Hi! I’m Katie, also known as “The Pink Samurai.” I’m a martial artist who specializes in a traditional, Japanese, women’s martial art called, “Naginata” and teaches movement at the scholastic, collegiate, and recreational level. I was born and raised in NYC, but went out away for college. I majored in Asian Studies during undergrad and studied abroad in Kyoto and Beijing. After graduating, I relocated to NYC for grad school and got two master’s degrees in Physical Education and Motor Learning & Control, eventually continuing to work here in my hometown. Outside of work, I coach naginata at Columbia University and also teach at NYC’s oldest Japanese swordsmanship dojo, Ken-Zen Institute.
Journaling has been a lifestyle habit that has been embedded in me since kindergarten; with the help of my teacher, I was able to document my daily life in my red, marbled notebooks and added drawings. Every grade after during elementary school, I was forced to write about what happened during my day, and had to submit my journals to my teachers to read. It subconsciously became a habit of mine, eventually transitioning into the digital realm of blogging–it was much faster to write out my thoughts via a keyboard than a pen and paper. I sincerely enjoy reading old entries at times, and with a bunch of new advances in blogging technology, I have decided to come back in full force with a different approach.
Outside of blogging and naginata, I have a Hanshi (master rank) in shopping (accumulating pink things, collecting Starbucks sakura cups), I craft/DIY, I play the koto (Japanese harp), practice shodo (Japanese calligraphy), grow rare plants, make ceramics (that are all pink, of course), and feed dried Trader Joe’s mangoes to my pet rabbit, Thumper. I started playing the guqin (Chinese zither) because of how beautiful the sound was in the movie, Red Cliff. I am also always procrastinating from my research paper–to the point where it’s practically a part of my identity. AHCK!
Is Cafe Maru a real place?
Short answer is no (although I did find a random one somewhere in Indonesia on Google Maps!). The backstory of this name was that back in middle school, when online blogging as starting to become a thing, Cafe-Lain.net was a site that would often appear in my searches, so I thought that this would be the “standard” in internet blogs. I also liked going to cafes because it was a great place to study. The ‘maru’ comes from my favorite Sanrio character, Bad Badtz Maru, so I decided to name my blog after him!
Here at CafeMaru, I would like to say that I “expanded” the cafe by adding a portfolio of my milestones from my various hobbies to keep my record-keeping more organized! Think of this as my personal website.