Wearing a Men (Helmet) with Ear Piercings

I have three semi-sizable (6, 8, and 14 gauge) piercings in each ear. Since I've started training with bogu (armor)[1], figuring out what to wear in my piercings under my men (helmet) has been a challenge.  Obviously I want something that won't potentially lead to bleeding when I'm struck!  And I'd like to have jewelry that I can leave in during practice, so I don't have to fiddle with taking out jewelry before practice and putting it back in after and potentially losing it.

Fortunately I already have a couple pairs of Kaos Softwear Silicone Hider Plugs, which take care of my 6 and 8 gauge holes.  They're soft and flexible and work great!

I'm having less luck with my 14 gauge piercings.  I tried Body Bonz, but I really can't recommend them.  Despite being advertised as flexible, they're really not.  Two of them also managed to fall out of my ears in the span of three days (when I wasn't even training!)  So until I can find something better I'm stuck with wearing my regular jewelry and taking it out for the duration of practice.

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[1] i'll write more about training with bogu in a later post.

Naginata Posters

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted!  The past couple months have been particularly busy.  Many new ALTs (assistant language teachers) came to my prefecture from various Western countries and I've been helping them get accustomed to life in Japan and teaching.  And I've also been traveling a bit within Japan.  The combination of which means I haven't had much time to write.  In fact, I haven't been practicing much either; I'm hoping to get back to it this week.

In the meantime, I made a couple of Naginata-related posters.  The first one was a Mario-themed poster to cheer on my base school's team at a national competition:

(click to view larger)

The second poster was displayed during prefectural orientation for the new ALTs.  The more experienced ALTs made posters about activities that the new ALTs might want to get involved in, such as koto (a stringed instrument), shodo (calligraphy), taiko (drumming), etc. and I naturally chose Naginata:

(click to view larger)