Chu usachiyu ruu duu uyamee. Revere your ancestors, and they will respect you in kind. (Ryukyu proverb) If religion is a set of teachings, rituals and beliefs shared by a group or community aimed at facilitating a relationship with a deity, then spirituality is a person’s link with the transcendent questions that confront human...
For decades, I resisted any and all attempts to define the Northern Karate system in simplistic terms. What martial art do you teach? Karate? Certainly. What style? We practice Shurite forms….and Nahate kata…and Hakutsuru and Nipai. Kobudo? Yes. What type? Matayoshi…and Ryukyu…and Yamani…and Mura. Some BJJ/MMA? Absolutely. What about Indonesian and Filipino combat systems?...
Ikigai can be described as the food or fuel of life. It is similar to what the French call raison d’être, a “reason to live”, and rather than merely surviving, making your earthly existence a work of art. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus (535 –475 BCE) used the word logos to illustrate principle, plan, formula...
To decode martial-speak, we need to delve beneath the surface of simple translation and widely accepted definitions, and discover a deeper sense of popular terms. KARATE空手 On the surface: empty hand. The modern name karate is composed of two characters. 空, ku or sora, signifies “sky” or “void” and 手, shu or te, means...
My journey as a martial arts educator began serendipitously when I was a skinny teenager, and a sensei at the YMCA asked if I could lead warm-ups and perform basics in weekly classes. After a few short months, she retired, and I inherited the program. The rest, as they say, is history. Over the...
In his best-selling book Outliers: The Story of Success, Canadian author, journalist and motivational speaker, Malcolm Gladwell introduced the 10,000-hour rule. He analyzed the habits of extremely successful people and determined that it took 10,000 hours of dedicated, deliberate practice to become a phenom or expert. This translates to about twenty dojo hours a...
Warning: no parlor-tricks or trance techniques in this article. Instead, this is a piece that clarifies the importance of attaining and maintaining a Zen-like mindset through martial arts training. In my opinion, achieving this objective requires an understanding of the three parts of the budo brain: Conscious Mind – interacts with the critical faculty...
Premonition and precognition are associated with the mysteries of the sixth sense. However, in budo, it is the five senses – sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste – that are the basis of our martial subconscious. Precognitive conclusions are achieved either through divine intervention, karma or plain luck, and cause us to act on...
The great Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” If there is no end to learning, the greatest investment you can make is in your personal enrichment. Does this equate to higher education? Perhaps – particularly if formal schooling catalyzes growth. However, pursuing a degree is costly and requires a significant time commitment. Credits are earned through a fixed curriculum, and...
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. (Wayne Dyer) Mount Fuji is affectionately referred to as Fuji-san. Along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku, it is one of Japan’s “Three Sacred Mountains” (三霊山 -Sanreizan) and a place of scenic beauty, history, and even, superstition. Prior to the Meiji era (1868-1912), general travel was reserved for samurai and the ruling class. Most of the population, comprised of farmers and merchants, had to be satisfied...