Anthropology
It is but pure coincidence that I was born Japanese. My belonging to this nation rests in a family register filed away in a municipal office, yet this paper trail creates the illusion that I truly know my homeland. I am no exception to this trick of the mind. I am routinely jolted by the realization that this perceived sense of “knowing” is merely a construct.

This is why anthropology is not just a subject to me; it is my lens for survival. It forces us to venture to the margins of history and biology to interrogate what we call “normal.” It connects the dots between why we were and why we see, rather than pulling them apart. 

The Biological Truth:
I am drawn to biological anthropology because it uncovers the undeniable feedback loop between culture and biology.

Think about the evolution of the human face:
when our ancestors mastered fire and began cooking, our need for massive, crushing jaws disappeared. As our jaws shrank, it cleared the physical space necessary for our brains to expand.

Our cultural choices literally carved our physical bodies. Textual records can be rewritten, but our bones, DNA, and the memory of human movement hold an unalterable truth.

The Aikido Laboratory:
I refused to let this wisdom remain trapped in textbooks. I needed to test it, to feel it—and that hunger is what brought me to the Aikido mat.

Anthropology uncovers a vast, unseen wisdom, but Aikido is where I embody it. I take the abstract knowledge of human history and anchor it within the only laboratory that genuinely belongs to me: my own flesh and blood. To blend the intellectual with visceral is my lifelong practice.

Every time I step onto the tatami, I am exploring the ultimate inquiry: “Where do we come from, and why do we carry these specific minds and bodies?” On the mat, I breathe life into that ancient human wisdom.


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