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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
On Pins and Needles
ankle acupuncture at the Kyoto Butugen medical school

Not far from the temple where the Japanese archery event I've been posting about was held, there's a college of massage called Kyoto Butugen (京都仏眼鍼灸理療専門学校). It's closer to the American idea of physical therapy than “massage”.... words like “relaxation” and “aromatherapy” have no place here. The doctors (which in this case are students in a three-year curriculum) have a deep understanding of the physical mechanics of muscle, bones, etc., and use that to attack with vigor whatever aches and pains you come in with. The massage itself can be extremely painful (exactly as described here), but the results are impressive and readily apparent.

They also do “eastern medicine” things like acupuncture, and something called “moxibustion” that involves burning little blobs of herbs at various points on your skin. As far as I can tell, the moxibustion thing is just ridiculous, but I have been surprised to find that the acupuncture (or its placebo effect) has been helpful.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tummy Acupuncture
it was a fairly awkward photo to try to take while face-up on the table

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Business End

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Tray of Used Needles

This is, of course, the answer to the “What am I ?” quiz that I posted the other day.

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Pack of Unused Needles

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Writing Post-Treatment Reports

I first had acupuncture about nine years ago when I threw out my back, and after not really being able to walk for a couple of weeks I was ready to try anything. It was a complete waste of time. My savior then was in finding the “bone-setting” clinic I wrote about here, where the doctor did deep massage well into the area Americans would deem “physical therapy”.

I eventually found this school, which is conveniently close to home, and also inexpensive. In exchange for letting yourself be used for practice by the students, you get an hour's massage for 1,800 yen (about US$20) from someone earnest enough about it to commit to an expensive three-year college. For the most part, the quality is very good.

As I said, they also do acupuncture, and over the years I've tried it a few times, and found it to be a complete waste of time. I'd given it a try back in 2010 when I had some debilitating arm pain, to no avail.

Last year when California friend Paul Barr was in town, I took him for a massage to introduce him to the school (it's close to the hotel he stays at when in Kyoto), and on a whim asked whether he'd like to try acupuncture, just for the experience. He did, so I extended my massage as well to include it, and wow, what a difference from every other time.

Normally you don't feel the needles when they go in, when they are in, or when they're taken out... you have no idea that they exist unless you look. But this time, I got zings that ran up and down my spine as if zapped by electricity. It was definitely different and powerful, but for the life of me I couldn't decide whether it was a pleasurable or painful.

And the next day I felt fantastic. I was shocked, because I generally don't believe fuu-fuu crap like acupuncture.

Since then, I've been back for many massages, and acupuncture maybe 10 times. About half the time the acupuncture is a total waste, and the other half it's amazing. There seems to be no middle ground.

A week ago Monday was the last day for the third-year students to see patients before graduation, so I brought my camera along. By this time they had already taken and passed their final school exam, and had already taken (and presumably passed) the national license test, so there was a festive feeling. Here I am with the half of the class that showed up on that last day:

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/320 sec, f/6.3, ISO 4500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Graduating Class of 2012
and me
photo by Dr. Ohama

Their graduation was on Sunday; congratulations to them all.

The guy at far left, Ueda-sensei, was the one whose amazing acupuncture opened my eyes to its possibilities last year. The girl at right giving the peace sign was my masseuse/acupuncturist the day these photos were taken. I've had massage by all of these students, and they were all very good.

Even though they all have the same curriculum, they each apply it with their own style, sometimes differing wildly from each other. The guy at far right with the red sleeves brings almost a Buddhist monk's zen to the table, while the tall guy at left next to Ueda-sensei brings a ferocious pinpoint attack like his fingertips are tactical weapons trying to massage the muscle from the inside out. Both are very, very good.

I'm sad that I'll not see them for massage again, but another school year starts in April.

First-year students don't actually get to treat patients. Second- and third-year students see patients at regular hours, though what's “regular” changes with the season. The morning sessions are generally held by the more advanced third-year students on Monday, Thursday and Friday; second-year students take the mornings on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you're in Kyoto, I recommend giving them a try.

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — ¹/3200 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
In Search of a Location
without ugly fencing

As I mentioned in my previous post, yesterday was the Kyoto Marathon （京都マラソン２０１２). I thought it'd be a fun experience to photograph, to see what I could come up with. The first challenge was to pick a location along the 42-kilometer course that was both photogenic and accessable. (Huge swaths of the city were shut down to traffic, so I wanted something I could easily reach by bicycle.)

The course runs for several miles south along the rivers in the east of the city, so guessing that would be fruitful, I set off there, only to find mile after mile of ugly green fencing destroying the immediate background.

However, I eventually came across an area blissfully devoid of ugliness, and stopped there to make camp:

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 32mm — ¹/2500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Perfect!
Exactly what I was looking for

My happiness was short-lived, for just a moment later the scene-destroyers descended on the area...

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Volunteers
Set on destroying my background

I joked with the volunteers that it was odd that the executive organizers hadn't consulted me on the course or its setup. They agreed. 🙂

While I waited to see how the scene would unfold, I busied myself with practice on pulling focus on a moving target. With this lens, it's not easy for me to hit focus on a stationary target, and I didn't think that it would be fruitful to ask the runners to slow down or stop, so I thought it best to work on my technique.

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Focus Practice

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EMT
with kids playing soccer in the background

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Blossoms!
of some sort

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More Focus Practice

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Still More
focus practice

Near the kids practicing soccer were two sets of blossoms, one deep pink, and the white ones seen above in “Blossoms!”.

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My First Blossom Shot of the Season
Plum? Peach?

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Sunday School
for the church of soccer dreams

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Those Pitch-side Blossoms

Desktop-Background Versions
1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  1920×1200  ·  2560×1600

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Pleasant
the mountains in the background somehow complete the scene

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More Background Destruction

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Dandy Focus Practice

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The Scene
Looking north, from where the runners will come

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The Scene
Looking south where the runners will try to squeeze in

The area to the south was particularly narrow, and the race official in charge of the local area was not happy about it. With 15,000 runners set to arrive soon, I shared his concern. I thought that they should at least extend the width the foot or so on either side where there were no obstacles for the duration, but they didn't ask my opinion.

In one area, though, the volunteers had set up some cones to mark a muddy area within the bounds of the wider course, and I thought that was downright dangerous because once the pack gets thick, the runners can't see ahead, so people will have to resort to darting when these cones are suddenly found in their way, and with the unrelenting crush of runners behind them none the wiser, any fall would quickly compound into a major problem. So I gingerly broached the idea to a volunteer, suggesting that it would be best to remove those cones altogether, but if they had to be there, try to make them more visible from a distance. She consulted with others and they made the second changes I had suggested, until the area head official walked by and told them to remove all the cones on that side of the path, so trouble was averted.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 — ¹/3200 sec, f/2, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Race Official
did not look happy

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Throwing Rocks
these kids looked happy

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Chillaxin'
this guy's got the right idea

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First Hint of Race
“pace bike” just shows up, quietly and without fanfare

Continued here...

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 cropped — ¹/3200 sec, f/2, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
The 0.078052 Percent
This is how they take a Sunday-afternoon stroll

Today was the Kyoto Marathon （京都マラソン２０１２). The guy above, looking remarkably affable and relaxed, was not only leading the race at the 35km mark (about 80% of the way done), but had a full 30-second lead on second place, and more than a minute on third. I have no idea whether he ended up winning or even finishing, but at this point he looked solidly in command.

UPDATE: he won the race by 29 seconds, in a leasurly time of 2:26:21.

He was, at that point, #1 out of 14,093 runners: 1÷14,093 is 0.00078052, hence the caption.

The finish line was less than a minute's stroll from my front door, and provided its own photo opportunities once I made my way back...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 — ¹/3200 sec, f/2, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Thrill of Victory in Front of the Heian Shrine
after 3:18:27 of what I can only imagine as agony
( the two guys with raised arms are exactly on the finish line )

While I was out taking these pictures, I was chatting with my brother Mike in California (via the most excellent WhatsApp Messenger) a bit about marathons, since he's run Boston and such in the past, with a best of 2:49:31. After I returned home and started the photos loading into Lightroom, I was putzing around on Facebook and found that he had just finished the 35th Annual Catalina Marathon a few hours prior. I'm hurt.... I don't know why he chose to run that one instead of Kyoto (or both! :-)).

Continued here...

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
What am I?

It's been a while since one of my “What am I?” quizzes, so I thought I'd throw this one up. Like this quiz and this one, it's got some long thin things in it, but it's not related to either previous post.

It's also not related to music.

So, what do we have here?

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I complain sometimes about how stressful my plugin development can get, and the time surrounding a major plugin event like we've had this week all the more so, but I shouldn't complain. I found myself in somewhat of an absurdly happy situation today, and thought that life wasn't all that bad. 🙂

I was enjoying a long, leisurely soak in my deep Japanese bath, up to my neck in steaming hot water, playing a game on my iPad against my boy who was using my iPhone in the living room, as we voice-chatted and shot spitballs and rubber-bands at each other.

Using technology to its fullest!

“Air Wings” in Action
paper airplane firing pencil rockets

We were playing Air Wings™, a very fun game where you fly paper airplanes and shoot spitballs, rubber bands, darts, pencils, etc. at your opponent. You can play against people all over the world, but I just wanted to play with Anthony. I'm not much of a game player, but the thought of being able to spend that kind of “quality time” prompted me to finally turn on Apple's “Game Center”, to enable the multi-player mode of the game, and I'm not disappointed. It's a wonderful way to waste time, even though Anthony beats me soundly 9 out of 10 times.

Even better, I splurged the $2.97 total for all three expansion packs (different planes and locations), which make the game much more fun. Highly recommended.

Even though I was in the hot steamy bath, my iPad was safely tucked away in a Loksak, which I learned about via a comment on this old post.

It was a wonderful evening, though it would be better if I could stop crashing my paper airplane in to the walls...