making room to grow
Today, I made the announcement to my students and colleagues that I will be taking an indefinite hiatus from teaching weekly group classes, effective immediately. This is one of the most difficult decisions I've ever made. I know it's the only reasonable choice right now, and that I've put it off for far too long. … Continue reading On Burnout
You might have noticed that the kajaswords website got a big facelift lately. I've been working hard all month to make this space as pretty, functional, and easy-to-navigate as possible in preparation for some exciting announcements in the coming months. Part of that process has involved cleaning up the blog specifically, which I'll admit I've … Continue reading Broken Links
The video recording of one of my favourite recent Patreon chats is now up! On October 9th, 2021, we meandered through the parallels between the commodification and popularization of sashiko stitching/embroidery and the development arc of a martial art; the history of MMA; the challenges of determining an art's authenticity and effectiveness in HEMA; Phil … Continue reading Live Chat Recording: Sashiko, Martial Arts, and the Commodification of Practical Things
The trick to creating freedom to experiment, learn from error, and develop self-reliance, is a structure that actively supports those behaviors. I talk a lot about how you can't teach students to be independent thinkers and active problem-solvers if your class structure is built around obedience and rigid adherence to pre-set patterns. You also can't … Continue reading No Such Thing as Unstructured Space
I was talking with a friend about "freeze" adrenaline responses, and was finally able to clearly articulate something that I've been chewing on for a long time. There's a half-finished blog post on this topic sitting in my drafts that I started two years ago. I could never quite get the words right, and I … Continue reading “Bad” Adrenaline Responses and the Fallacy of Useless Tools