Jiro Dreams of Sushi "Once you decide on your occupation. You must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That's the secret of success and is the key to being regarded honorably." “Ultimate simplicity leads to purity” ...perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away… “The techniques we use are no big secret. It really comes down to making an effort and repeating the same thing everyday….we do the same thing over and over, improving bit by bit.  There is always yearning to achieve more.” “I don’t like days away from what I love.” but I tried not to let it show…that’s what you strive for all these years!” “there is much you can’t learn from words.  I have to keep practicing” “These days the first thing people want is an easy job.

Then, they want lots of free time. And then, they want lots of money. But they aren’t thinking of building their skills. When you work at a place like Jiro’s, you are committing to a trade for life.” “most people can’t keep up with the hard work, and they quit.” “yes - I’m crazy…my car can go 300km/hr” "The masters said that the history of sushi is so long... that nothing new could be invented. They may have mastered their craft... “I’ll continue to climb, trying to reach the top…but no one knows where the top is.” “Always look ahead and above yourself.  Always try to improve upon yourself.  Always strive to elevate your craft.” ”we are picky about who we sell to. We want customers who appreciate good fish. Even at my age I’m discovering new techniques. But just when you think you know it all, you realize that you're just fooling yourself...then you get depressed.” “I would see ideas in my dreams.

My mind was bursting with ideas. I would wake up in the middle of the night. In my dreams I would have visions of sushi.” I wrote the following post as a guest-post for journalist Ollie Wiliams' great site Frontier Sports last year.  I thought I might update it based on the No matter the advances in testing, the doping battle remains in lock-step. The testers devise better testing technology at just about the same rate as athletes devise better strategies to avoid it. The headlines are no different now than when  was relevant. Because, you know what? There are tons of folk out there with great ideas. But instead, we continue down the same path of . And with the coming onset of , it’s not going to get any easier. “the idea of stimulating the body’s performance with all manner of concoctions is as old as mankind. The Inca chewed coca leaves to pep them up when doing strenuous work. Nordic warriors munched mushrooms before going into battle to dull the inevitable pain.

Ancient Olympians chomped opium, among other things, to give them a competitive edge.”umi sushi menu richmond va The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty“stop us from thinking we’re wonderful, honest people. sushi san francisco taravalWe’ve become very good at justifying our dishonest behaviors so that, at the end of the day, we feel good about who we are … cheating has less to do with personal gain than it does with self-perception.”yo sushi menu in vallejo A scenario, from a 1995 poll of 198 sprinters, swimmers, powerlifters and other assorted athletes, most of them US Olympians or aspiring Olympians:yo sushi menu fairfield ca

You are offered a banned performance-enhancing substance, with two guarantees: 1) You will not be caught. sushi grade fish ventura2) You will win.sushi go round 2 miniclip Would you take the substance? One hundred and ninety-five athletes said yes; Scenario II: You are offered a banned performance-enhancing substance that comes with two guarantees:2) You will win every competition you enter for the next five years, and then you will die from the side effects of the substance. Would you take it? More than half the athletes said yes. According to Alan Abrahamson:“The IAAF … authorized 97 such cutting-edge tests (CIR) last year; 35 were out-of- competition and turned up no positives; 62 were done in-meet, when ordinary tests would likely turn up nothing; nine of the 62 came back positive.

Using the carbon-isotope test raised the return rate in track and field to 5.75 percent overall … and to 4.97 percent in cycling … The Thai Weightlifting Federation performed an out-of-competition test on 26 weightlifters; 25, or 96.2 percent, came back positive, according to the WADA report. “Regrettably, I now conclude we should give up this fight and bring the troops home. Leave the regulation of drugs to governments and their law enforcement auspices. Dismantle the drug constabulary, the ‘ah dahs’ of this world; USADA [US Anti Doping Agency], WADA [World Anti Doping Agency], and all the others.” “You’ve pushed the responsibility of compliance solely onto the athlete, but you’ve never engaged the athlete in real dialogue about the best ways to address this problem. Don’t see us as the problem. See us as the solution!  “You have created rules without the input from a broad group of neither athletes nor an independent athletes’ association. You have created rules that facilitate your mission statement without consideration for the population you are testing.

As a result, your tests suck and those you are trying to protect don’t appreciate the service you think you provide.” “The number one reason why athletes dope is because they assume all their competitors are doping”. This has been a catalyst for impressionable young athletes – and coaches – for decades. The tipping point for me was the words of , who, in 1991 at the  into PED use in track and field in Canada (most famously Ben Johnson), stated that everyone was doping. In fact, doping was just “levelling the playing field”, and not doping would be akin to setting up your starting blocks a meter behind the line. “This guy was reading the newspaper and he said, ‘Oh, they’re all on drugs.’ I turned around and said, ‘Hey, excuse me, I’m sorry, but that’s not true. I’m a professional athlete and Olympic gold medallist, and I’m not on drugs. I’ve never even considered it.’ It really upset me that it’s perceived that way – that if she runs fast, then she’s on drugs.

I hated that and I gave him a little attitude.” Trotter has since created the  giving athletes an opportunity to defend themselves. You will see many athletes (including Olympic champion and 110m hurdles world record-holder Aries Merritt) compete  with white rubber bracelets on their wrists, emblazoned with their motto. Trotter explains: “It means that I am a clean athlete. I do this with hard work, honesty and honor. I don’t take any outside substances.” “I don’t place blind faith in any one person. I also know my limitations. If I don’t understand a supplement, then I won’t take it.” Others take an even more hard-line approach, and refuse to take any supplements at all. Sprinter Lauryn Williams for example, on my blog last year, said: “I just choose not to count on anyone but me.” In 2001, an athlete I coached – American bobsledder Pavle Jovanovic – . Like many, prior to Pavle’s adverse finding, I assumed all athletes that were turning out positive nandrolone tests were dopers.

It’s one of the reasons why a group of athletes – led by Nelson – has begun a pseudo-union for athletes. Called the , its primary roles involve educating the athletes, and helping to professionalize the sport. We need to stop rewarding coaches, managers, agents, and even countries that have repeatedly been involved with doping athletes and programs. “As a federation, we were either ignorant, stupid or were avoiding the issue. Even today, coaches who had drug cases when they were athletes are earning a living. Athletes employ these coaches despite — or maybe because of — their drug- riddled past.” - “...no sane person can find justification in Asafa Powell receiving an 18 month ban for inadvertent stimulant use while Gay receives a 12 month ban for purposeful steroid use - cooperation or no cooperation”. process of voluntarily returning in excess of $500,000in prize money and appearance fees accrued during his drug use - expected by many perhaps, but Gay is in the vast minority in this gesture).

Doc Patton summed it up very elegantly on his blog this past week: “...understanding athlete intent – and the premise that getting tough on doping means tackling those who aide and abet cheaters – means that at the most basic level, you could theoretically, knowingly do what is wrong, get caught, cooperate and walk away with a slap on the wrist. That’s the watered down version, but are we now at the place where we laud and applaud those who tap dance around rules and procedures because they cooperate? Is it really necessary to sacrifice true consequence for the sake of cooperation? Shouldn’t it be expected? Or is the old adage that says rules are meant to be broken is really true? Have we diminished the value, significance and validity of those rules, so much so, that they’re merely a guide for interpretation? If the rule is the rule and code is code, why not make it all stick and stay? Sure – take down the helpers and their network of friends…just take the cheaters with them.