Kendo/Iaido Online Journal

[m a s a m u n e]

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday I had the privilege to use bogu for the first time in Kendo class. After class, I was thinking about how great an experience it was (and how crappy my technique became with that akward bogu on), and all of a sudden this idea came into my head. I was thinking about how other people felt their first time, and I suddenly came up with the idea of keeping an online journal that shared my experiences. I know my html, so webpage building is no problem for me. I was wondering if the people here at e-budo can provide me with some input on this idea (if I should do this or not, what kind of things should I put on, what not to do, etc)

Thanks in advance to all who reply!



- Alex Guillermo

[Neil Yamamoto]

Alex

Livejournal.com already exists, why build something when you can do it free and the formats already set up? Why not just start your own journal and include a link in your sig here on ebudo for those interested

[m a s a m u n e]

Mr. Yamamoto,

Thank you for providing that link. I've never heard of LiveJournal before and I'll take it into account. However, I do wish to have a more customized setting, and you can't get more customization options than from starting from scratch! I also enjoy building webpages from scratch (without any programs besides notepad, yup, I'm weird) so it'll give me something to do in my spare time. However, finding a good FREE webspace provider is hard nowadays, so I'll take LiveJournal into account.

Thank you again for your reply,

Alex Guillermo

[Charlie Kondek]

Sounds like a great idea. Get a couple of people from a couple of different arts and get them to post their thoughts on what's going on in their lives/dojo every week. Include a message board for people to post their thoughts on what they see written. That'd be neat!

[m a s a m u n e]

Mr. Kondek,

I've been thinking about it and I believe that I should go ahead with this project. I'm up for that message board idea, and I'm all for hosting people from different arts who want to do this, whether it be Kenjutsu, Shinkendo, Karate, or even other non-japanese styles like Chinese Wushu or Korean Martial Arts. If anyone is interested, you can e-mail me at LocalBoy149@hotmail.com

Oh yeah, does anyone have any suggestions as to the layout design (colors, tables, frames [yes or no], etc)? Also, what should I name the site? I don't think I should name it "Journal of Martial Arts" because ejmas.com has already claimed that title.

Thank you for your post!

- Alex Guillermo

[Joseph Svinth]

E-mail Peter Boylan, editor of The Iaido Journal at EJMAS. Both he and Chris Gilham already have first-person narratives online, so perhaps he'd be interested in supporting something like this.

[Charlie Kondek]

I'm a big fan of a minimalist lay-out, especially for this project one that looks like plain white sketch-pad paper and black ink. Joe's suggestion is a good one. Check out some of the folks at FightingArts.com, too, who might be looking to expand their writing portfolio. (I'd be interested myself except I have too much on my plate as it is.)