Category: News

I've just uploaded a new illustration on the topic of the noble art of boxing. This one doesn't exist in the book — it was done for the December issue of MAI magazine.

 

Exploding Pen is about to migrate to a different webserver. This may result in an interruption to our otherwise reliable, unflappable service. If you feel a tremor in the Force during your training, that's what it was. Sometime in the next week, we should clunk and bump onto the new machine.

It's not just technical administration that interrupts the "business-as-usual" intensive training and under-waterfall meditation that normally goes on here, oh no. Sometimes the earthly matters of Her Majesty's Government and its Company Law rudely interfere with life in our secret mountain-top monastery bunker HQ. For example, this photo, taken last Saturday in London, shows Etin, Chief Financial Officer, in front of the Companies House brass plaque, having just delivered some frightfully important documents.

Companies House, if you didn't know, is where all the businesses in the UK are registered. I've never been inside — we just send our CFO to attend meetings there, and he tells us that what goes on is on a "need to know" basis, and so far, he says, we've needed to know nothing. Etin came to be with us because one of the Exploding Pen directors adopted him in Borneo. If you ever adopt an Orang-utan, learn from our experience and don't entrust him or her with any executive responsibility. The power goes to their orange-furred heads, and they get difficult.

Starting from the current issue, Fudebakudo now appears in Martial Arts Illustrated magazine in the UK each month. Hello to readers of MAI who are new to the esoteric and sophisticated world of the Way of the Exploding Pen.

 

Well, we survived Seni 2007 — see the full report.

This year, for the first time our veteran sales champion Jun-san was unable to join us — she's returned to Japan where I believe she now lives as a hermit in a remote mountain stronghold teaching tengu goblins secret Fudebakudo techniques. So I had a brand new team selling for me . . . it must have been a daunting prospect for Shoko-san and Nanae-san to come into the strange world of Fudebakudo and the even stranger world of Seni, but they coped with it all like real experts. Despite being forced to work bitterly hard for so long and for so little on Saturday, they came back the next day to do it again.

We take a risk with Seni (because it is an expensive show at which to exhibit) but due to the irresistable smiley persuasion of the team, we sold a lot of books and a whole bunch of T-shirts.

It was also great to meet old friends (some from previous Seni shows, and some from aikido) and Fudebakudo practitioners old and new. Thanks to everyone who came to say hello and support the Way of the Exploding Pen.

More…

The big martial arts expo Seni is this weekend (at ExCel, London). Exploding Pen will be there selling and signing books (and selling T-shirts). If you come along, come and say hello and applaud the fact that, unlike many martial art wannabes, we still take it all terribly seriously. Oh yes.

The fact is that this is our fourth Seni (see these reports of our previous trips) so we are frankly experts on what's good and bad about the show. Rather than keep this precious knowledge to ourselves, this year we are sharing our expertise with the Seni I-Spy! game (downloads a 171Kb PDF).

There is no prize for high scores (although let us know how you get on) — only the fuzzy, warm glow of satisfaction of knowing that your powers of observation were tested and not found wanting.

This year, for the first time, Seni will be in London.  It's the UK's biggest martial arts show, and if you've never been, well… hmm, well, it's an interesting day out. You have to go at least once, just to see what you've been missing. 

Seni07 is at London Excel (which is easy to get to on the DLR) over the weekend of 19-20 May. See the Seni07 website for more information. 

We're Seni veterans — in fact, the Fudebakudo book was launched at Seni03. Here are the reports of our previous attendances at Seni03, Seni04, and Seni05. We didn't go to Seni06 because the demo we had prepared was so lethal, so frightening, that even we couldn't bear to watch it. Besides, our attempts to train the panda to wrestle were running foul of some of the RSPCA's picky regulations.

If you're at the show, come and say hello. Our stand is in the Classical Zone, because, as you know, Fudebakudo is an ancient and sophisticated art. Of course, as well as adding a much-needed sense of inscrutable martial authenticity to the event, we will be selling our ancient and sophisticated T-shirts, giving free postcards to people who ask nicely for them, and signing books.

The Fudebakublog you're reading now has replaced the forum. We had a few problems with the forum (mainly to do with spammers) so it's easier to shut it down and police this smaller, neater blog instead.

We may lift some of the more interesting posts out of the Forum's archives and post them here later.