In The Red Corner… Genki Sudo!

Genki Sudo was, at one time, a martial artist. He did mixed martial arts and kickboxing and competed in multiple tournaments and organizations. Unsurprisingly (since he’s doing dance stuff now), he was particularly known for his flashy entrances to the fighting stage. According to Wikipedia, one time he did the robot and operating levers that released a column of smoke from the top of his head while wearing a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket as a hat and a white plastic mask, in an homage to the musician Buckethead.

Sounds awesome, right? Well, he put all that awesomeness into music videos that will seriously blow your mind.

Genki Sudo’s World Order Music & Videos

In retirement, he’s been working with six awesome dancers, pushing the boundaries of dance and entertainment. I’m normally bored to tears when I have to watch music, dancing, or a combination of the two – but Sudo’s stuff captivated me. I watched video after video after video until they were done, then immediately started writing this post. I hope you like the videos too.

The best part about these, I think, is the first of all the dancing, but secondly the people watching them dance. They just go out in public areas for the most part, do their thing, and then leave. People walk by, look at them all confused, take video/pictures, ignore them completely, and all kinds of other hilarious things if you pay close enough attention. Try to watch and you’ll see some entertaining reactions.

World Order In New York

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDOPNLzEFH0']

World Order’s Mindshift

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ua64HbsBUo']

World Order Live In Tokyo & Osaka

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF5lTwG-qvI']

Dell Streak Man Project

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=348uOSMrDdo']

World Order’s Machine Civilization

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-qhj3sJ5qs']

Live at the WPC

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9VtIdUVLt0']

World Order’s “Boy Meets Girl”

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35hCo_grAqw']

Dell Streak Campaign

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv2suydVdj4']

World Order 2012

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlK5abIJRyM']

I think that’s all of them! After watching these, I for one am ready to welcome my benevolent dancing overlords. For some reason I feel inspired when I watch them – maybe it’s the simplicity of the dancing… but a simplicity that’s impossible to achieve without tons and tons of practice. It’s easy to make something complex, but very difficult to make something really, really simple. Their’s a beauty in simplicity. I think that’s Genki Sudo’s Buddhism shining through, right there.

So what do you think? Incredible? Not so much? Be sure to let me know in the comments and share other things you think might be better. If you find me something that will blow me away more than World Order, you get a gold star. Let the challenge begin! …though I’m not sure if it can be done.

In the meantime, let’s all hope that Mike Tyson decides to take advantage of his retirement from fighting too in the same way as Genki Sudo, am I right?

P.S. To stay up to date with the comings and goings of World Order, you can find them on their website, Twitter, and/or their Google+ Pages!

I spent a couple of hours going through Genki I. I would summarize the book for you, but I think they do a much better job: “Aim and Purpose: Genki, An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese is a textbook for beginners in the study of the Japanese language. Students can complete the elementary-level study of Japanese in the 23 lessons of this text, which is divided into two volumes. The book is designed maily for use in university and college courses, but it is also effective for high school students and adults who are beginning to learn Japanese either at school or on their own.”

Overall, I was very impressed with this textbook. I don’t remember what text I used when I first started learning Japanese, but it certainly wasn’t as swanky as this one (swanky is a good thing). I can see why so many Japanese classrooms use this as their only textbook. It has good flow, it does well building lessons on top of each other, and it always gives you just enough information to get you thinking a little bit (good for weeding out the people who only think they want to learn Japanese, but are actually just lazy).

Still, there were a few pitfalls. To find out what they are, and to find out if this Japanese textbook is right for you, click on, my friend, click on.

Good “Building up” Process:

Genki 1 does a great job taking you through things at a reasonable pace. It starts you out with really simple concepts / words and builds you up to the more complicated ones. As long as you go through the textbook correctly, I don’t see anyone having any problem with the more difficult things that come later in the book. One thing that is kind of irking is the lack of “review sections,” though there is nothing stopping you from going back and reviewing sections on your own. Still, since chapters usually build on each other, you’ll find stuff from previous chapters as you progress forward. Going back to make sure you remember everything is still highly recommended.

Vocabulary Lists:

At the ends of chapters, there are “vocabulary lists” that list off all the new words you’ve “learned” throughout the chapter. This is useful to have and study. It certainly would have saved me a lot of time, since I’m the type of person who likes listing things out and covering one side and reciting the other to help me memorize everything.

Genki Workbook / CDs:

If you are clever enough to come up with your own exercises and drills, I don’t think the workbook is really necessary. All it does is give you more stuff to practice, which anyone can do on their own. The CDs, however, are a must (I think). One of the most important things when learning Japanese is your pronunciation, and if you don’t have someone talking to you and correcting you, you have to find something else. The Genki audio CDs are the answer. Although the version of the book that comes with the CDs costs a little bit more, I definitely think they are the answer to a lot of problems I see with traditional self-teachers.

The Self Teacher / Self Learner:

Although Genki claims that this book was made for both self teachers and classroom learners, I think it’s pretty apparent that their primary concern was the latter of the two. I’m not saying that this is a bad book for self learners, though. I’m just saying that a classroom user will get a much richer experience out of this book if used with a teacher. That is true with all text books, I think, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much. If you get this book and you are a self-teacher, I would suggest you do a few extra things:

• Learn hiragana before you start studying with this book
• Test yourself often
• Get the workbook for extra practice
• Get the version of Genki with CDs included (for your listening and pronunciation practice)
• Take your time

Rushing through the book without a teacher will only be a waste of time. Definitely make sure you understand everything in a chapter before moving on. I know it’s easy to become impatient with this kind of thing, but you have to go through it slowly in order to give yourself a good foundation.

The Content:

I would say that the content of the book itself is fairly boring, but what text book isn’t (That Dirty Japanese language book doesn’t count). You will be barraged with questions like “what time is it?” or “what is your phone number.” Unfortunately this isn’t something you can really escape in any beginning text book. I don’t know why, but these are all things you have to learn before getting to the fun stuff. You’ll just have to be patient and march through it all.

One more strange thing about the content that interested me was their love of putting you in “host family” situations. A lot of the example situations take place between you and your host family. Granted, a lot of people are working towards this, but this isn’t quite as useful for someone learning Japanese for business (not to say that the grammar and vocabulary might not be useful; it’s just that it will feel less applicable). Still, business or not, I think this is a good book for anyone, as it does a good job giving people a good Japanese language foundation.

Conclusion: Should I buy it?

The short answer is “yes,” and the long answer is “no.” If you are going to buy this book, you should be sure that you’ll continue with your Japanese. It’s not super cheap (though it is better than most text books), and it’s not super engaging, so patience is really key. If you are a self-teacher and you are motivated, then this book will probably be great for you. If you are in a classroom, then you probably don’t get to choose your book anyways (though this might be a good book for supplemental materials). If I had to start all over, then I think this would be my book of choice.

Overall Score: 9/10*

*This score was revised from a 10/10 down to what it is now. My previous rating was based on a curve (since I’ve looked at a lot of other texts) and that made things confusing. Here is the new rating, as well as why I rated it this way:

Although Genki isn’t perfect, it is almost there. Compared to other text books, Genki is phenomenal. If you have a good teacher, Genki goes even farther up and beyond the call of duty. It can be good even if you are self teaching yourself, too, but you have to be a motivated person. What it is missing, in my mind, is entertainment value. “Ha!” you say. “My text books don’t have to be entertaining for me to learn from them!” I totally agree with you, but think of how much easier it would be if the text actually was enjoyable to read. What if there were little stories strewn about the book that made you laugh and want to continue on? That, I think, would be the perfect text book. Unfortunately, a book that is entertaining AND educational doesn’t exist at the moment, so Genki will be your best bet.
Want to Buy Genki? You can find it on Amazon.