Thanks also to:
Congratulations to the following deshi who tested and were promoted today by Hanshi Scaglione:
One important element that I’ve gained from the dojo that has carried over into everyday life is perseverance.
Webster defines perseverance as:
"…steady persistence in adhering to a course of action, a belief, or a purpose; steadfastness…"
There are many days when I just don’t feel like attending the dojo; I’m tired, or I have an ache or pain, or I just have something else I’d rather do. But I attend anyway, and there is not one of those sessions that I’ve regretted having made the effort.
Always moving forward is a basic tenet of the Shorin-ryu style. This is perseverance. In my day to day life outside the dojo I think of this when a task is at hand that I would rather put off, or when I’m faced with something that seems beyond my ability. In the words of Sensei Chaskelson, I just suck it up and get on with it. More often than not success is the result. And even when it’s not, I know I gave it 100% plus another 10%!
I am grateful for the opportunity that our dojo offers. I think it is a unique opportunity among the many dojo in the area because we have not only one sensei to learn from, but many instructors with varied backgrounds, all working to impart the ideals of Shorin-ryu, but each doing so in unique ways. The result is a breadth and depth of learning that would not otherwise be possible.
In this regard I want to thank Hanshi, Sensei Chaskelson, Sensei Oscarson, Sensei Tamir, and Sempeis DuJardin, Tezel, Rutkowski, Jones, Quinn, and everyone I have had the opportunity to work with in the dojo for giving me an opportunity to be a better person through Shorin-ryu.
But as we all know we don't always have days like these. We have out side influences that break our rythm and put a large amount of pressure on us all. Love, Money, Family, Children, good health and even a death in the family.
These are the times where we have to reach inside ourselves and find that zone state effortlessly. The key to this zone state is proper breathing techniques. During exersize it is import to continuously inhale through the nose and exhale out your mouth. Never hold your breath.
When in meditation use the 4-8-8 count rule. 4 count breath in filling the lungs completely 8 count hold once full and an 8 count exhale expending the air in your lungs completely. Repeat this a min 10 times to oxgenate and cleanse your blood and your mind.
The reason I bring this subject up is Karate tought this lesson to me early in life and yoga further enhanced my knowledge of proper breathing techniques.
Proper breathing techniques will improve your katas and heath.
But the movie doesn’t end there. Algren is taken to Katsumoto’s village where he becomes Japanese-ized to the way of Bushido. For his military/war/massacre background, this seems the perfect fit for an old soldier. But is it? The final scenes of the movie show Katsumoto leading his formidable army of insurrectionists against the Emperor’s main force. And the end is never in doubt. Every samurai, to the last man (except Cruise), is mowed down under withering fire from the modern weapons. This leads one to believe that old ways must inevitably give way to the new.
That leads me to Karate-Do. The martial arts have been around, historians argue, since somewhere between 500 BC and 600 AD, when Bodhidharma, an Indian monk (also known as Daruma in Japan) visited Shaolin-si, China to teach Zen Buddhism. So the martial arts may have a history that spans roughly two and a half millennium. Karate is today arguably the foremost of all of the styles that have evolved from Daruma’s early teachings. Yet, Karate can only trace its heritage back as Karate to a few hundred years ago. What came before that? The Islands of the Ryukyu chain, of which Okinawa is the largest, stakes their claim to be the source of true Karate as practiced in Japan. And nobody really disputes this.
In the short thirty-seven years that I have been alive, America has seen the martial arts community go from a handful of schools sparsely scattered across the country to a burgeoning five million participants located in every city and every state. Not as obvious as the martial arts explosion is the maturing of the disciplines. Whereas at one time, a student could only find Karate as the sole martial art, the field bloomed in the 1970s and 1980s to having over fifty different “styles” including Kendo, Nin-Jitsu, and Savate, and many more. That is not true any more. The martial arts economy has evolved to weed out weaker forms with fewer students so that only Karate and Tae Kwan Do remain as the widespread arts. Aikido is now offered as a side discipline in Tae Kwon Do dojos and Tai Chi Chuan has been relegated to the health food circuit.
Karate itself has fragmented into three schools based upon seriousness of combat and the need to prove ones mettle. Generally speaking, the schools could be called traditional, sport, and full-contact. Traditional karate emphasizes kata, perfection of basic movements, and mental discipline. Sport-based karate includes low/no contact competitions and full-contact includes competitions without protection rules involved.
We study Okinawa-based Shorin-ryu Karate-do here in Cocoa Beach. Our former masters up on the wall include the Grandmasters Ansei Ueshiro, Shoshin Nagamine, and Gichin Funikoshi, truly a well-respected line of teachers. We adhere to the old ways, practicing traditional punch-me kick-you Te as it has been practiced for two hundred years. But our numbers are continually decreasing, and I wonder what that means for our future. Are we the last samurai of the movie?
Taking an empiric view of the movie, the samurai were defeated not by the forces of the emperor, but by the forces of economy. The antagonist of the movie was a greedy self-centered Japanese industrialist intent on gaining corrupt government contracts, and was willing to destroy the samurai to make it happen. He succeeded and the samurai are no more. Today’s karate schools are under a similar economic threat. Dojos cost money. Location, rent, electricity, and insurance all weigh against the Shihan who own the dojos. If they don’t have enough students, they won’t have enough income. If they don’t have enough income, they can’t afford to stay open. If the schools can’t afford to stay open, the art dwindles in stature until all that remains is the legend of the name. Examples of this are Jeet Kune Do, Pentjak Silat, and Pakua, all of which used to be widely practiced here in the United States ten years ago.
To remain true to the Karate-do of our master Ansei Ueshiro, we must remain traditional. To survive, we must meet plan for the future economic requirements. Are the two mutually exclusive? I hope not. The Japanese Emperor in the movie adopted English manners, clothing, and speech in the end, but his last line was “We must never forget who we are or where we come from.” Maybe we should do the same.
Cocoa Beach Ueshiro Shorin-Ryu Karate Home Page