On this day

May 9th

Fonts. 600 photos. omg

May 9

In 2007, on my first trip to New York City, I grabbed a brand-new DSLR camera and photographed all the fonts I was supposed to love. I admired American Typewriter in all of the I <3 NYC logos, watched Akzidenz Grotesk and Helvetica fighting over the subway signs, and even caught an occasional appearance of the flawlessly-named Gotham, still a year before it skyrocketed in popularity via Barack Obama’s first campaign.

But there was one font I didn’t even notice, even though it was everywhere around me.

Last year in New York, I walked over 100 miles and took thousands of photos of one and one font only.

~ Marcin Wichary, from The hardest working font in Manhattan

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What. WHAT? WAT?! Words fail me… there are 600 photos in this article. I couldn’t stop staring at the technology parts, and keyboards—so much of that reminds me of my youngling days. I leaned in for the photography, which is gorgeous macrophotography. And fell headlong into the nostalgia.

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Eric Rossi | Preschool Parkour

May 9, 2023

On Castbox.fm — Eric Rossi | Preschool Parkour

What is the significance of integrating child development principles into Parkour coaching for preschool-aged children?

Parents and preschoolers alike discover the deeper benefits of Parkour beyond physical activity.

From birth to five years old, we are growing the fastest that we will ever grow in our lives, we have the most malleability in our minds and our bodies in that time.

~ Eric Rossi (2:39)

This conversation highlights the intersection of Parkour coaching and early childhood development, focusing on preschool-aged children. The discussion explores the physical and cognitive growth that occurs from birth to five years, emphasizing the unique opportunity for Parkour to provide children with movement role models. Eric describes how Parkour gyms can incorporate specialized sessions for young children, such as open play times, which offer developmental benefits through exploratory movement.

The conversation also addresses the importance of engaging parents in the learning process. Parents who observe and interact with these sessions gain insight into their children’s development and become advocates for their growth. Additionally, Eric shares his own journey and challenges as a movement educator, underscoring the need for coaches to grow their confidence and understanding of child development principles.

Takeaways

Movement role models — Coaches provide crucial examples for young children during developmental years.

Role of parents — Parents can become active participants and advocates in their children’s growth.

Value of early years — Birth to five years is the most critical period for cognitive and physical growth.

Recess programs — Structured free-play sessions offer significant developmental opportunities.

Coaching skills — Coaches must build confidence and expand their understanding of child development.

Resources

@coach.eric.ok — Eric Rossi on Instagram.

(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)

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How you play

May 9, 2022

If life is a game, how do you play it? The answer will have a huge impact on your choices, your satisfaction, and how you achieve success.

~ Shane Parrish from, Finite and Infinite Games: Two Ways to Play the Game of Life

There are of course some games simply not worth playing. (For example, Global Thermonucler War, which is, “[a] strange game. The only winning move is not to play.“) For most of my life I’ve thought of games as something I first decided to do—”let’s play a game!”—and then sorted out what sort of game—board games, tag, charades, etc.. Even sports games worked this way; “I feel like playing baseball…” and then round up my friends, or “I feel like getting good at baseball and playing a lot…” and then join a league. In all the cases, the game itself was the point.

Then, back around 40 when I was busy rediscovering movement, I realized that one could start by having a goal, or an idea one wanted to explore, and then one could deploy games as the vehicle for accomplishing that. On the one hand, it’s still fun to simply play for play’s sake, but it’s empowering to have fun playing while intentionally accomplishing something of your own choosing.

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True happiness

May 9, 2020

True happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied, for he that is wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.

~ Seneca

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Move or die

May 9, 2018

Suffering long and mild, leading nowhere of consequence…

And suffering swift, short, and harrowing… leading to the life you long for.

We take to the former gladly, happy to stagger down tortuous but clear paths.

But it is the brief, blind leaps that change the game entirely.

~ Bryan Ward from, Move Or Die

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Reading anything written by Bryan Ward is like playing with a sharp knife: You will get cut, and you will learn a very valuable lesson.

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If We Are Not Just Animals, What Are We?

May 9, 2017

To cut the story short: By speaking in the first person we can make statements about ourselves, answer questions, and engage in reasoning and advice in ways that bypass all the normal methods of discovery. As a result, we can participate in dialogues founded on the assurance that, when you and I both speak sincerely, what we say is trustworthy: We are “speaking our minds.” This is the heart of the I-You encounter.

~ Roger Scruton from, If We Are Not Just Animals, What Are We?

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Videos from BKB

May 9, 2015

(Part 18 of 72 in series, My Journey)

Some videos I took in April 2015 when I was last up in Somerville. This certainly isn’t a great answer to “what is parkour” in the global sense. But it will give you an idea of what I was working on when I had several hours to play on some scaffolding when I had unstructured time to just train.

 

 

 

 

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Boston Gauntlet 2015

May 9, 2015

(Part 17 of 72 in series, My Journey)

Group photo from the end of the “Gauntlet” event in Somerville.

I think my biggest accomplishment was the “didn’t hurt myself.” I certainly did a lot of physical things that were impressive (for me, and my ability.) But just being able to continue to ‘dig deep’ for hours on end — that was great.

As usual, I want to avoid name-dropping. But we did this one neat turn-vault landing on one foot and continuing on to step down and off the wall… that was something very different! Also, one of the first times I’ve EVER just “done” something and actually felt like I was really moving simply.

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Thriving in uncertainty

May 9, 2015

Yet from the first encounter, the theories unraveled in the face of situations that could never have been predicted. The most respected generals in the world were made to look like amateurs. Their faith in abstract planning blinded them to the reality of the situation. It took years of conflict before they began to really adapt to the reality of their situation.

~ Kyle Eschenroeder from, 5 Tools for Thriving in Uncertainty

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What does “honest” mean in Kinokawa Aikido

May 9, 2014

When we opened the new dojo in Allentown, I sat down to try to write a short description of what distinguishes Kinokawa Aikido. I wanted to avoid pretentiously explaining “what makes it better,” because starting down that path will instantly close off the minds of certain readers. Instead, I wanted to lay out the hallmarks of Kinokawa so that readers could get a sense of the style at a glance.

There is a bit more at Aikido on the dojo’s web site. But here is the part about honesty:

A second hallmark of Kinokawa Aikido is that is honest — in the sense of being interested in honestly exploring Aikido as a high intensity [physical and mental], combat effective, applicable to your daily life, sort of practice. In fairness, practitioners of hard type martial arts will generally not consider any sort of Aikido as combat effective or workable in a real world scenario. (Obviously, we disagree with such a prejudged assessment.) But setting aside the judgement (does Aikido work, or not, in real application?), it is the goal of honestly exploring those concepts, within the framework of Aikido, which is a critical feature of Kinokawa.

…and here are some similar thoughts from Tom Collings, from Responding to Aggression – Part 2:

… The rule of thumb in military and police training, established through exhaustive battlefield and police critical incident research is: “if it takes long to learn, it probably won’t work under stress.” Yet, as black belt martial artists we take great pride in the techniques that took us many years to master, and it would be unthinkable at the dojo to teach only what is easily learned. Who would that impress? The other rule is: “practice what you will need to perform.” That means our training must very closely match what we will confront.

Do those of us in the aiki arts really believe that assaults commonly occur by someone running up reaching for our wrist, or striking at us from above their head as if holding a sword? I guess we do because we devote most of our valuable training time to these scenarios. If it is obvious that modern day assaults are very different from these classical style attacks why do we not modify our curriculum more in line with what we will actually confront?

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Coffee as as Service (CaaS ?!)

May 9, 2013

I have a hard time keeping all the cloud terms straight. Everything seems to be available As A Service (aaS). Try as I might to explain them, it just didn’t click for some people. Since cloud terms are so nebulous some times, I decided I need to put everything in a context that people understand. Therefore, I present…Coffee as a Service (CaaS)

~ Tom Hollingsworth from, Coffee As A Service

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This will now be my go-to way of explaining the _aaS buzzword bingo. “I wish I had a… Oh! A cup of coffee!” aka SaaS. Brilliant!

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