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Codex Audentia

Codex: An ancient manuscript text in book form.
Audentia: Latin for “audacity”.

This is my codex — a working notebook with my notes, experiments, and rambles in their full glory. It is raw, unpolished and unfiltered.

This is not a blog.

You can subscribe to these posts here.

I’m building a 1,000 year company, and writing about the process.

Apr 03

Decades are made up of days and weeks.

By Reflections No Comments

This week and this day is the template for the entire decade.

Think about what you’d want this decade to mean in the context of your entire life story, and then look at how you’re spending your time and energy.

  • The time you waste today,
  • The energy and health you’ll lose on toxic people and destructive habits this week,
  • The opportunities you procrastinate on AGAIN to do the things you should (even telling your loved ones that you love them)

…will repeat themselves like a pattern and dirty the end result of this entire decade unless you FORCE significant effort into overcoming this inertia and change what you do today.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised that despite the many things outside our control, we still mostly write the story of our own lives. We’re unconsciously shaping our story every day, just by the way we choose to spend our time.

Days and weeks become decades. Decades are made up of days and weeks.

This article is from my codex.

You can subscribe to my newsletters here.

Mar 19

Giving up on “Good”: An Ode to the Basics

By Reflections No Comments
Hokusai; Tiger in the Snow (painted in 1849, the last year of his life)

I was talking to a former teammate today and he told me that he’s “trying to get good at storytelling” because it doesn’t come naturally to him.

I told him it was a huge mistake to think that way. “Never try to get good at something you’re not talented in.“

Trying to “get good” at something, in my opinion, is in fact downright dangerous.

When you try to “get good” at something, you’re inadvertently buying into several destructive beliefs:

  1. That you are “bad” at the thing compared to others
  2. That you have to “reach” some kind of advanced level of proficiency (which you vaguely describe as “good” or “no longer bad”)
  3. That you will “suck” at it for an indefinite period of time

This is way too much pressure to actually make any kind of meaningful progress.

Counter-intuitively, by following the above advice, you can become world-class at that very thing, sometimes outclassing even those who are talented at it.

And that brings us to today’s topic: the Basics.

I’ve learned that it’s way better to reframe your perspective to this instead:

“I’m not talented at this. I shall give up on being good at it. Hence, I will only learn the bare basics — and then simply practice those basics endlessly until the end of my life.“

In any domain you can think of — whether it’s mechanical engineering, music, public speaking, marriage, sex, basketball, or customer service — there is always a list of “basics” or “fundamentals.”

The key quality of basics is that anyone can learn them, practice them, and become great at them. And therein lies the deceptive power.

I’m a firm believer that simply by mastering the basics, you can do better than most of the so-called “experts” and “advanced practitioners” in any domain you can think of.

In fact, you could become the best in the world.

Like Kobe Bryant

Or like Hokusai (the great Japanese artist) whose quote went like this:

…until the age of 70, nothing I drew was worthy of notice. At 73 years I was somewhat able to fathom the growth of plants and trees, and the structure of birds, animals, insects and fish. Thus when I reach 80 years, I hope to have made increasing progress, and at 90 to see further into the underlying principles of things, so that at 100 years I will have achieved a divine state in my art, and at 110, every dot and every stroke will be as though alive. Those of you who live long enough, bear witness that these words of mine are not false.

So I’ve personally given up on ever getting “good” at anything.

Here are some things that I’m not good at, where I’ve managed to come FAR by simply learning the basics:

  1. Judo (struggled to get “good” for 3 years; suddenly had a breakthrough when I refocused on the fundamentals)
  2. Interpersonal relationships (the first few chapters of ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie are alone enough for a lifetime of success)
  3. Programming / Software engineering
  4. Japanese
  5. Business strategy

Either I’m already good at something (which means? you guessed it, time to do more practice), or I’m gonna master the basics. Now back to the dojo.

This article is from my codex.

You can subscribe to my newsletters here.

Jan 05

In Pursuit of a Legendary Life

By Reflections No Comments

Have you ever stopped to acknowledge that people remember decades in the next century?

Eg: The “Roaring 20s,” the “Depressed 30s,” the “WW2 and post-war” 1940s, the “Recovery / Baby Boomer 50s,” the “Crazy 60s,” and so on.

Well, it’s now 2025 (damn), and we’re in the middle of the “20s” decade of this century.

So far in this decade, we’ve seen Covid-19 and global shutdowns, then the recovery from that, and now the rise of AI. Whether this decade will be defined by Covid or by AI, I’m not yet sure.

But for YOU (and ME), this decade will be defined by “what were you doing at that time?“

And that is a scary question to answer.

For me, so far, the 20s have seen the beginning (or you could say, the starting phase) of my journey as an entrepreneur and leader, the beginning of my 30s, my globetrotting from the USA to India and then to Japan (with a quick stop in Europe in between), and also the beginning of my self-imposed challenge to carve a place for myself on the global stage, and in this era.

That’s already a lot.

Interestingly, none of the things I actually did — such the exact businesses I started, the book I wrote or podcasts I hosted, nor any of the major events in my life — feel “noteworthy” right now, as I look at the big picture. Any and all my accomplishments / milestones feel like a footnote, a detail.

After all, we’re talking about “phases” here — the things under the surface that will eventually come to define this period of your life.

Coming back to 2025, I believe I have a decent answer to that question (“what were you doing in that decade?”). It is both a theme, a mission, a goal, and an affirmation of sorts. Thankfully, we’re only half-way in, so I still have time to live up to it:

In the 2020s, I was trying to become a legend.

I’ve always been curious about what motivates me, and which things I feel the most proud of. And I realized that the achievements that make me proudest are those that have a certain “competitive” or “distinguishing” angle to them.

In college, the only accomplishments I remember fondly are those where I distinguished myself out of everyone else — such as that one Physics end-term exam where I solved two problems that nobody did (and became the only person to get an A in that class out of 250+ kids), or that I was the first person to start taking online courses on the side, and some of the things I did in China.

Same thing after college — I only remember the things that distinguished me from either my peers or my contemporaries — doing the things that nobody else did, or nobody else did better.

I have recognized this desire to distinguish as one of the primary drivers of my life.

I’ve always wanted to be legendary at whatever I set my mind to do — or you could say, the desire to be legendary IS what set my mind to do things.

I’m a very lazy, distracted, and time-wasting guy by default. You would never believe by looking at some of my habits and natural inclinations that I would ever be a winner. I can binge watch anime or movies until the cows come home, and I can sleep until the sun gets tired of shining.

But on the flip side, I have a side that’s also more disciplined, more intense, and more ferocious than anyone. And the only thing that turns on that “switch in my head” is the decision to be legendary.

At SANPRAM, I want to surround myself with people who want to become legends in their own right, at whatever they do. The company itself wants to become legendary — I want us to eclipse the influence that SONY had back in the 70s and 80s.

Let’s build a 21st century organization and an environment where it’s a mandatory requirement to do legendary things. Just like Edison built the world’s first applied research company at Menlo Park, my goal is to build a “legend factory” unlike anything ever seen before.

This article is from my codex.

You can subscribe to my newsletters here.

Nov 24

Rule barbarians with the sword.

By DenseLayers, Reflections No Comments

I recently spoke to someone who was part of Robert Maxwell‘s original gang at Pergamon Press.

Spent ~50 years in the publishing business — a journal mafia veteran and founding member, so to speak.

I thought he might have been reformed, and even if not, maybe I could learn something from him. Because after all, we have to do a lot of things that Maxwell had to do in his heyday.

Turns out, he believes that the science publishing industry is great, that Nature and Elsevier and all these magazines are doing good for the world, and that there’s no reason to disrupt what he thinks is a beautiful system.

“Charging so much money isn’t a big deal because universities had the budgets anyway.”

When I mentioned that less-endowed universities in “developing” regions like India don’t have that money and therefore can’t access the science, here’s what he had to say:

“Indian universities would have more money left over if they weren’t lining up the pockets of politicians.”

Say what you want to that argument (even if it were true).

Another notable opinion:

“Do you know how much Elsevier spent on building the ScienceDirect website in 1997? $150 MILLION. It might be bonkers today, but any judgments about them should be made while keeping that in perspective.”
(meaning: the market should pay a premium because Elsevier didn’t know that a basic pdf-sharing website shouldn’t cost hundreds of millions.)

Many other such moments of brilliance later, it culminated in him telling me over email that I should “recognise that I won’t be a disrupter,” and that if I want to do something useful, I should be building software for Elsevier as my customer to make their business more efficient or something.

And he was not polite when he said it.

Now look, as an entrepreneur I’m used to rejection and scepticism — I have a permanent bedroom-sharing relationship with both of these things.

But this time it felt different. It wasn’t scepticism, it was Goliath trying to stare down David and telling him to stay in his lane.

When I read that email, I was a little pissed, but I wasn’t upset — I had a powerful negative energy brewing within me. I sat back and allowed myself to soak in that energy.

He may have given me the greatest gift I needed at this time, the missing piece that might make the difference between us getting stomped by the big publishers versus being the conquering force that they should fear:

Bloodlust.

I’m done with the guy. In fact, I’m done with the whole pack of people who work for or support the big science publishers. I’m done giving them any benefit of doubt, to be reasonable, to keep an open mind.

But I’ve decided to not get “over” this episode. The negative energy is too powerful, and an addictive source of strength and focus.

The monarchs of the Joseon dynasty (Korea) are believed to have had a certain very simple and effective policy for centuries, which went something like this:

“Rule your subjects with forgiveness. Rule barbarians with the sword.”

Time to unsheath the sword.

Nov 22

The most striking feature of Japan

By Reflections No Comments

As a cosmopolitan Indian, to me, Japan’s most striking feature is this:

Blue collar work ethic, combined with white collar pride in their work.

The Japanese are “Pro” at whatever they do.

You’ll see a woman security guard or police officer standing at attention for hours, even in the quietest of neighborhoods.

She will not lean against the wall, or look around for distractions. Being at attention is her work.

She is dressed sharp and keeps a stoic face (even though she’ll happily return a pleasant smile if you say お疲れ様).

The Japanese cashier at IKEA will not check his phone when there are no customers waiting in line.

You see the same attitude in a Starbucks barista, an usherer, a garbage collection worker, or an engineer or investment banker.

How much of this is healthy vs unhealthy, natural vs forced, etc is immaterial.

What matters in the end is that it has made a big impression — not just on me, but on the whole world, for many years — and it doesn’t cost anything.

What I’d love to see more of in Japan today is ambition. There seems to be a pervasive sense of “life is good, we have enough.”

There is a shortage of leaders (like founders of Sony, Uniqlo, or Softbank) who want to conquer uncharted waters.

But with SO many people with an exceptional work ethic and the ability to take pride in their work, who want to be led, there is a HUGE opportunity for young leaders who have creative ideas and a killer mindset.

It would be really hard to compete with a Japanese leader who has a big vision and the mindset needed for running through walls.

For foreigners especially: there are barriers of language and culture, but if you can bridge them somehow, you could build some incredible companies in Japan.

Nov 10

A 21st century heretic

By Reflections No Comments

I’m a big proponent of living “scientifically.”

But I’m also open to believing in many things that are supposedly supernatural / pseudoscience / woo-woo.

Eg: visualization / manifestation, certain yogic practices, Ayurveda and other ancient Indian concepts.

To me, this isn’t a contradiction at all.

To be a scientist means to be a lifelong heretic.

1. Question information that doesn’t align with your understanding.

2. Question your understanding when it doesn’t align with observations.

3. Test things for yourself as much as possible.

(Isaac Newton studied alchemy and the occult for 30+ years — it’s unlikely that him and thousands of other scholars throughout history would stick to it for so long if it was BS and they didn’t make any progress.)

What you do NOT say:

“This is incorrect because Wikipedia says so / my school textbooks said so / there are no studies to confirm this.”

Such statements are intellectually dishonest in nature.

Being close-minded and surrendering your beliefs to authority — even the “scientific authority” of your current times — isn’t scientific.

Eg: some people believe that Covid was a hoax. Now, MY experience tells me that in India, during the second wave:

  1. Hospitals around the country ran out of oxygen cylinders.
  2. Cremation grounds in Delhi were so full that people had to be cremated on the streets
  3. Even firewood for cremation became extremely hard to find — you had to go procure your own.
  4. I don’t know a single person who didn’t lose any family member to the virus within that short span of time.
  5. Some of my friends who did catch Covid, said that it was the sickest they’d ever been.

Since each of these occurences are statistically significant (i.e. they almost NEVER happen) and there is a strong causation in play, I believe that Covid was as real as the earth under my feet. “It’s just the flu” doesn’t explain my observations and evidence, so the statement is untrue in my book.

    Oct 17

    Building a 1,000 Year Company (TOP SECRET)

    By DenseLayers, Rambles No Comments
    Thomas Edison at Menlo Park

    At DenseLayers, we’re taking on some interesting problems.

    The first one, which you are already aware of, is to accelerate frontier sciences.

    The second one is to build something that will live for at least a thousand years.

    In fact, most of the value of DenseLayers will be realized centuries into the future. All we’re doing as the founders is to stand up a few dominos, kick the first few, and nominate other people to place larger and larger dominos in the front, and continue to pass the baton through generations.

    Our mission is to make DenseLayers into a train that travels eternally in the right direction. It’s fine that as mortals, we will never see most of the destinations it visits. Such is life.

    In fact, if you join DenseLayers, the stocks aren’t to make us rich, they’re to make our grandchildren richer. The joy of the journey and eternal glory is for us.

     

    The challenge.

    Now, it has come to my attention that building a thousand year company may not be very easy.

    So let’s sit down and figure out what needs to happen for this train to keep rolling for a millennium. 

    Let’s start with defining the basic problem here, such that even a 5th grader could understand.

    There are many conditions that, if met, would cause an organization to live for 1,000 years.

    But there is only one condition that can ensure it:

    If the organization dies along the way, it regenerates and continues with its original directive.

    The other condition would of course be that it never dies in the first place. We’ll get to that later.

    As a systems engineer with a background in failure-tolerance, I prefer to assume that the worst WILL happen, and simply build for the ability to recover.

    With that, let’s reframe the challenge:

    Do everything we can to increase the odds of regeneration, as well as the odds that the original directive will be followed.

    In other words, build a company that can keep showing up and live to fight another day.

    This framing gives us a lot more room to play with, and a lot more room for mistakes. We no longer have to rely on a silver bullet for longevity, but rather devise a myriad of fail-safe measures that we can “stack” on top of each other.

    It’s a classic engineering problem. You simply design a system for resilience and recovery above all.

    As a trained systems engineer, and also a former safety engineer for self-driving trucks (in charge of functional safety and designing fail-safe protocols etc), it’s as if this is what I’ve been preparing my whole life for.

    Brainstorm

    First, let us look at certain organizations that have already cracked the code on longevity:

    Universities

    Family-run businesses

    Religions

    Countries / Kingdoms.

    …and so on.

    By studying what’s already worked in the past, and combining it with new technology, we can craft a realistic, compelling plan for ourselves.

    Here are some examples of features (or bugs) we can build:

    1. A clear directive that can be followed for eternity, regardless of how the human species and our culture evolves over time. (“Accelerate frontier scientific research”)
    2. Make it so the data/information contained in DenseLayers is incredibly hard to destroy; as long as a single copy remains, it can respawn the entire network. (Blockchains? Distributed database?)
    3. We have a system for recruiting people that continues to attract people to the cause. (Content marketing / Books / Referrals)
    4. Even if the number of members dwindles to zero, a new individual can join and both get and create value. (YouTube)
    5. If the company fails in one country, it still has roots elsewhere. (PirateBay? Yahoo Japan?)
    6. The company allows disruptive innovation from within. If someone comes up with a technology that makes the current tools obsolete, the company must pave the way for new methods to be successful. (Eg: 3M, Nintendo)
    7. The company’s funds don’t run out — i.e. do not depend on a single source of revenue, always save a portion of income and invest it elsewhere such that the principle remains unharmed and also earns a regular interest. (Universities)
    8. There is a robust system for succession. (Nobel Prize committee? University Leaderships? Democracies?)
    9. Members need as few resources to join and benefit as possible — even the remotest humans can plug into the scientific network with primitive devices. (Facebook?)
    10. …and so on.

     

    On the other hand, we can also do things to reduce the risk of death in the first place. In that respect, I have a simple philosophy:

    Always offer the best deal that your customers could find in the market.

    I often look at the Japanese industry for examples galore. Kawasaki, Toyota, Honda, Nintendo (one of my faves), Sony, Panasonic, and so on.

    In the west, you have companies like Disney and Apple.

    What I love about the bolded ones above, is that they tried to diversify (not betting the future on a single product), while still being focused on a single purpose.

    They were also product-leaders: we keep buying from them mostly because they make really good shit. They even inspire other companies to step up their quality.

    An example I love is that Nintendo, after their Game Boy was a massive hit for 11 years, lost dominance to Sony’s Playstation, then made a comeback with the Nintendo DS, and later again made a huge hit with the Nintendo Switch. And this company was founded in the 1880s, with paper card games!

    I also like Apple’s example — even though I don’t think much of the new iPhones, the Apple Watch and AirPods (launched after Jobs died) are each multi-billion dollar businesses in their own right. You gotta give the team credit.

    I want DenseLayers to similarly keep building amazing tools for scientists and innovators of all ages, forever, and always offer the best wares in the market. The goodest shit, always. If we can build a culture where offering the best products for scholars is more important than anything else, then we should be good to go.

     

    ***

    Here’s a thought I had this afternoon, after a bathroom break while walking back to my desk:

    Imagine if (after we’re successful) we plant hundreds of time capsules all over the world, with each capsule containing instructions for how to regenerate DenseLayers (the scientific network), rebuild it to success, and once again plant new time capsules that last a century or two.

    We could design the content of the capsule such that it becomes the talk of the town, and also makes a pretty compelling case — enough to inspire one crazy person to take the idea and run with it (which is all we need really).

    Anyway — I’ll get back to work now.

     This article is from my codex. You can subscribe to my newsletters here.

    Sep 23

    “Too long, didn’t read”

    By Reflections No Comments

    Contrary to this codex, when I write for my blog, it’s usually a really long essay.

    Some are over 6000 words.

    I’ve heard every argument for why I should shorten things:

    “Nobody wants to read something that long.”

    “Attention spans are decreasing”

    “You have to learn to convey the point quickly.”

    Most of it is well-meaning, but misses the entire point:

    Some things take time.

    Everything you write has a goal. And you need to write enough to achieve that goal. No more, no less.

    You can’t distill the Harry Potter series into 7 blog posts. Well you could, but it defeats the whole purpose.

    I can’t make someone “tech fluent” in 5 paragraphs. If I could, I would.

    But if something I write has 50 paragraphs, I do make sure that each and every paragraph serves a purpose. I’m actually a relentless editor. I hate fluff myself, and I cut it out of my writing with a vengeance.

    So yes, I write really long essays. And the people who don’t read them, are simply missing out.

    Either they don’t need what I’m writing (all good), or they’re just the type of person who wants everything quickly (a magic pill for instant weight loss). In either case, they’re not my readers.

    Sep 17

    “Well-made piece of crap”

    By Reflections No Comments

    The most valuable trait or habit that I’ve developed as an engineer is to “focus on the problem, not the solution.”

    Sounds very counter-intuitive. Don’t we usually say the opposite?

    The context here is that most people love to complain about problems and then hasten to slap solutions, as opposed to STUDYING problems and trying to investigate why they’re there in the first place — and solving the root cause.

    Most engineers are guilty of this. They love to rush to coding as soon as they see a requirement, as if they’ve been bit by a rabid dog and can’t keep their hands still.

    The product you end up with is a “well-made piece of crap.”

    The best engineers I’ve ever worked with, and those I’ve read about in history, are more interested in solving the problem than in finding a solution.

    Yes, there is a big difference between the two. You’re focusing on the right solution, not the first solution that came to mind.

    The first approach takes a bit of investigation, thinking, and study — which takes humility that you don’t know everything — and also involves a time delay before you can get to implementation.

    The second approach gets you going quickly, but in the long run, you end up having to throw away and redo too much work, writing off huge losses in both time and money.

    Now, it’s not like you can’t succeed with “move fast and break things”; I may be wrong, but I’ve heard that companies like Facebook and Angellist famously cultivated and encouraged this kind of culture.

    Unfortunately, most companies can’t afford to do so. And they don’t need to — there’s a better way, a best of both worlds.

    The key to the conundrum is how well-defined the boundary conditions are.

    “Let’s hack something” is a great next step for situations where the problem is quite simple or trivial, and the boundary conditions are clear.

    But as soon as you come to a systems problem (such as a UX problem where even a human is involved), then you have to think about what the solution can and cannot do, which quickly eliminates many default solutions that you may have implemented in the past.

    In systems engineering, we usually suggest 15% of the project timeline being spent up front on this, with the rest spent on implementation / hacking.

    Jul 25

    My Business Practices Are “Outrageous”

    By Reflections No Comments

    I’m nobody to give someone business advice.

    Or rather, I’d say there are plenty of people driving lamborghinis and flying private and consistently sitting on the front pages of newspapers whom people could listen to.

    I remember flipping through a book by T Scott Gross, the author of “Positively Outrageous Service” as a kid (saw it at a bookstore and it got my attention), and it really blew my mind. Since then I’ve wanted to offer positively outrageous service in every business I do, both at the product level and the service level.

    At my company, we do follow some “outrageous” business practices that I was reflecting on today.

    1. Our products and services aren’t good or better or even “best” — they’re groundbreaking.

    I’m not saying this for shits and giggles. In my career as an entrepreneur so far, I’ve only made and offered things that have either never existed before, or are on a completely different level than anything else on offer.

    If it’s not 10 times better than whatever already is, I don’t do it.

    The first project: the “Tech Fluent CEO” program, later made into a book. Yes, I realized later that other such products exist. But none of them accomplish anything remotely close to what mine does.

    The same goes for both my podcasts — the content is both 10x better and unique.

    It often makes it hard to market and explain what I do, and questions like “is there a market for this?” and “how does it work?” are constantly coming up.

    Look, I was inspired by SONY when I was 19. In Akio Morita’s book “Made in Japan,” he said that Sony always wanted to look to the future, and build products that would shape the world as they saw it. Every product that Sony brought out, started as a dream — not a number on a spreadsheet.

    I have the utmost respect for people who build businesses based on what people are already looking for and lots of demand analysis, but that’s not how my brain works. I’m in the innovation business. I’m in the future business.

    We skate to where the puck is going to be, not where the puck is right now.

    2. I don’t offer 30-day or even 90-day guarantees. I offer a lifetime guarantee.

    Back when I was offering the tech fluency program, the first ever person who signed up (and paid full price upfront), got busy with other projects midway through the course. He never came back.

    I tried to contact him over time, to come back, but he couldn’t.

    Finally, 4 years later (long after I stopped doing 1-1 coaching and was doing a different business), I emailed him again, saying that he’s always welcome to come back and finish what he started. This time, he did reply, and we will continue our relationship.

    On the first page of my book, I say clearly — if you buy the book and realize that you aren’t the right reader for it, you get your money back, no questions asked. There’s no timeline.

    50 years later, if you said, “you know, that book I read in my 20s wasn’t really worth my money” – I’d still like to give you a refund.

    One reader actually tried to test this, because he couldn’t believe this was true. But I obliged, and this is what he said:

    However, I must mention that recently I felt “whooped” by Andy Frisella’s company 1st Phorm, because they offer a 110% guarantee on their products. So we will start offering a 120% guarantee as soon as we are able to.

    But hey — I did offer a guarantee on my podcasts too from the beginning – if you find another podcast that covers a topic better than we did, I will give you $20. Andy doesn’t. (Score: 1-1)

    The next phase

    While the above things are apparent in hindsight, I wasn’t even consciously aware of them when I was actually doing them.

    But it’s clear to me that this philosophy needs to be at the center of the entire business; its energy permeating not just the product and service, but everything from marketing, to branding, to operations, to vendor relationships, employee relations, and so on.

    Offering a positively outrageous experience to every person along the chain, makes for an indestructible business. And I want to build a company where this is in the very DNA.

    I challenged myself to get a black belt in Judo in 12 months, training at the Kodokan in Tokyo.

    May 16

    Judo: the wand chooses the wizard

    By Martial Arts No Comments

    In Judo, we have the concept of the tokui-waza, or your “signature throw.” It’s like in the comics (every character has this one power move?).

    Every Judoka has a tokui-waza or two. Even at the highest level of competition, they usually stick to one or two throws. All they work on in training is different ways to get a dominant position to set up their signature throw, and ways to defend against different throws. They simply polish it until it matures into a terrifying move that they become world-famous for.

    Most people, when choosing their tokui-waza for the first time, just pick the throw that they like, or that suits their body (eg: “if you have long legs, you should do uchi-mata”).

    For the longest time, I had decided that my signature throw had to be the uchi-mata. It’s called the “king of all Judo throws”, and I have long legs. So it felt like a match made in heaven.

    Olympic gold medalist Arai Chizuru demonstrates her repertoire of uchi-mata attacks.

    Except that it was not to be. I consistently struggled to make it work, no matter how much I practiced it. It always felt just out of reach.

    On the contrary, I always felt like my weakest throw was the ippon seoi nage. It always felt too difficult even in practice — I couldn’t get the armpit in my elbow and even the throwing motion felt awkward, more like the opponent slipping to the side than a proper “throw.”

    Until recently.

    I just so happened to try the ippon seoi nage on the opposite side (my tsurite) as opposed to my hikite. And boy it worked — fitting like a glove. I even tried it in randori and threw one person with it, without even really training for it (and what’s interesting is that I had never successfully done a real forward throw in randori up until that point with all the throws that I did train for).

    3-time Olympic gold winner Nomura happens to have the same ippon-seoi-nage as mine — on the tsurite as opposed to the hikite!

    The same thing is happening with my backwards throw — I was always a believer that it’s osoto-gari for me, but recently it appears that the kosoto or ouchi or ouchi are strong rising contenders.

    The more you learn Judo, the more “aha” moments you have that upend the whole paradigm of what you think you knew about a certain throw. I was watching a video of a former world champion in Judo last week, and what was interesting to me was how she was still learning about basic things — the “aha moments” — the same way as we do as white belts in class. She looked like she could have been another one of us, as if she too was merely at the beginning of her journey. No matter how far you go, there are still treasures waiting to be unlocked — which explains why there are people in their 80s and 90s who still do Judo religiously in Japan.

    Natsumi Tsunoda is a world champion in Judo, and is still having “aha” moments everyday.

    So which throws will end up being my tokui-waza? It’s still early to say, but now I know for sure that they will present themselves to me eventually, the longer I train judo. They might even change a few times over the course of my journey.

    The signature throw will choose me when the time is right — not the other way around.

    Apr 28

    My plan to get a Black Belt in Judo in <12 months

    By Martial Arts No Comments
    You might recognize the only non-Japanese person in this picture :)

    Oh no! I forgot to share some big personal news with my total online following of 5-10 great people.

    In December 2023, I set myself a goal to achieve a shodan (1st degree black belt) in Judo — in 11 months (November of next year). I’m writing this blog post on April 28, so I’ve been on this journey for about 5 months.

    I first learned Judo for 1.5 years in the USA (first at Cornell University’s Judo club, and then at the San Francisco Judo Institute). I was dedicated, but I never felt like I had actually *learned* any Judo. In short, I felt like I sucked as much as any other beginner. My technique was terrible, and I had no idea why.

    Here’s how:

    The dojo

    I’m training at the Kodokan, which is both the birthplace of Judo and the center of the global Judo universe.

    Here’s what it’s like, based on a Reddit thread I shared earlier:

    The course is 12 months long, and divided into 2 parts. First part is 3 months long, and the second is 9 months (when the “kyu” ranks begin). The idea is that you get your shodan at the end, but it seems most people get injured etc somewhere in between and get their shodan delayed by a few months. I’m yet to meet or hear about anyone who got their shodan in 12 months as per the plan.

    When you first show up to the Kodokan, they ask you to first watch a class in full (it’s almost mandatory) and then do an “interview” with the head coach about your prior Judo experience. You can skip the Judo school altogether and only sign up for the “randori class” that happens at the same time, but is almost exclusively full of black belts.

    Class is at 6pm, 90 minutes, 6 days a week. Sundays off. Being late to class is acceptable, but the sensei might ask you to explain yourself if you’re late every single day. You usually have to make 13-14 classes for the month, or you have to repeat that month. To advance ranks, you have to have a certain number of attendances.

    Instruction is 100% in Japanese, but a few Senseis speak a little English, and your classmates can usually help translate/correct you if you don’t understand. I speak okay Japanese so I don’t face too many problems, but there are a few people in class who don’t, and they’re faring okay too.

    Class starts with a warm-up + ukemi for the first 20-30 minutes or so, but once in a while you have a sensei who stretches it to even 45 minutes, doing different drills and playing “games” to train your agility or balance or reaction speed etc.

    First few classes focuse on learning etiquette and how to bow the right way (yes, you read that right), and then learning proper ukemi. The bowing instruction can feel a little bit of a waste of time in the beginning, but I’ve found an appreciation for these little things as time goes by. After a few classes, you start with the basic throws (o-goshi, de ashi barai, seoi nage, ippon seoi nage, and hiza guruma), and basic ne-waza pins (mostly kesa-gatame).

    In the second month, you start learning new throws (tai-otoshi, harai-goshi, osoto, ouchi, kosoto, sasae, etc). Usually the class is divided into 3 groups: first month students, then second + third month students, and then all the kyu grades. The 2nd and 3rd month curriculum is the same, and we always train together. You basically spend 2 months practicing the same throws.

    The quality of instruction varies because each day there’s a different sensei, and even though most of the sensei’s are 6th degree red-white belt and above, once in a while you do get a sensei who’s barely interested in teaching at all. In fact, there are also a couple 5th degree black belt sensei whom I actually like the most, because they put more effort into teaching. The technique also varies from sensei to sensei, because everyone has their own way of teaching the same throw — but I think that’s also okay, because you have to adjust the throw anyway over time and find YOUR way of doing it. It also varies with the body type of your opponent (i.e. the way you do a seoi nage on a person of similar build is very different from an uke who’s heavier and shorter). In the beginning, it can be a little confusing as to “which way are you supposed to learn.”

    But overall, the system of instruction is very good. It’s not perfect (I’d still change a few things, from a beginner’s standpoint), but it’s still very good. There’s no randori for the first 3 months, and I love that. I first learned Judo in the USA for 1.5 years, where beginners are thrown into randori (pun unintended) too early in my opinion. Once I got here, I also realized that I had never really learned to do ukemi properly — they tend to fix most of these little mistakes.

    I also want to mention something in general — I’ve found the Kodokan to be a very fun, warm, and “easy going” environment to learn Judo. It’s not overly strict or military-like, and everyone is more on the jolly side. They’re very inflexible with administrative stuff (i.e you can’t do things out of the “process” in terms of enrolment etc, which is typical Japan), but in terms of the class itself, they let you go at your own pace and focus on your own judo journey.

    Consistency

    I started out going 3-4 days a week, because my body simply couldn’t take the beating (after over 3 years of being out of it).

    Soon, I heard that the only way to get a shodan in 12 months is this: 1) come everyday, and 2) don’t get injured.

    I took this to heart, and since then, I’ve been showing up 6 days a week, every week. The only exceptions are when I’m really sick, or have a non-negotiable professional commitment.

    The senseis have also taken notice, and my Judo has improved drastically. In the first 2.5 months of randori in Japan, and in the first 1.5 YEARS of Judo in the USA, I rarely ever threw anyone — but recently, I’ve been consistently getting more throws. The ratio is slowly getting better.

    But as with everything, unlike learning Japanese, learning Judo is not a linear curve — there are good days and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks, and even good months and bad months. I’ve sprained/practically broken my big toe on both feet more times than I remember, and my right shoulder has become like a grumpy old man who wails and complains about a new problem every 2 weeks.

    But the key is to keep showing up, and ride the plateaus. The worst thing to do is to quit when things have just started getting better!

    Even if I’m injured, I still show up to just watch and do whatever technique work I can. It’s better than nothing, and in fact, it’s an opportunity to work on the weak parts of your Judo — footwork drills, gripping, posture and balance, and what not. Showing up everyday to improve something, yields drastic results over a long period of time. That’s what MY Judo journey is all about.

    It’s highly possible that I may fail to achieve my goal of shodan due to an unexpected circumstance. But I believe that as long as you’re obsessed with a goal, it will happen — human obsession is a force that can bend the universe itself.

     

    I challenged myself to achieve fluency in Japanese in 12 months. The result blew me away.

    Oct 26

    Language is easy. Culture is difficult.

    By Language Learning No Comments

    The process of learning a language is really the process of acquiring a new culture.

    It’s not “how to say X.” It’s “how to convey this feeling/meaning?” The difference is nuanced, but it makes a huuuge difference.

    For instance, you don’t say “I want to eat cake” in Japanese.

    You instead usually say, ケ－キが食べたい — which roughly means, “cake induces the desire to eat (in me)” or “the cake is eat-wanting” (however you want to phrase it).

    The cake is the SUBJECT of the sentence, not the object!

    In Japanese, as opposed to English, it’s acceptable to attribute a kind of “life” or “intention” to inanimate objects, which we don’t usually do in English.

    Another case in point: in a language exchange recently, I remarked in English, “I learned some new concepts!” And then I asked, how do I convey that in Japanese?

    The answer: the Japanese simply say (if translated), “I became wiser.”

    We both joked about how saying something like that in English would be overly dramatic, and that maybe the Japanese people are always low-key sarcastic, etc.

    Or take the “passive voice” in Japanese. There are different words for “receiving” something as a favor or handout (which places you below the giver), versus a tribute (placing you above the giver).

    These are not simply linguistic lessons — they’re cultural lessons.

    A lot of language learners get frustrated with languages over time, seemingly confounded at all the “exceptions” and “complexities.”

    People who see a language simply as a large set of grammar rules and vocabulary to learn, are missing one of the most critical aspects that make the difference between being “familiar” with a language versus being “fluent.”

    They chalk it up to “a language gene” or talent, while the actual cause of the lack of progress is more often than not the methodology they’ve chosen. It’s also less fun to learn when the method itself is painful, which means people spend less time on it, thus putting fluency even further out of reach.

    Think about how you learned your native language, and how you use it on a daily basis. Do you have any idea what the grammar rules in your mother tongue are?

    Think about translations — or rather, how bad and unreliable they usually are. How many times do people ask “hey how do you say xyz in your language?” — hoping for a direct translation — and the legit answer is, “we don’t actually say that, but we can convey the same meaning by saying…“

    It’s not possible to become fluent in a language unless you immerse yourself in native, natural content. Lots and lots of input.

    By consuming native content, you get to acquire the language and the cultural context at the same time — which is how it should be, because that’s how children learn too. They get corrected by elders for saying things that are disrespectful or awkward, even if they’re “accurate.”

    Hence the title — languages are easy, cultures are difficult!

    Oct 10

    Adventures in Learning Japanese – #1

    By Language Learning No Comments

    Rough draft.

    The deeper I get into Japanese, the more I realize that how much language and culture are intertwined with each other.

    Learning Japanese is not about learning how to say what I naturally say in English, using Japanese words and sentence structures.

    No — the process of learning Japanese is to learn what the Japanese say, when trying to express a certain Japanese idea, shaped by their Japanese perspective.

    There are many things that don’t just cross over. Plenty of things you can say in Japanese that you’d never say in English, because it doesn’t belong to modern western culture.

    The “language” we learn in textbooks can be only good for the basics, and sometimes as a reference. But even then — with all its rules and exceptions — it’s shit. I’ve seen time and time again that, as I get closer to an intermediate level, I’ve only ever been confused and held back by structured courses.

    Here’s a key idea: Grammar is an way to roughly *describe* how a language works, to someone who doesn’t speak it — it is not the rulebook for how the language is spoken or written.

    All these rules are a crutch, created so that foreigners have something relatable to start with, and slowly build a bridge towards Fluent Land. It tries to explain to them, in terms they understand, how a foreign language relates to it.

    But this is the wrong approach. There is no “bridge” to fluency. You have to wade the waters yourself.

    There are many ways to become acquainted with the basics of a language. But I’m realizing that by the time you start to form sentences, revisit the absolute basics again.

    Consider, for example, the wa and ga particles in Japanese. Even with these fundamental building blocks of every single sentence in Japanese, there isn’t really a parallel in English. And there are so many cultural nuances that go into understanding how these particles work.

    The only way to become fluent is to live the language.

    I now also realize why I didn’t get truly comfortable with French, despite my large vocabulary. I got stuck at the textbook level. I didn’t start immersing myself early enough in REAL French content. And now I also understand why my Chinese sounds so fluent, even though in fact my vocabulary is very limited. It’s because, whatever I did learn to speak, didn’t come from textbooks. I acquired it from my friends.

    It reminds me of the French foreign legion, made up of soldiers who come from all countries, who have to learn to speak French within a 6 month BootCamp. The way they do it is through immersion, and an absolute prohibition on speaking any other language. They said that while they do have an official French “class,” 95% of the French they acquired was from context, like a baby: if the sergeant gives an order, and the francophone in the team starts doing push ups, get down and do push ups too. After a few occasions, you’ll know how to say push ups in French. Make that environment up 24×7, and you quickly acquire all the common words and grammar patterns (while also collecting crumbs in the formal class).

    Oct 02

    My plan to become fluent in Japanese in 12 months

    By Language Learning No Comments

    Regret

    I first started learning Japanese in the autumn of 2014, eight years ago, as a final year college student — but gave it up within 4 months, because I had to study abroad in China. Those 4 months, I focused mainly on speaking basic sentences and didn’t even learn katakana or kanji. Needless to say, I am still a beginner (although I’ve watched a lot of TV dramas and anime, which means I’m used to the sound of the language and a few words/phrases that repeat a lot).

    I always knew (or rather hoped) that I’d come back to Japanese “someday.” But fast-forward eight years, and it hadn’t happened, as I was always busy chasing other “immediate priorities.”

    So I was recently overcome with regret. If I had kept on learning Japanese for the last 8 years – even in small bits and nibbles – how proficient would I be right now? I would already be enjoying incredible benefits and feeling proud of myself for doing so.

    The same can be said for many other things that require consistency over the long term, such as physical training, writing/podcasting, and business. If you keep at it, the results come eventually.

    Therefore, I’ve decided to now commit to Japanese (and my other projects) for the next 5 years. After 5 years, if I’m still not fluent, I’ll consider moving on.

    But… that does not mean I’m planning for it to take 5 years. So let’s talk about how I intend to achieve an N2 or N1 level in Japanese within 12 months.

    The program

    I’ve set the goal already – passing the JLPT N2 or N1. N2 is equivalent to “professional fluency,” and N1 is often considered bilingual. And by the way, I’m not going to bother with N5-N3. It feels like a waste of time and a distraction. (More on this later, maybe.)

    The key to acquiring a language organically (for me) is to immerse yourself in “comprehensible input” — i.e. read and listen a lot to things you find interesting. That’s how I learned English in school, and that’s what decades of language acquisition research have proven.

    So my primary lead measure is simply how much authentic material I am consuming in Japanese.

    I’ve split the study program into three parts or phases:

    1. Build-up: increase reading comprehension speed
    2. Grazing: use the language every day
    3. Test prep: practice to ace the JLPT

    Let’s dive into each section. But before that, an important note.

    Every phrase you read in any language, has many layers to it:

    1. The vocabulary/dictionary meaning of words (“what does this particular word/term mean?”)
    2. The pronunciation (“how do I pronounce this word?”)
    3. The grammar pattern (“what is this overall sentence/phrase trying to say?”)
    4. The contextual meaning of combinations of words (“what does this term mean HERE?”)

    Each of these conceptually layers is separate in my opinion.

    Depending on the language, they can sometimes be very closely interlinked (eg: the pronunciation of a given word can change depending on the context or grammar pattern).

    Build Up (4-5 months)

    Right now, consuming authentic Japanese material feels like cycling up a hill while dragging a refrigerator behind me — it’s super slow.

    Not only do I have to look up every other word, AND spend time figuring out the grammar pattern of that sentence as well, but I also have to read every word slowly, letter by letter, at least twice, because it still takes me half a second or so to absorb the hiragana and katakana – that part is still not “automatic” in my brain like in English.

    So right now, in this “build-up” phase, the bulk of my study is focused on deeply ingraining the ALPHABET of the language (which includes both kana and kanji), as well as becoming familiar with all the various grammar patterns.

    This way, whenever I read a sentence in Japanese, I can ALWAYS:

    1. Understand what the sentence is overall trying to say, and how each terms relates to the others (eg: X is doing Y / X can do Y / X received Y from Z because of Q)
    2. Decipher which words are being used (this applies especially to character-driven languages like Japanese and Chinese)

    What’s left is to only understand the contextual meaning and pronunciation of the word.

    As you can see, it greatly reduces the cognitive load I experience while using the language. Things actually start making SENSE, and what’s left is to acquire the vocabulary (contextual meanings).

    The goal of this build-up phase is to increase my reading comprehension speed. I want to deeply understand how the language really works and how sentences are formed, so that during the rest of my journey, I’m focused more on organically acquiring vocabulary like anyone else.

    Study Program (every single day)

    1. Anki flashcards for kanji (50 reviewed cards, and 20 new cards)
    2. Watching grammar videos on youtube to learn new patterns (so that I can notice them later whenever I come across them)
    3. Reading and listening on LingQ (I read the transcripts of anime episodes, and hear audio without the videos). The good thing about anime, especially the “slice of life” ones such as Bakuman is that they focus on day-to-day conversation as opposed to narrative.

    To go from:

    “What is this?“

    to

    “I’ve seen this before and know how this works, good to see it again”… is when the language starts sinking into long-term memory.

    I will only do authentic stuff in Japanese (consuming real content and having real conversations with real people). Using the language artificially with childish content or the usual textbook scripts is not only impractical, it also makes the whole process extremely boring and painful. In order to consistently learn Japanese for years, I want to focus on using it from day one, even if it’s very slow in the beginning.

    Grazing (8+ months)

    As I said before, grazing is about immersion and enjoyable usage of the language.

    You don’t have to memorize stuff here – you acquire vocabulary and become familiar with complex sentence patterns simply by coming across them again and again.

    In a way, for me, this stage started from day one, because even during the build-up I’m reading anime transcripts every day. And this is the stage that lasts FOREVER. I’m still at this stage in English – I still come across words I don’t know, and new ways of forming sentences.

    Study program:

    1. Review 50 flashcards on Anki (for kanji) – takes only 15 minutes
    2. Read or listen to authentic content every chance I get (books, manga, anime, etc)
    3. Start scheduling language exchanges and guest lectures/toastmasters with small groups of Japanese people, where I’ll present a topic (such as AI).

    By constantly encountering the kanji both in my Anki sessions as well as in real words while reading, I’ll commit them to my long-term memory much faster.

    You can also see that here, I’ll start forcing myself to produce output as well, in the form of speaking and writing. But that will only be in short bursts, as opposed to a daily ritual.

    I believe that output is great, but the bulk of language acquisition comes from input. The ratio should be heavily biased towards the latter. But another good thing about output is that it forces you to refine your grammar and vocabulary more quickly.

    I’ll also reduce my use of English translation quickly over time. I’ll use a Japanese dictionary for the most part.

    Test Prep (<1 month)

    A few weeks before the exam, I’ll start doing practice papers. That will be the extent of my “test prep.”

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