Tag Archives: memory management

Give Yourself the Edge: Interview with James W. Heisig

24 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by in Japanese Culture, Mind, Reading, Samurai Time Management

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I use kanji.koohii.com to share and use mnemonic stories to remember how to read, write, and understand the kanji. It’s great to work with others across the world but in the end you also have to make your learning your own. I am wandering beyond the standard kanji. Learning a lot of botanical kanji lately, like this kanji for “stamen.”

Samurai Mind Online is dedicated to helping people take on whatever they want to learn whether they think it’s impossible or not.   Last night I almost gave myself a concussion when I realized that I hadn’t taken the opportunity to share an interview that I did with James W. Heisig in 2006.    As you’ll see in the interview (it’s way longer than my typical post), Heisig came up with a system for how to remember kanji, the Chinese based system that is a key system of writing in Japan.  But regardless of whether you are reading this blog because you are interested in learning Japanese, I think there are a few take aways from this interview that any one wanting to learn anything in their life could take away from this story:

  • be bold and don’t be afraid to follow your own path
  • always be on the look out for smart short cuts or opportunities for deliberate practice.  Khatzumoto has some key questions in his article, “Practice Time, Game Time” that I think can apply to any field:  What don’t I know well? What doesn’t work?  What needs fixing?  What can be improved?  (Talent is Overrated is a great book to think about this whole idea of deliberate practice.)  Heisig realized that understanding kanji would really propel his Japanese fluency and invented a whole system around it.
  • don’t depend on others to tell you what is impossible or not
  • have fun.   Happy feelings bring happy learnings.  Heisig hightailed it from the language school as soon as he could and went to the mountains of Nagano and said he learned a lot of Japanese by playing with children and reading comic books.

Give yourself the edge.  Be bold and independent but also look at all the resources that are available and be persistent about evaluating them.  And above all have fun and enjoy the journey.

Another great tool is anki.ichi.net, which allows you to create flashcards for anything that you are learning. As you pass and fail cards, they come up in a spaced repetition system, so you are mostly reviewing things at the edge of forgetting and remembering. SRS systems are a great way to give yourself an edge.

This interview originally appeared in kanjiclinic.com, a great resource for learning more about kanji.

“Adventures in Kanji-Land: James W. Heisig and the Birth of Remembering the Kanji”
Based on an Interview with James W. Heisig
By Juan W. Rivera

Free download of the first 125 pages of Remembering the Kanji I.

Every now and then, someone confronts their own personal challenge, systematically overcomes it, and then shares that system with the world. This not only opens up their world, but also opens up the world for generations of people to come. James W. Heisig, author of the sometimes controversial book Remembering the Kanji I: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters, is definitely one of those people. Many people refer to his approach to learning to write the complex Japanese characters as “revolutionary,” making Japanese and kanji study accessible to their lives and opening up a whole world of learning and possibilities for them. I conducted a telephone interview with Prof. Heisig from his office at the Nanzan University Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya, Japan.

Heisig’s kanji journey began while he was living in a commune of poets and artists identified as the “spiritual” side of the Sandanista revolution that would soon overthrow the Somoza government. Because of his familiarity with research centers, he was invited by Nanzan University to consult on the establishment of an academic institute devoted to dialogue among religions and philosophies East and West. Shortly after the consultation he was invited back to assist in the project, on condition that he would remain for five years and first attain fluency in spoken and written Japanese at an academic level. Continue reading »

In a Learning State of Mind: Samurai Reading is Samurai Singing

15 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Deliberate Practice, Guitar, Mind, Reading, Samurai Time Management, Uncategorized

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Get in a Learning State of Mind

The time that you can wake up to what you can do is now.  As you follow your dreams and learn what you’ve always wanted to learn you need persistence.  You also need to bob and weave.  You can change your materials and your learning approaches like a time shifting ninja.

I’ve been taking photographs of pages from books that I find inspirational or interesting. This is from Kenichiro Mogi’s Japanese book, “Only Do Good Things With Your Brain.” This phrase here means that developing happiness helps your brain grow. Happiness, learning, happiness. A non-vicious cycle.

However,   I’ve also come to realize lately is that you can also change your state of mind.  Yes, you can change your materials and your methods and you should always be awake to that.   But you can also change your mind, and that can make a world of difference.  Before I lose the thread of what I want to say in a jet-lag haze (just got back from Japan two days ago), here are some quick tips to help get you get in a learning state of mind:

  • Check your breathing and your posture.   Open up.  Breathe deep.
  • Smile towards towards your work and tell yourself, “I am going to look for what is fun in this.”
  • Be gentle with yourself.  Do you point and laugh at children that are learning how to walk?
  • On the other hand, don”t try to bliss out.   You don’t have to motivate yourself to do what is odious to you.  Put that Napalm for Idiots book in the trash.  You don”t have to know every fact or keep every flashcard.  Choice is a loving act.

The other day, I was looking at my Samurai notebook and really feeling resistant about looking at it.  I had been resisting looking at it for days.   Part of the reason I was feeling this resistance was because I had filled my journal with “obligatory” notes from online courses from my job, etc.  I realized this recently smiled, took  relaxed breath and a looked at one of the positive goals in my Samurai notebook and turned a chore into a joy and challenge.  I also made a decision to quickly skip over things that didn’t interest me at the moment.  My samurai reviews have been going better ever since.

“Don’t focus on being negative.  It won’t work anyway.”

In one of Khatzumoto’s emails as part of my Silverspoon (a Japanese immersion service) experience he writes something like, “don’t focus on being so negative.  It won’t work anyway.”  (Khatzumoto sends out emails containing both an inspirational quote—sometimes brutal, sometimes sublime, sometimes cheesy. )  In the daily “sprints,” Khatzumoto asks that you do what I would call an affirmation (though I think the youngster would probably choose a “hipper” phrase.)   “Why do I choose to touch Japanese every day” is just one example.

A sign for guitar classes in Numazu. I want to take guitar classes and study how to play guitar with Japanese materials. Use what you love to learn. Loving two birds with no stone!

Part of the reason I keep recommending Khatzumoto’s site, ajatt.com, is because he is constantly finding ways to challenge states of mind that get in the way of doing what seems impossible.  His site is about learning Japanese but just check out his site and replace learning Japanese with whatever “impossible” goal you have in mind.  Here’s a start.  I want to turn this into a bumper sticker.  (I just need a car first):

“Keeping the Game Alive: Self-Abuse Ruins Everything, So Be Nice To You“

 

Take a look around you, inside of you.  What seems impossible?  What’s one little step you can take.  Breathe.  Smile.  Open a new page.  Samurai reading is samurai singing.  Samurai singing is samurai learning.

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Push, Relax, Have Fun, Repeat: How I ‘Read’ Japanese News

20 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by in Body, Mind, Reading, Samurai Time Management, Uncategorized

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Here’s a quick little Samurai success formula to take on whatever you want to do or  know more about in life:

  • Push.  Find little windows where you can push yourself to learn a little more and push.   Write down a new word, concept, do push ups until you are tired.
  • Relax.  Congratulations on pushing yourself.   Take a few breaths or a nap.  A relaxed learner learns more than a self-loathing ball of nervousness.
  • Have Fun.   Find a fun angle on what you are trying to learn, do, or accomplish.  Find a comic book version of what you are trying to learn.  Zumba!  (WTH!)
  • Repeat.  Go back to the seat of the crime and take a fresh samurai stab at it all.  Be persistent like water, grasshopper.

Yesterday’s Yomiuri. A foreign newspaper can seem scary, but it can also be a game. You can look at pictures can’t you. Any goal has opportunities for pushing and having fun.

Case in point–the Yomiuri News.   Yomiuri Shinbun is kind of like the Japanese Wall Street journal.  It’s the most interesting newspaper lying around my father-in-law’s house.   I already know a lot of kanji and a lot of Japanese vocabulary, but if I try to read every page my eyes start to swim in desperation and confusion.

But all is not lost.  My vocabulary has increased since doing AJATT but what has also changed is my attitude.  I’ve begun to take on Japanese newspapers.

Bad stuff happening in Syria and the ongoing mess at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Yomiuri is the best paper in the house and I’ve decide to at least open it every day.   Push.  I scan the headlines and pictures for things that interest me.   Have fun.  I find a story that interests me and find one word or more that I don’t understand and look it up with my iPhone app, Midori. At the touch of a screen I instantly add it to my flashcards.  This word will be with me for a while.   Push.  I start to feel like it’s turning into homework and I Relax.   I like reading the small ads at the bottom of Yomiuri hawking all sorts of diet, sports, business, and self-help books.  I enjoy the language of promises and I also like the bite-sized、digestible bites they come in.  Have fun.  The newspaper comes again the next day and I Repeat.  PRHR! (Like a cat with spelling issues.)

The ads are like little candies. Small and chewy!

I’m hoping to PRHR through more of I want to learn:  financial and investment literacy, Spanish, and playing guitar.    Today Yomiuri, tomorrow the world.

The Importance of Browsing: Samurai Browser

14 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in Career, Mind, Reading, Samurai Time Management, Uncategorized, Wallet

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Now that I am in Japan for the summer, I find myself browsing a lot.   In the mornings, I go to write at a manga cafe where I can have some semi-privacy.   When I goof off, I browse through the free movies available through their Cinema Channel.

Fuzzy screenshot of manga kissa cinema channel.

Sometimes I even get up and look through real comic books and magazines.   I also go to the Numazu library to write and think.   To take a break, I will just walk around and browse.  I can read the section titles more easily now but sometimes I just wander down the aisle pull out a book and see what I find.

Sometimes, I find myself getting annoyed.   I feel like I am wasting time just looking through books.  I should just be doing something productive!!  But lately I have had a change of heart about browsing.  I think browsing does a few key things:

  • Browsing allows you to stumble upon new ideas.  (Hey someone should come up with an internet program where you stumbleupon new websites!) 🙂
  • Browsing helps you point you back to yourself.   As you relaxedly allow yourself to pick up and put down books that bore you or interest you, you are getting information about what is important to you.  Relax and listen to what you discover about yourself as you browse.
  • Browsing is a form of review.   As you look at information and making decisions on whether to pursue it, many learning actions are happening.  You are tossing aside knowledge you have already learned, you are putting  ‘bookmarks’ on information you want later, etc.
  • Browsing is a great way to support libraries and bookstores.  (A bookstore is a physical place where you can buy physical books.  Yes, they still exist.  :))

Of course, don’t make browsing a chore.   If it’s not fun it is not browsing.  In this day and age anything that sounds like loafing seems like a waste.   But the earth needs you to be you.   Samurai browsing is samurai becoming.  Trip the library fantastic!

Clear Clutter, Clear Mind: Samurai Cleaning is Samurai Learning

26 Tuesday Jun 2012

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Clear Clutter Clear Mind.

Cleaning and clearing clutter helps me see to the distance. Part of the attraction of temples and gardens in Japan is they are clutter free zones for the mind, and spirit.

I recently watched an episode on NHK (the Japanese PBS) about a celebrity who spends a weekend at a Zen monastery.   Before she gets to the “business” of meditating, she has to clean the bathrooms, cleaning the beautiful wooden floors with a cloth.   I guess it’s part of the Zen attitude that every activity is a chance to wake up.  It also saves tons of money on cleaning bills. 🙂  Clear clutter, clear mind.  Samurai cleaning is samurai learning.  (I love it when I can talk like Yoda.)

The school year is coming to a close, and during non-administrative duties I’ve been cleaning and organizing my classroom.  I have over twenty years of material in addition to materials left over from previous generations that have used my room.  I’ve been able to methodically work on every corner, throwing out materials I don’t need any more and organizing the materials I still want to hang on.

That is the essence of a samurai review—toss out the material you no longer want and organize, touch, reshuffle the material you want.   The added plus is that it doesn’t just involve your mind; it involves your body in action.

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, suggests clearing clutter as one way to breakthrough creative blocks:

Few things are as distracting– and destructive– as clutter in your home environment. It is hard to have clarity when you are living amid rubble. Clearing up your space gives you room for new thoughts. Clutter can be tackled in small amounts. Try fifteen-minute cleanups. You will be amazed at the difference in your psyche. Where before you felt frustrated, you will now find yourself feeling optimism.

From Miyajima Island temple. Clear mind, happy mind?

Cameron gets the Samurai Mind award for not only suggesting a technique but also using time limits as a tool!  Clear clutter, clear mind.  (Clearing Yoda throat)  Clear clutter, clear mind.  Samurai cleaning, samurai learning is.

Change Your Life in Five Minutes: Samurai Multiplier Effect

19 Tuesday Jun 2012

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Japanese fountain. Practice has the power of water. Little drops become rivers. Rivers carve out canyons.

Let’s begin with a samurai quote raid, this time from Geoff Colvin’s,  Talent is Overrated:

Factors cascade over time because they multiply the effects of earlier seemingly, weak factors.

Part of the way it works is as first explained by Anders Ericsson and his colleagues is that a beginner’s skill are so modest that he or she can manage only a little bit of deliberate practice, since it is highly demanding.  But that little bit of practice increases the person’s skills, making it possible to do more practice, which increases the person’s skill level more.

This morning, I used my little timer and spent five minutes each on the following:

  1. Samurai Notebook Review.  I rediscovered these quotes and generated an idea for the blog post.
  2. Read The Making of Modern Japan by Marius B. Jansen.  27 pages down.  783 to go.  It’s more fun in small chunks.
  3. Skimmed and read Teach Yourself Visually WordPress.  I’m still learning how to drive this blogging puppy.  I have also resisted any technology to my detriment.  I’ve realized if I just commit my self to studying a little bit at a time, I might start to get the lay of the land.  It all goes back to the two quotes above and trying to let factors cascade.

There are several ways that just taking five minutes helps your performance and your life cascade:

  • It helps you get over hesitant (or in Japanese いやいや）thinking.  It’s just five minutes.
  • Five minutes helps you gain momentum.   Once you start, other things start opening up.
  • You get the lay of the land.  Feel hopeless about investing?  Spend five minutes a day reading something like Eric Tyson’s Investing for Dummies.   You may not become an investment guru, but you will know a heck of a lot more than if you just put your hands in the air and say, “I don’t know anything about investing!”

Tengu on the grounds of a Miyajima temple. On the left are ascending prayer wheels. Who knows? One small action done in the right frame of mind could change the world.

It’s kind of serendipity that two days after I started this post, I found a copy of 毎朝１分で人生はかわる：One Minute, One Action in the Morning Will Change Your Whole Life.   The premise is obvious from the book and I have just begun to dig into it.  But Miyake-san really hit me with what I’ll the Small Action Power Cycle：

  • Small actions can lead to a change in consciousness (やる気 or will)
  • This leads to more action
  • Which leads to confidence
  • Which leads to a new vision
  • Which leads to action

I guess now I have to change all my blog posts.   I’ve already gone from talking about the power of 30 minutes, then 5, now one minute.  How much more small can you go? One nanosecond?   That’s all it takes to have life changing idea.  However I think all the other chunks of action create the groundwork for inspiration to happen.  Now that is samurai time management!

The Power of Morning and Evening: Samurai Slumbering–Samurai Rising

15 Friday Jun 2012

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A passageway from a temple to garden in Nagasaki. Morning and evening are key transition times.

A Japanese self-help book, a samurai self-help blogger , and a Japanese immersion website meet at a bar and talk about the best time to “do it.”  Morning and night.

Morning and night might be one of the best times to set your intentions, embedded knew knowledge, and change your life.

Anchors Away!

Khatz talks about the importance of morning and evening as anchors:

I’ll just say that in terms of just outward behavior patterns, those two “anchor points” do tend to set pattern for the rest of the day. Broadly speaking, the rest of one’s day often seems to run off of the inertia from these two times of day.

Focus your energy on managing your immediate environment, the 3-foot wide country that is you — especially at these two critical times – and you may well find that other things just naturally fall into place.  —All Japanese All the Time

Khatz has been lightly hammering the idea of anchors in my daily “sprints” or suggestions for immersion.  Basically, I take this to mean that the morning and the minutes right before sleep are the most key moments of the day.   The morning sets the tone for the day and the minutes before sleep set the tone for the dream scape.

I’ve been experiment with this in many ways.   When I walk out in the mornings I often listen to japanesepod101.com podcast lessons.  Yesterday, however, I felt the pull to listen to Japanese music.  I follow whatever method or activity seems to be the most fun at the time.  In the middle of a work day, I usually work through at emergency room like atmosphere at a school.   As I get ready to sleep, I may read the supporting materials to the jpod lesson (if I’m interested) or listen to an non-jarring podcast.  These days I “listen”  to Tokyo FM’s Tokyo Midtown Presents, a pleasant and interesting program about different design concepts.   The voices are so pleasant that I never consciously listen to the content before sleep.  Does it work?  Who knows?  But I am enjoying Japanese, so why stop?

Power Your Morning (and Night), Furuichi Style

Yukio Furuichi, author of １日３０分を続けなさい！人生勝利の勉強法５５　Learn to Win  My (My take with a dash of soy translation:   Keep going 30 minutes a day!  55 Study Steps to Winning in Life) also writes about the power of morning and the evenings.

Furuichi’s Reasons Why Studying in the Morning Pays Off:

  • There are fewer interesting television shows in the morning.
  • There a less distractions such as phone calls, social outings, etc
  • From his experience, the rate of learning seems to be higher in the morning than in the evenings
  • If you “git ir done” in the morning, you’ve got a huge part of your studying done for the day

Furuichi’s Hints for the Evenings:

Buddha at rest. You have to sleep in order to wake up.

  • Get at least six to seven and a half hours of sleep
  • If you don’t get enough sleep you become less effective when you study
  • While you are sleeping, memories get arranged and fixed
  • If you can’t sleep, have something by your bed you can study.  After you are tired (usually around 30 minutes) you should be able to sleep.
  • Napping helps but don’t go for long naps because they throw off your biorhythms.

Samurai at Rest/Samurai Rising

If morning and evening are such powerful anchors, why limit using them to whatever you are studying?   (Keep in mind that by studying I mean that you take on what you want to move forward in your life.)  What are the thoughts and intentions that you go to bed with at night?   I’ll be the first one to admit, that I often wake up with internal grumbling?  But why not wake up thinking about what you want in your life?  What you want for the world?   Why not rise up singing?

It’s the same with the evening.   Instead of taking your worries to bed with you, what about going to bed with appreciations and your dreams for the yourself and the world?

Sun up.  Sun down.  Samurai at rest.  Samurai rising.

Review Your Notebook, Change Your Mind: Samurai Mind Shift

25 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Mind, Reading, Samurai Time Management, Uncategorized

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Little pieces floating back to the edge of consciousness.  Samurai reviews old pages.  Review your notebook, change your mind. Continue reading »

Mindful Repetition: The Mother of All Skills

11 Saturday Feb 2012

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I am continuing to read I Can by Ben Sweetland.   It’s kind of like The Secret but last edited in the 1960’s.   Yeah, so retro, it’s cool.:) Right?   (Crickets chirping.)  Anyway, Sweetland does something interesting.   Because he is exploring how to rewire and work with your subconscious, Sweetland asks you to repeat chapters and not move on until you have completed some mind exercises.

Daruma from a Temple–According to Squidoo “After the introduction of Zen Buddhism in Japan, Daruma became an extremely important symbol and figure for the Japanese. He represents good luck, perserverance and hard work. Images, illustration and figurines of Daruma can be seen throughout Japanese culture and homes.”  Fun and perseverance!

Then in the second part of the book, he asks you to start from the very beginning to make sure that the knowledge becomes an integral part of your “Creative Mind.”   (Right now, I’m reading the part where he says it is very important to visualize exactly what you want to accomplish in your life.  Yeah, I’m being driven around in my pink Cadillac with a plate full of pancakes and bacon as I head to the discotheque to show off my latest disco moves! Um-huh!)

Study what brings you joy.  Bring joy to what you study.

There are two key elements working here.  I’m repeating and I’m having fun.  I’m not sure if this officially a cliche but repetition is the mother of all skill.  Mindful repetition is one of the key things that I have discovered on my road to trying to learn Japanese, and something I’m starting to use in all aspects of my life.

First of all pick the materials and ideas that are fun.  Also, when you are studying when you start feeling resentful, tired, bored etc–stop.   You can either change modalities, materials, or approaches.   I’m talking about studying materials that you have chosen for your self.

I’ve also found that it is possible to change your attitude and re-frame your attitude as you study.  For example, I was reviewing my Samurai Notebook and looking at some of my goal exercises.  I realized that I was doing it listlessly.  I stopped for a second and thought:   “What if I really breathed and imagined all of these goals.”   It made review a whole lot more interesting.

If You Repeat, You Must Delete

I’m dating myself (not that there is anything wrong with that) and refer to the O.J. Simpson trial of the 90’s.  Simpson’s lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, won the acquital for O.J. and his fifteen minutes of fame in part by constantly repeating, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

My mantra is now, “If you repeat, you must delete.”  If something in your notebook or SRS becomes dull or was never interesting to begin with, get rid of it or cross it out in your notebook.  It becomes a drag on your mind and your motivation to keep on studying and learning.

This idea really jelled for me because Khatz at Ajatt.com keeps hammering the message of fun and the importance of deletion.

Study what brings you joy.  Bring joy to what you study.  If you repeat, you must delete.  Repeat. Have fun.  The world smiles when you become you.

 

 

How to Use Multiple Savings Accounts

14 Saturday Jan 2012

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Capture your financial flow. Use specific targeted savings accounts to be a financial samurai. This is a graphic from one of my Tao of Money seminars.

Capture your financial flow. Use specific targeted savings accounts to be a financial samurai. This is a graphic from one of my Tao of Money seminars.

Disclaimer:  Remember I am just a motivational speaker who lives in a van down by the river.  Multiple savings accounts are a great way to train your mind to think about money, and I think that will have an impact on your creativity and you peace of mind.   For actual investment advice,  try Personal Finance for Dummies.

Advantages of Multiple Savings Accounts (MSA’s):

  • MSA’s let you too keep the purpose for your savings clear.   It lets your mind know how your money is allotted rather than have to keep track of it mentally or otherwise.  It saves time and space on your mental hard-drive.
  • MSA’s tap into the creativity and energy of flow.   I like thinking of money like water.   If water doesn’t move it gets stagnant.   Multiple savings accounts help you creatively accelerate the flow of money in your life, specially if you use direct deposit and automated savings.
  • You earn interest.   When I started doing multiple savings accounts, I typically earned 5%.  Now I earn a whopping .80%. Woohoo! However, the first two benefits make this worthwhile.

Multiple Savings Account Suggestions from Money is My Friend

Like I mentioned before, this is one of the key ideas I got from reading Phil Laut’s book, Money is My Friend.   In the book, he suggests creating the following banking accounts.   There are finer points for each account and I highly suggest buying it out checking it out from the library.    Phil Laut suggests the following accounts:

  • Cash Flow Savings Account:  keep a month’s worth of income in and pay yourself from there
  • Large  Purchases Account:  deposit into it regularly and use it for whatever you want
  • Financial Independence Account:  train yourself to get used to just spending the interest earned
  • Millionaire’s Savings Account:  money for investments
  • Annual Income Savings Account:  for a year off or shorter amounts
  • Taxes Savings Account:  save for your taxes
  • Generosity Savings Account: giving away money is a great way to free up your mind

Make Savings A Game

When I started doing this, I actually used real bank passbooks.  The passbooks at the bank used passbooks that looked like grey passports.  I went a little overboard and put stickers all over it to make it fun.  Those were the days.

Now internet banking has made it easy to create these multiple accounts.  I started with ING Direct and have stuck with them, and haven’t really researched other options.   What I like about ING is that they make it easy to nickname your various accounts to make this system work, and you save on postage or trips to the bank.  Please let me know if you find better or different banking options.

I don’t necessarily follow Laut’s system to the letter.  My Cash Flow account is typically the amount of cash that I tend to spend per week.  It’s automatically withdrawn twice a month and when I want more money I transfer it online to my credit union.  I also have a Bills Account.   When I charge something on my credit card, I place the exact amount into my ING Bills Account.  When the bill comes, I have the exact amount waiting for me in the account.

I also have an impulse spending account, which is just play money.   Do I want to spend $50 on stickers or chocolate?  It’s right there.   The purpose of this account is to allow for play and impulse instead of associating saving with deprivation.

Of course, with the right attitude and creativity Multiple Savings Accounts help turn setting financial priorities into a game.   Enjoy the game and save!

 

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