author: @sleepyfox
title: Tai Chi Forms
date: 19-AUG-2026
What's up with the Yang style of Tai Chi (Taiji)? Their forms seem to be getting shorter and shorter as time progresses.
sleepyfox
/ 2026-06-01-its-a-kind-of-magic.md
Last active
July 29, 2026 17:50
Tai Chi - it's a kind of magic
sleepyfox
/ 2024-07-12-worst-student.md
Created
June 8, 2026 11:05
Was Saito Ueshiba's worst student?
author: @sleepyfox
title: Was Saito Ueshiba's worst student?
date: 12-Jul-2024
Morihiro Saito (1928-2002) was often jokingly referred to by O'Sensei as his worst student. O'Sensei, literally 'great teacher' is the name that Aikido practitioners use for Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969), the founder of the modern martial art of Aikido.
I always thought that this was a cunning plan by O'Sensei to keep his best student at home rather than having them running off to some foreign country to run the Aikido organisation for that country and grow the art of Aikido there, like so many of O'Sensei's senior students.
sleepyfox
/ 2026-03-09-partner-roles.md
Created
March 11, 2026 10:27
The roles of the partners in pair work
author: @sleepyfox
title: The Chi problem
date: 09-Oct-2025
Much has been said about the word sometimes written as 'Chi' in English (pronounced the same as in the English word 'cheese'), corresponding to the Chinese character 氣. This character, pronounced 'chi' in Chinese, 'ki' in Japanese, 'khi' in Vietnamese, 'gi' in the Philippines etc and corresponding closely with the Indian word 'prana' is variously translated as 'energy' in the sense of vital life-force, or 'élan vitale' from the French.
author: @sleepyfox
title: On Shu-Ha-Ri
date: 25-Oct-2024
So, fairly regularly something turns up in my inbox relating to Shu-Ha-Ri (守破離) often quoted as a Japanese model of skills acquisition. These articles, blogs etc. are all problematic in some way or other, and inevitably as both an Aikido instructor and a career IT professional with deep experience of Software Development Methodologies, I will get asked what I think. Hmmm...
So, let's start with the Wikipedia article:
sleepyfox
/ sustainable-development.md
Last active
December 28, 2024 17:29
Notes and links for Sustainable Development presentation
This gist https://gist.github.com/sleepyfox/61d4375aa1fcfad8cb0338edb4151546 URL shortened to https://tinyurl.com/fox-sustainable-development
- Hello, I'm SleepyFox, Fox to my friends
- Mastodon: @sleepyfox@hachyderm.io
- You don't care who I am, you care about the content, so let's get straight to it
- All the content is online, and will be linked on every slide, so there's no need to take notes or screenshots, you can just relax and pay attention to the material.
author: @sleepyfox
title: Taiji Tennis
date: 08-Nov-2024
So I read a bit about Tennis, and thought 'Hey, that sounds cool, I'd like to learn that', and looked around to see if there is a local Tennis club, and if there is a learners' group. Great news, I find a 'Learn Tennis' session run by a local instructor. They appear legit, are certified and insured by the Tennis Union of Great Britain, so I go down on Tuesday evening to the local sports centre and give it a go.
sleepyfox
/ 2014-04-05-the-corruption-of-critical-thinking.md
Last active
October 29, 2024 08:50
The corruption of critical thinking
author: @sleepyfox
title: The corruption of critical thinking
date: 05-Apr-2014
preamble: An open letter to Mr. Binstock and Dr. Dobbs addressing their recent editorial entitled "The Corruption of Agile" and its follow-up article addressing feedback from the community.
EDITED: 2024-10-29 in order to fix broken links and to use the Internet Archive in order to make available material which commercial publishers have egregiously removed - see Fox's 8th Law[^7]. Sadly it appears that my closing hope was not upheld over the intervening decade by the recipients.
Dear Mr. Binstock,
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