kenshusei – 2, Guts Ishimatsu – 0

Last week, Nippon Terebi filmed a TV commercial with Mugenjuku students at Shiramine Shrine.

For the commercial, Guts Ishimatsu, a TV celebrity and former world boxing champion, visited a Mugenjuku training session at Shiramine’s budo dojo.  Guts is famous for loving bananas and for his tagline “OK boku-jo” which translates as “OK corral”.

There were TV cameras, bright lights, and make-up-covered celebrities swarming all over the dojo.  Have you ever had to take ukemi for sokumen iriminage with a camera and stage light shining in your face?

As part of the TV commercial, Guts picked several students to try doing aikido techniques on him.

First, he picked Naomi, who put him in a punishing sankajo lock.

Later, he picked me.  I didn’t know what I was supposed to do because I couldn’t understand the Japanese, but when he grabbed my shirt, I did a variation of kotegaeshi.  Kata mochi kotegaeshi ni, I guess.

So, I guess you could say that, so far, our win-loss record is

Mugenjuku Kenshusei – 2, Guts Ishimatsu – 0

Go, kenshusei!!

The commercial will air on Nippon Terebi (Kyoto channel 10) on Dec 7th at 10:30.

 If we get a clip of the TV commercial, I will try to post it here on the blog, so check back in mid-December if not earlier.