20 principles of Karate

Gichin Funakoshi ( 1868 – 1957)  is generally considered as the father of modern karate. He was one of the Okinawan Masters who introduced karate to the Japanese mainland at the begiining of the 20th century. He also was school teacher and one of the Karate teachers of Dr Tsuyoshi Chitose Founder of Chito Ryu Karate, himself teacher of our Grand Master Mamoru (Katsuo) Yamamoto, Founder of Yoshukai Karate.  

Here are the 20 principles of Karate per Funakoshi Sensei.

Read them. Chew on them, this may not exactly mean what you first would think...

1. Karate-do wa rei ni hajimari, rei ni owaru koto wo wasuruna.

Karate begins and ends with courtesy.

2. Karate ni sente nashi.

There is no first attack in karate.

(Please consider this one very carefully, it is poorly understood by lots of people...)

3. Karate wa gi no tasuke.

Karate is an assistance to justice.

4. Mazu jiko wo shire, shikoshite tao wo shire.

First know yourself, then others.

5. Gijutsu yori shinjutsu.

Spirit before technique.

6. Kokoro wa hanatan koto wo yosu.

Be ready to free your mind.

7. Wazawai wa getai ni shozu.

Accidents come from laziness.

8. Dojo nomino karate to omou na.

Karate training goes beyond the dojo.

9. Karate no shugyo wa issho de aru.

You'll never stop learning in karate.

10. Arai-yuru mono wo karate-ka seyo, soko ni myo-mi ari.

Karate applies to everything. Therein lies it’s beauty.

11. Karate wa yu no goto shi taezu natsudo wo ataezareba moto no mizu ni kaeru.

Karate is like boiling water. If you don't give it heat, it will cool down.

12. Katsu kangae wa motsu na makenu kangae wa hitsuyo.

Forget about winning. Instead, make sure you never lose.

13. Tekki ni yotte tenka seyo.

Adjust your techniques according to your opponent.

14. Tattakai wa kyo-jitsu no soju ikan ni ari.

The outcome of a fight depends on how you take advantage of weaknesses and strengths.

15. Hito no te ashi wo ken to omoe.

See your hands and feet as swords.

16. Danshi mon wo izureba hyakuman no tekki ari.

When you step outside your door, you face a million enemies.

17. Kamae wa shoshinsha ni ato wa shizentai.

Fixed stances are for beginners; later, one moves naturally.

18. Kata wa tadashiku jissen wa betsu mono.

Kata is practised in a perfect world, real fight is another story.

19. Chikara no kyojaku, karada no shinshuku, waza no kankyu wo wasaruna.

Hard and soft, tension and relaxation, quick and slow, all connected in the technique.

20. Tsune ni shinen kufu seyo.

Think of ways to apply these precepts every day.

What meditation is not

Sometimes practitioners of meditation are accused of being too focused on themselves, of wasting their time and energy in egocentric introspection and failing to be concerned with others. 

Can we regard as selfish a process which ultimate goal is to root out the obsession with self and to cultivate altruism ?

Would this not be like blaming an aspiring doctor for spending years studying medicine before beginning to practice ?

In the same way that Martial Arts ultimately are not about learning how to fight, meditation is not :

An attempt to create a blank mind by blocking out thoughts - which is impossible anyway. 

Engaging the mind in endless intellectual cogitation in an attempt to understand the past or foresee and anticipate the future. 

A simple process of relaxation in which inner conflicts are temporarily suspended in a vague, warm-fuzzy and amorphous state of consciousness. (Tequila does a better job at this.)

There are more practical and efficient ways achieve the above. Among them are senseless exercising, deep intellectual - scientific or philosophical speculation, and the use of recreational drugs.

Meditation of course induces some sort of relaxation but it is a side effect connected with the relief that comes from letting go of hopes and fears, of attachments and the incessant jumps of the ego and Monkey mind.

Most of us come to meditation longing for something we are not exactly sure about, most likely for one of the 3 reasons above. And this is perfectly alright, as long we don't get stuck on this for ever. We need to realize this is not what meditation is about. 

The Value of Traditional Kata

During the last edition of the Yoshukai Tournament in Dothan on October 30, 2010. I was watching a weapons kata competition. 2 black belt were opposed in that group. One competed with a traditional sai kata - Yosei no Sai, one competed with a non traditional Sword Kata.

The traditional Sai kata was that : Traditional. There needs to be nothing flashy about fighting. If you watch the video of Yamamoto and Koda Sensei performing Sai tai Bo, you will see nothing fancy, but sharp and short moves right to the point. Basically if you are in front of  someone who masters all the moves of Yosei no Sai, it is going to be very difficult to reach them unless you own a a gun.

The Sword Kata was very fancy, a mixture of Iaido and twirling baton, that flashy sword was everywhere, flashing in everybody's eyes. Yes, it was impressive to the untrained eye. jumps, multiple drawings, loud kiai... But practically, anyone with 2 to 3 years of traditional kendo or kenjutsu training could have cut in the middle of this dance with a mere boken (Wooden sword) or Jo (short wooden staff)  and whacked senseless the competitor on the head. 

Nevertheless, this last competitor, even after being unable to properly perform noto (slide the blade back in its sheath) won the trophy.

After all these years, even if I should have gotten used to this kind of things, that just made me angry. I still can't accept mediocrity. The problem is not in the competitor, but in the judges who let such fallacy go on. Here we had 5 judges supposedly highly competent in their own style of Martial Art, and they graded a flashy dance without any martial value above a well executed traditional form. If these persons are not able to see the actual fighting value of a traditional kata properly executed, versus a non traditional routine poorly done, maybe they should not be judging in a Karate Tournament. 

Chris Wheeles performed the Sai Kata in Dothan. He just opened his own Dojo in Gulf Shore, AL. If you wish to practice good and traditional Karate, give him a try.

Thoughts

Thoughts of themselves have no substance; let them arise and pass away unheeded. Thoughts will not take form of themselves, unless they are grasped by the attention; if they are ignored, there will be no appearing and no disappearing.

Ashvaghosha

Leave no Trace

"When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself." 

Master Shunryu Suzuki, (1904-1971) came from Japan to the USA in 1959 and popularized Zen in the San Francisco area.

I am not exactly sure what he meant with this, but this is how I would interpret it :  

“If you do something, you might as well do it right, you might as well put your whole being into it. Do it as if your whole life depended on it.”

Okay, it may sound a little excessive. 

Should I do the dishes as if my whole life depended on them ? Maybe not. But I should at least try to do them well. If I get a plate out of the water with a greasy spot on it, then I should use a little more soap to better clean it... I should not just lay it on the draining rack thinking that this is just a little tiny  and unimportant spot, which nobody will see  anyway.

Sometimes, when we do things, we don't do them exactly as well as we should, and we know it, but we think : “Well, this is good enough, this will do”. And it does not. Something happens, and comes back to bite us - or someone else...

No matter what we do or train in, let's put all our heart into it. Let's try to do it right. We should not accept any compromise, we should do it as good as we think it should be done. Just a little less good won't do.

 

This little Sandpiper puts his heart in his work, and does not worry about anything else. 
He simply does his Bird job and the waves erase his trace. 

 

Naikan Tanden Seminar

On last Saturday October 16, I held our first seminar in our new Headland Dojo. The theme was Naikan Tanden.

I borrowed this term from Zen Master Hakuin, (1685–1768) who possibly borrowed it from older sources. One relatively accurate translation of it would be "Introspective Meditation at the Tanden"...

To tell a long story short we practiced a number of Qi Gong exercises centered on the Tanden, an area located slightly below the navel; and others designed to move energy around the body - limited to 3 points on the center line of the body (also known as Conception Vessel in Traditional Chinese Medicine). 

All these exercises were practiced using regular abdominal breathing.

In addition, we also practiced the mighty Reverse Abdominal Breathing.

Between each Qi Gong exercises we practiced Zazen (sitting meditation)for 10 minutes. 

The whole session lasted about 2 hours  after which we had a tea and a little discussion to evaluate the program and exercises.  This was not an easy class. I introduced lots of different and at times confusing exercises to my students. The Reverse abdominal Breathing is obviously not an easy thing to get into. 

I am very thankful for my students' input, their help and their patience.

From this first session I intend to build up more simple programs adapted to various audiences with different needs. (More later). 

In future articles I'll provide details about reverse abdominal breathing, as well as energy circulation in the body, and the importance of these practices for meditation and martial arts. 

13th Century Karate

The name “Karate” originally written 唐手 ("Chinese hand") in Okinawa could also be pronounced “Tode”. It was changed to 空手 ("empty hand") at the beginning of the 20^th

century. 

The main reason for this change was the willingness on the part of most Okinawan Masters, to see Karate become part of Japanese mainstream culture. Gichin Funakoshi, main artisan of the introduction of Karate in Japan, and a student of Zen, writes in one of his books that the change was to remind the Heart Sutra saying : “Form is emptiness, Emptiness is form”.

In the following 13^th century text, translated from Japanese by Trevor Leggett in his book “The Warrior Koans”, “Karate” is mentioned both in relation to Zen and Martial Arts. This is an interesting indication that “Karate” was known by Japanese people in a Martial Arts context way before the introduction of the Okinawan Art on Mainland Japan.

A Koan is a paradoxical riddle given to Disciples of certain Zen sects to meditate upon.

Kamakura Koan No. 44 : Wielding the spear with empty hands

Nanjio Masatomo, a SoJutsu Master of the Spear, went to Kenchoji to sit in meditation, and afterwards spoke with priest Gio about using a spear on horseback. 

Gio said, 'Your Honour is indeed an expert in So Jutsu. But until you understand the method of using the spear with empty hands, you will not grasp the ultimate secret of the way.'

The Teacher added, 'No spear in the hands, no hands on the spear.'

The Spear Master did not get it!

The Teacher said further, 'If you don't understand, your art of the Spear is a little affair of the hands alone.'

In December of 1256 Fukuzumi Hideomi, a government official, was given the koan 'wielding the spear with empty hands'. He wrestled furiously with it to no avail. One evening, exhausted, he crept into a little grotto near the meditation hall, and sat there in meditation, repeating again and again “Kara-Te, Kara-Te (empty hands, empty hands)”.

Another monk heard Hideomi repeating 'Kara-te, Kara-te', and thought he was saying 'Kane-dase, Kane-dase (give some money, give some money)'. He thought it was a robber and raised the alarm. The Jikijitsu (head-priest in charge of the meditation hall) made a quick search around the dojo and found Hideomi.

Hideomi was indeed very ill with tuberculosis, and absorbed as he was with the koan, he had forgotten to eat for several days. He was extremely weak and actually on the brink of death. The Jikijitsu hit him on the head saying, 'Let not this heart be set on any place' and he gave a big Katzu shout.

Hideomi nodded, and quietly died.