January 8 . Issue #72

“You make your mistakes to learn how to get to the good stuff.” Quincy Jones

Hello all and welcome. Please join me for the five things that kept me going this week.

1. This weeks eye candy, the deep and soulful, Soul, an amazing animated feature. Pixar makes history with a couple of firsts, for co-director Kemp Powers and star, Joe Gardner.

Watching the documentary “Quincy”, the Quincy Jones story on Netflix, just great.

The Mule with Clint Eastwood, a great performance by a master of the screen.

2. My audio delight for this week centred around the music of Soul and Jon Batiste, music consultant. The trumpet of Latin superstar, Arturo Sandoval, musical director and composer for the soundtrack to The Mule.

Inspired by Quincy, I found myself spinning some music from some of his award-winning productions, 28 Grammy Wins and 80 Nominations. Bad and Thriller, the Michael Jackson albums, are both produced by  Quincy Jones.

3. I found inspiration to write a short story about one of my swords. Some friends are planning a Zine. Something a little crazy. I thought I can do crazy, and so I wrote a fictitious story about an antique sword. My Perfect Swordbased on my war sword.

4. The Japanese sword is something that is special to me. When I first got into the martial art of Japanese swordsmanship; one of the first books I purchased,  Japanese Swordsmanship, Technique and Practice by Gordon Warner and Donn F. Draeger.

This is a book that I come back to often as a reference and a study guide. Other books that I reference and read for joy and inspiration, I like the photos too, The Samurai Sword by John Yumoto, The Craft of the Japanese Sword by Yoshindo Yoshihara and The Art of Japanese Swordsmanship by Nicholas Suino.

5. My first-aid certificate expired on December 15th, of 2020. Or did it? All certificates have been extended to June 2021 according to the WSIB.

With that bit of good news, I made myself available to teach a virtual class for a local community centre, “Keeping Your Karate Kids Kicking” with Paul sensei (4 classes).  I hope to see some of my students join in the fun.

Today I read an article by my friend Scott Langley sensei on kicking, it was featured in an issue of Shotokan Karate Magazine.

The article reinforced how important your hip flexors are, especially when doing mae geri, front kick. This will be a fun exercise for my virtual karate class.

Thank you for reading. If you think someone would enjoy the newsletter please share it with them. If you are looking for a fun children’s book check out one of my books. Samba on a Snowy Day or my new book, Samba in Brazil.

Stay safe, stay well, stay strong and keep going.

Copyright © 2021 Paul Yanuziello, All rights reserved.

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