Cane Fighting : Tanjojutsu.

Here is a short footage of a demonstration of Tanjojutsu by Donn F. Draeger - I don't know the name of his opponent. 

The Tanjo (短棒) - or Tambo - is a short hardwood staff - different styles use different length. 

Very sharp, to the point. The way things should be.

ENJOY

Donn Draeger (1922 – 1982) was an internationally-known teacher and practitioner of Japanese martial arts. He served in the United States Marine Corps from 1943 to 1956. He was the author of several important books on Asian martialarts, and was a pioneer of international judo in the United States and Japan. 

Is winning all that counts?

Ivan Fernandez Anaya is a 24 years old Basque runner. He is considered an athlete with a big future (champion of Spain of 5,000 meters in promise category two years ago). 

On December 2, 2012, Fernandez was competing in a cross-country race in Burlada, Navarre, Spain. He was running second, some distance behind race leader Abel Mutai - bronze medalist in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the London Olympics. As they entered the finishing straight, the Kenyan runner - certain winner of the race - mistakenly pull up about 100 meters before the finish, thinking he had already crossed the line.

Fernández quickly caught up with him, but instead of exploiting Mutai's mistake to speed past and claim an unlikely victory, he stayed behind the Kenyan, guided him up to the line and let him cross first.

"I ran close to him 4 km. He was 5 m ahead of me. At 250 m he increased speed and I tried to keep up with him. [..] Mutai saw an arch made of balloons. It was something for the award ceremony. He didn't realize, he thought it was the finish line. He started to greet the public, to send them kisses. I shouted from the back that he still had 100 m to go. He didn't understand. From the sidelines they were shouting that I should take advantage of the situation because the boy already opened the champagne. How would you feel about that ?  I ran up to him and touched him but he looked confused. So I pushed him, I actually yelled at him. I am not sure what he understood, but he was the first to pass the finish line. He had won."

After the race, Fernandez added :

"Even if they had told me that winning would have earned me a place in the Spanish team for the European championships, I wouldn't have done it either. I also think that I have earned more of a name having done what I did than if I had won. And that is very important, because today, with the way things are in all circles, in soccer, in society, in politics, where anything seems to go, a gesture of honesty goes down well."

Unfortunately, very little was said of his gesture. 

This is a great example to meditate upon... Do you practice your art to win, or to build up character and a better society ?

You can read Ivan Fernandez' Blog in Spanish.

I encourage you to please share this story with your students or kids.

Zazen to the end of the year

Last night we sat for 4 hours to celebrate the end of the year. This was part of a joint effort of different members of the Mokurai - Silent Thunder Order - founded by Michael Elliston Roshi, Abbott of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center.

Wherever they were, members of the Sangha sat in Zazen til the end of the year, then celebrated. As there are different time zones, it lasted a while I suppose. 

Our program was simple : we sat 3 for sessions of 25 minutes each, with 5 minutes kinhin (walking meditation) in between from 8:20 til 9:45 pm. Then we took a short break for tea and cookies. 

After that, we sat back, facing the center of the dojo, and read the   

 

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IPPYAKUHACHI-HOMYOMON

108 Gates of Dharma - Illumination of Master Dogen. Actually, I read part of the introduction to it, and then every minute, each one of the other participants read part of the 108 stanza. As there were 3 of them, each read 36 stanza - well actually, the last one read 37, because there are 109 stanza to the 108 gates... Every minute I would ring the bell, and the stanza would be read, living us one minute to consider its meaning. 

Finally I read the conclusion of Master Dogen's text. 

It was Midnight ! The locals having burnt all of their fireworks between 9:00 and 10:30 pm, it was rather quiet, and we enjoyed Cookies Bubbly and Company !

Picture by Carl Rippe

Happy New Year in Buddha ! 

About DO and JUTSU arts

I have heard repeatedly over the past few years people who believe that the JUTSU types of Martial arts are superior to the DO types, when it comes to actual usability in a real fight.

Such people will pretend for example, that Jujutsu is superior to Judo in an actual confrontation in the street, because the dangerous moves of Jujutsu were remove from Judo so it could be safely practiced in competition.

This is a fallacy. You may debate for hours what is the best car in the world, but if I have to go to town now, the best car in the world is my car. In case of a confrontation, the best martial art in the world is the one you know - IF YOU MASTER IT - because the is the only one you have...

One day a guy called and asked me if I taught Kendo or Kenjutsu. When I told him we practiced both at our dojo, he explained - at length - that he was only interested in Kenjutsu, because Kendo was a modern - therefore worthless - version of Kenjutsu. So I asked him where he had practiced before and he acknowledged the fact he never had, but had read a lot about the subject. I invited me to come to the dojo for a try.

Interestingly enough this guy never showed up for class ...

 

This is a very interesting video - it shows the Sensei demonstrating fast action Kendo. He is wearing no Bogu and his opponent attacks Men repeatedly. Watch the speed of his action, I don't think his opponent was able to touch him but once, the rest of the time, he hit his Do, Kote or Men, (*) or a combination of these. Obviously, these guys enjoyed this greatly, and I myself really enjoyed watching them. 

Some experts will say that this would not have been practiced by real samurai, that because the Shinai is longer than a real Katana, and that is has no curvature, too much practice with the Shinai would create bad habits that would kill you on the battle field. And there is some truth to this. It is said that Yamaoka Tesshu liked to practice with very short swords for this reason. 

It is also said that when Miyamoto Musashi had to fight the famous Sasaki Kojiro who was using a very long sword (the drying pole) he carved an even longer Boken out of an oar and beat him with it.

Watch carefully this video and ask yourself honestly, would you really feel comfortable with your real sword fighting this little yellow devil armed with a wooden Boken ? 

The best Martial Art is the one you master.

Merry Christmas to all

Terminology :  

Do, Kote and Men are approved targets in Kendo : they are the sides and front of the abdomen, the wrists, and the top of the head. 

A Bogu is the armour used in Kendo to spar.

A Shinai is the flexible bamboo sword used in the Kendo video.

A Boken is a wooden sword the size of a real Katana sword, also used in Kendo and Kenjutsu Training.

Practice Sheet

To really improve a waza (or technique), it is better to practice it at least 10 times in a row. This allows to pay more attention to details, how to move a foot at the beginning in order to raise faster, how to shift weight, open hips or not... This can only be achieved by repeating the move again and again, and by paying great attention to the actual feelings in the joints and muscles...

At the Dojo, the students generally practice each waza 3 or 4 times to allow the instructor to correct them, and then get to another one. It is their job, back home, to practice again and again, to try to adjust the move based on the instructor's remarks, so it becomes a sort of second nature.

It is difficult to remember from one week to the other what we practice. As each one of us has preferred moves, and moves we don't particularly like for different reasons, it is very easy to practice certain moves a lot, and forget some others.This should be avoided.

I created this Practice Sheet to record one's practice. It is easy to use. Whenever you practice one waza 10 times, you draw a small line on the row in front of it. It is an easy way to visualize your training.

In this example, I recorded 70 Seiza Mae, 30 Seiza Migi, 30 Seiza Hidari, 30 Seiza Ushiro and 50 Yaegaki Omote

This document is public. Feel free to download it and use it to help your practice.

The waza I listed are the ones we practice at the Yoshukai Dojo in Dothan, Alabama, USA. As you probably practice other waza, you can modify this document to fit your needs. 

Have fun, Train hard.

Self Defense practice

5 weeks ago I attended a Black Belt test in Auburn. 

Yoshukai Karate testing includes a pre-arranged self-defense demonstration. Two partners attack the testing student who demonstrate in front of the judges his ability to get rid of them.

Over the years I have seen improvement in the level of proficiency students display. However, there are still too often people perform highly impractical moves, techniques that would result in getting their asses seriously kicked - or worse - if they were to use them in the street to actually defend themselves. 

Often  the problem lies with their instructors who may either not be very knowledgeable on this matter, (Yes, it happens...) or might not be demanding enough of their students when they let them test.

If your instructor lets you believe that you are sufficiently proficient in your art to be  able to actually defend yourself, when you actually are not; he is actually failing you, and if your goal in practicing Martial Arts is to be able to defend yourself, you should look somewhere else for better instruction.

However, at the end of the day, no matter how talented your instructor is, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure you can actually defend yourself by using proper techniques. You, and only You can train and make sure you are up to the challenge.

So how do you know ?

There is a very easy way to test your self defense. Once you have decided what move you want to use on which attack, find someone - if at all possible 50 lb heavier than you - who has no idea what you are going to do, and ask them to attack you. As he or she does not know what you intend to do, he or she will not be able to help and you'll see if your move would actually work or not.

If it works, keep it. If it does not work, change it. Your move might be a valid one, in need of some adjustment - timing, distance, angle, to make it work. Figure them out.  It might also be totally out of touch with reality, in that case, simply drop it and find something better.

One last thing... Remember that no matter how good you are, there will always be someone better than you. Don't be cocky. 

Taido o imashimubeshi

(be prudent in actions...)

Terminology : Katana, Tō, Tsurugi and Ken

 

         The complexity of Japanese terminology is a constant source of aggravation and wonders... The same Character can very often be pronounced in very different ways (Also 2 different characters may have the same pronounciation...)  When it comes to sword, 2 words come back very often "To" and "Ken". 
They are found for example in Junto sono ichi (First waza of the Batto-ho set of MJER) and in Shinmyoken (9th waza of the Tachiuchi no Kurai set of MJER).
However, to make things even more complicated for us poor Gaijin, other words such as Katana and Tachi come up on a regular basis...

Let's try to clarify some of this :

The Character 刀 reads Katana in Japanese and Tō in Chinese. It is found in the Japanese words :

• Bokutō (木刀) : wooden Sword.
• Iaitō (居合刀) : sword to practice iaidō
• Nihontō (日本刀) : Japanese swords
• Battō-jutsu (抜刀術) : art of sword drawing

The Character 剣 reads Tsurugi in Japanese and Ken in Chinese. It is found in the Japanese words :

• Bokken ( 木剣) : wooden sword.
• Shinken (真⁠剣) : live (sharp) sword.
• Kendō (剣道) : way of the sword.
• Kenshi (剣士) : swordsman.

Originally 剣 (Chinese Ken; Japanese Tsurugi ) was used to designate a double-edged Sword, and 刀 (Chinese Tō; Japanese Katana ) a single-edged one. 

 

Character	Chinese	Japanese	Type of Sword
剣	Ken	Tsurugi	Double-edged
刀	Tō	Katana	Single-edged

 

 

Naginata - Tsurugi - Tanto - Uchi Katana- Tachi

Although the single-edged curved blade has been used in Japan for over a millennium, the usage of 刀 (Chinese tō ; Japanese katana - single edge sword), is much less common in pre-modern Japan (before the 1868 Meiji Restoration)  than the usage of 剣 (Chinese ken ; Japanese tsurugi - Double edged straight sword). Thus, in pre-modern Japan, swordsmanship was more often referred to as kenjutsu, kendō, kengi, gekken, and other terms rather than tōjutsu, tōhō, etc.

After the Meiji Restoration, the modernized variants of Japanese swordsmanship have been referred to exclusively with the character 剣 (ken ).

The Tsurugi  is the Japanese version of the Chinese Jian Sword - It was originally used in Japan until the Single-edged saber (Katana) was introduced around the 11th century.