Earlier this year I returned to Japan to train karate and to hike a pilgrimage trail in Wakayama known as the Kumano Kodo. This trail is a six day, five night hike through the inaka, or countryside south of Osaka. The path winds through small towns, rice paddies and forests filled with towering pine trees and bamboo. Walking along the trail day after day was a truly spiritual experience and an inspiration to my journey to deciding to take the next steps to opening a karate school at home in Canada.