Madison, WI

I recently flew out to Madison, Wisconsin on a vacation to sound with my Dad, Gram, Brother, Sister-in-law, and new nephew.
So far on the trip I have spent most of my days cleaning out the basement and watching NCIS with my grammy.
As intellectually stimulating that my be for a young man such a myself, I have also looked beyond for other opportunities.
I took a quick Google search for any local Bujinkan dojos in the area, and easily located "Bujinkan Madison". Last night was my first opportunity to train with them.
Admittedly, I was a bit worried about driving through downtown for the first time to try and find the place, but I located the humble community center without too much difficulty.
About 7 people showed up, including Mike sensei. All but two of us were black belt, which I found unusual.
The training was completely unlike what I am used to at my home dojo in Santa Cruz, and in the end, found it to be more of an imitation of the training style in the Japan honbu dojo; Sensei shows a technique once or twice, and you mimic his movements with your uke.
Mike sensei is very skilled, and I enjoyed his concepts and movement very much. He took time to personally break down some of the movements for me and help out, which I dually appreciated.
I told him that I would going to Chicago for the weekend, and was sorry that I could not train with them again on Saturday. However, it looks like he knows some people down there, and is going to contact them to see if I can come train at a dojo in Chicago! Im super excited!
Anyway, we'll see how it goes!

忍者 NINJA

Grant, on the Ninja Learning Network. --Click the Video link. Yeah, that's right.

I've been training in Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu for more than a year now. It has fast become a huge passion in my life.

This time I am featured on the Ninja blog that my Sensei has organized! Stoked. I've finally made it to the big time!

The "Santa Cruz Tsunami" .. nah.. it couldn't be.

It's 6am; I wake to an unearthly wail, blaring from my nightstand.

It's a phone call. It's my Father.

Haven't talked to him in a while... --wait a second

-why in the world is he calling me at the crack of dawn?!

I grumble a half-hearted greeting into the cell phone. I am swiftly informed of last night's most current events; Japan experienced a 9.0 earthquake, and the entire eastern coast was wiped out by a tsunami.

Oh.

Being so overcome with grogginess, my ability to process the gravity of (or really even the point of what my dad is telling me) the situation, is quite limited..In fact, limited to only obscure grunts and the occasional grumble.

He goes on to assure me that my demise is imminent; that there is a 100ft wave heading straight for our shore.

It is at this point that I decide something serious might actually be going on in Japan.. (not Santa Cruz), and that I should actually investigate the matter.

The television pops on. As I sift through the various littered new channels, I am assaulted by scenes of a flooded urban sprawl: 2-ton trucks floating like rubber ducks.

Shit.Is.Fucked.Up.

In conjunction with my father's bold claims of proposed danger, a news reporter posted up near Capitola beach spits out a similar tune of catastrophe --

"There's going to be a tsunami in Santa Cruz.." - seriously?

My dear father, yet again besieged with concern, makes me promise I'll inform my sleeping mother of the soon-to-come wholesale and wanton slaughter of California.

I console him as best I can, and end the phone call awkwardly attempting to humor his concern.

The smug, straight-backed figure staring at me through the colored phosphorous and light offers one more alarming nugget of wisdom: "The wave is projected to hit the coastline at 7:20am".

Given the situation, there's only one thing to do:

Get down to the beach ASAP.

I swiftly collect myself, and head out. Along the way I peek inside my mother's cave - she clings to an all-consuming slumber - and, despite the fact that our home and everything we hold dear is about to be wiped off the face of the earth, I decide that I just cannot bring myself to bother her with such trivial details.

Knowing that the roads will be blocked closer to the water, I mount my faithful 10-speed steed, and, armed only with my camera, cell phone, sunglasses, and a week's worth of food/water, make way towards certain doom.

After about an hour, hundreds of people lined up on the cliffside on either side of me, and surfers daring the sea below, the tide begins to recede well past the halfway point of the wharf.

I'd say the results in Santa Cruz were a little less extreme. However millions of dollars worth of damage occurred in the Yacht Harbor; I don't think anyone was hurt.

All along the 1.

We start our journey after a morning workout.

About 6:30am.

We drive well past Davenport, and even Greyhound beach.

The winds are quite strong.

We detour down a single-lane battered road.

Park next to a salty children's slide,

Stroll along a small path,

Pass a rusted Weber grill and a surfboard..

The excitement continues on West Cliff.

We climb down the cliffside.

And perch like 2 overgrown gulls.

The ocean swirls beneath our feet.

Twenty feet down.