heard him tell an instructor that he was to meet us at a certain time and place, and he was adament that the instructor should not be late! Then, Sensei told me to drive past the instructor as though we didn't see his glare as we breezed by him. "John, is he running after us?" asked Sensei.  For all that, Sensei was always polite, and insisted we be the same.

In a particularly memorable demonstration of his abilities, when he overheard a student talking loudly during a break at a seminar about how he wasn't sure the old sensei could still take ukemi, Sensei came up behind him with a forward roll, close enough I thought they were going to collide, but so quietly that the jackass never noticed Sensei was even there. Sensei motioned for us to be quiet as he moved back across the room with the loudmouth none the wiser. 

The first time I was going to be at a seminar of his, I was all excited! I had an image in my mind of someone who exuded danger and poise with every movement, yet at the same time embodied the peace of the Buddha:  vintage Schwarzenegger meets Ghandi meets Sho Kosugi meets David Carradine meets an Asian Adonis. Sensei was short, had a potbelly and liked his beer. He also liked to shop for shoes, which we did on several occasions. Yet every time he taught he could do something that scared/inspired/shocked/stunned me. He was incredibly fast, and very solid. 

Every time I trained with him I saw something I had never seen before that turned years of training on its head. When I asked a longtime high-ranking student of his who had been training under Sensei for over 30 years if he was familiar with everything Sensei taught, the student told me he was still seeing new material every time he attended a seminar.  In spite of his broad range of technique, Kawahara Sensei gave us very traditional Aikido. He was a genius and a prolific creator. Nothing mattered to him more than giving his best for his students.

Some of his many contributions were his "recipes." "If you want good Yonkyo, do Yonkyo to a partner 100 times a day for 100 days." I had few volunteers to help with this practice. Once, Sensei was telling me to do something 30 minutes a day every morning immediately after waking up. I was doing shift work, and I already had difficulty getting enough sleep and I told him so. He gave me a flat, level stare. "Yes. Difficult. I know." And then he shrugged, as if to say, "What's your point?"

Once I asked him about Tachidori techniques when I was visiting his dojo. He said nothing as we walked upstairs to the dojo and he took a shinai off the wall. "I hit you now." For the next several minutes, his eyes glittered and he laughed uproariously as he repeatedly hit me on the head, no matter how I tried to dodge. He would raise the shinai over his head and wait a split second, then CRACK.  I remember thinking his face looked like a picture of Santa Claus. He was having so much fun with this, and so was I. After 100 strikes (I somehow kept count), he handed the shinai to me and said, "You more practice. Take this." That's how he gave me my shinai as a gift.

One of the things about him my wife remembers is how kind his eyes were.

I don't know much about his life. He didn't share much. One thing about him that I didn't notice for quite some time when I first met him is that his thumb was missing on one hand. I later learned that he did not want to be asked about it, and over the years I never learned the story behind it. I noticed that often he would not shake hands when meeting people, and I think part of the reason is that he didn't want to bring attention to his missing thumb. Once, when I was with him during a doctor's visit, the doctor asked him what had happened, and Sensei went so far as to say it was a childhood accident (I actually offered to leave the room before he responded to the question).

The thing is, I often would forget that he had a missing thumb, and for years, when I did remember, I couldn't clearly recall which thumb. He could put Yonkyo and Nikyo on me that was simply one of the most excruciating things I've ever felt. His Kotegaeshi was enormously powerful. There was no way to feel if the left side or right side was "better." It was all powerful. Now that I have one arm that is partly paralyzed, I find myself following his example to guide my own practice.

Someone used this picture for a seminar poster once. Sensei's response to seeing it
was, "What an ugly-looking man! You should get a picture of a better-looking man!"

There are some things that Sensei shared with me about his past, and other things that I learned from others. Once, when Sensei was visiting a student's house during a potluck, I heard that he saw a picture of an American WWII warship on the wall. He asked the student why he had a picture on the wall of the warship that had sunk his father's ship in the Battle for the Pacific. One of the student's relatives had served on the American ship. I never had the chance to ask Sensei about the story or whether his father had survived. 

Sensei told me he was living in Nagasaki during the war. He told me of planes flying overhead every day and shooting at the city constantly. He remembered a childhood friend of his getting shot through the kneecap by one of the bullets, which exited through the sole of his friend's foot. Then, one day, when he was eight years old, the room Sensei was playing in went very bright and the windows exploded inward. He was close enough to feel the blast, but far enough away that the atomic bomb didn't completely level his house. (He told me through an interpreter that he was eight at the time, but if his birthday was in 1940 he would have been five years old.)  He told me he remembered that the planes stopped shooting the day after the bomb was dropped and that the city suddenly fell silent. During a trip that Sensei arranged for several of his students, we went to the memorial at Hiroshima, but we did not go to Nagasaki. He told me that he had no family there anymore (though I did once hear that he had a sister).

At 17, he began his practice of Aikido. He was in Osaka at the time, and the stories he told of his years there made it sound like the various dojos were responsible for law enforcement immediately after the war. He told me about knife fights for food. From the sound of it, unions and rioters were brutally made to conform. The results still speak for themselves. In Hiroshima, the trains were running in just over 100 days after the bomb dropped. Crime is still shockingly less prevalent in Japan than in many other countries. You can still leave your wallet on a park bench in Tokyo and have it returned with the ID and money still in it. Compare that to New Orleans, which following Hurricane Katrina still hasn’t recovered. 

I once saw the AikiWeb site refer to Sensei as a student of Banzen Tanaka. I asked Sensei about this, and he told me his primary teacher was named Kobayashi. When I was very new and made the mistake of asking him if he had been a student of O Sensei, he was emphatic that he had been. I had been under the misunderstanding that O Sensei had lived and taught only in Tokyo. From what I've learned since, O Sensei was not around Hombu Dojo consistently after the war and spent large portions of time in Osaka, as well as Iwama.

At some point after being made Shihan, Kawahara Sensei was deployed by Hombu to teach in Taiwan, where he remained for three years before anti-Japanese sentiment compelled him to leave. He then moved to Montreal, where he taught for a period of time before relocating to British Columbia. He would remain there for the rest of his life.

I think Sensei spent less than half his time at home and the rest of the time travelling across Canada. He would travel to Saskatoon to teach one weekend, stay with us for the week, then travel to Atlantic Canada to teach the next weekend so that the full price of the plane ticket wouldn't have to be absorbed by his students at either location. His work for Aikido in Canada was demanding and consuming. He gave a huge portion of his life to his students. He always stayed human while always being an inspiration.

I'm going to miss you Sensei. Rest in Peace.