JEM618

Student to sword master: How long to master the sword? Sword master: 5 years. Student to sword master: 5 years?! What if I train twice as hard as anyone else? Sword master: 10 years. Moral: Don't confuse effeort with results. Train at your own pace. Skill develops naturally. Train too hard and you are liable to face injury or set backs. Listen to your teacher; follow his instruction and set a pace that is good for you, success comes naturally.

Martial arts are fighting skills or arts for both armed and unarmed combat. EX: Kendo and Arnis are both martial arts. Karate is a generic term used for unarmed combat. (karate - empty hand)

OK. Look up this word in a Japanese – English dictionary. 武道 (budo): the definition will almost certainly be ‘martial art’ of ‘the art of war’. When westerners first arrived in Japan and observed Japanese training or fighting methods they said, Oh! Martial Arts! Then a westerner said to a Japanese, ‘Hey, what are you guys doing? And the Japanese said, ‘武道 (budo)’. Then the guy who writes the dictionary said, ‘Ah, I see, they call martial arts 武道 (budo)! Better write that one down before I forget. But he got it completely backwards. YES, completely backwards. 武道 (budo) is made of two kanji 武 (bu) and 道 (do). You probably already know this one 道 (do / dou) most Japanese arts end in this. Aikido： 合気道 Judo： 柔道 Kendo： 剣道 You’ll notice 道 (do) at the end of each of these words, too. Shodo： 書道 (calligraphy) Kado： 花道 (flower arrangement) Sado： 茶道 (tea ceremony) ‘do’ which is also pronounced ‘michi’ means road, but is also translates as the way or path. (Very important addition: not just ‘way’ or ‘path’ but can also mean way or path towards spiritual enlightenment.) Buddhist monks practiced calligraphy, flower arrangement, and tea ceremony, all as part of their spiritual training. Interesting, isn’t it? Aikido, kendo, judo, shodo, kado, sado all end with the same character – all with the same purpose self improvement or spiritual enlightenment. Anyway, take a look at the first kanji 武 (bu). It’s made up of two different kanji. Actually one kanji can be easily recognized, and the other is a derivative another kanji. 止： (tomaru) means stop (this one you can see on the bottom left side) 矛： (hoko) means halberd (the shape has changed but if you look at the line that runs top to bottom on the right and hooks out to the right, it signifies a ‘long, bladed, thrusting, or cutting weapon’. Again, this could signify a halberd, sword, spear, etc. So, put it all together and what have you got? 武道 (budo): ‘the way to stop the spear’. Budo is not the art of war, or a martial art as westerners would define it: it’s the way of peace; the way to stop the fight or keep the peace. There are other words in Japanese that do actually mean ‘martial arts’, ‘the art of war’ ‘tactics of fighting’ etc. But words that end in 道 (do) are generally considered ‘arts’ not ‘martial arts’ a way to develop your mind and body. For example kenjutsu 剣術 (swordsmanship) or ju-jutsu 柔術 (grappling). 剣術 (kenjutsu) is what the samurai learned for battle with swords and柔術(ju-jutsu) is what they practiced for ground fighting. 術 ‘jutsu’ simlpy means technique. These are not considered 道 ‘do’ they are fighting skills or ‘real’ martial arts. They would be closer to the definition of martial arts as we perceive them. (Much like training you would receive in the army in basic training all the way through Green Berets, or Navy Seals.)

Eastern? Asian? Korean? Chinese? Japanese? Not sure what you are asking here. When you say meaning do you mean the definition, or the essence? Karate - 空手 - is a kind of a generic term. It’s made up of up of two characters; ‘kara’ 空, or empty, and ‘te’ 手, which means hand. It’s used to describes any ‘empty-hand’ fighting style as opposed to a weapon based style, e.g., kendo 剣道 (sword fighting) or 弓道 (archery). There’s not much meaning to it besides the fact it describes the fightiong style. Perhaps you are referring to budo 武道 or bushido 武士道 which have much broader meaning and encompass all styles? (They are the basis of the samurai code).

http://www.all-karate.com/tie_karate_belt_video_clip.php http://www.all-karate.com/karate_belt_tie_1.php http://www.mindconnection.com/martialarts/tyingbelt.htm http://www.stanford.edu/group/kenpo/belt-tie.shtml http://www.cix.co.uk/~matb/pages/techniqu/Belttie/belttier.html http://www.natkd.com/how_to_tie_belt.htm

I’ve heard the literal translation is, ‘hard work'.

Any proof of that? No biography mentions the divorce or circumstances but from what I've heard it was amicable. He wanted to pursue other interests and his wife did not want to leave Japan with their daughter, so they went their separate ways - gave her the dojo and said see you later. And since his wife is his sensei's daughter, I would be hard pressed to believe he abused her.

Segal's dojo in Japan is still open; it's in a small town called Juso, just outside of Osaka. His ex-wife runs it now. Segal trained under Tohei Koichi, the founder of Shin-Shin Toitsu Aikido. He was one of Tohei's uchi-deshi (live in students). He stuck with Tohei until he achieved 6th Dan. (If I'm not mistaken, his rank could be higher.) His Aikido skills are real. After that he branched out into some other styles to round out his training, then headed to Hollywood. (IMHO, his best movie he made was ‘Above the Law’, when he used pure Aikido techniques and was still in shape.) BTW, Tohei was one of Ueshiba's 10 original uchi-deshi. Ueshiba was the founder of the original style of (aikibudo or aikinomichi which finally became) Aikido. Tohei stuck Ueshiba until he decided to put more emphasis on KI rather than physical strength. But that’s another topic entirely. Food for thought: there are fighters and there are artist. There's a world of difference between the two.

Can you give them responsibility? Have they been there long enough to know the warm up routine? Could they lead the warm up exercises? Are there any new students in the class? Can they be ‘responsible’ for teaching the first form or a series of punching and kicking drills (under your watchful eye)? I agree, martial arts are not for everyone, so maybe they don’t belong there. But from my experience with bored kids, giving them some responsibility, not a punishment is what turns them around. HTH

Take it easy. If you are just starting out forget the 'no pain - no gain' mentality. I don't know what style you are pursuing but if you want to or need to toughen your fists take it easy from the start or you'll wind up being crippled when you're 40. (Hitting a nerve is not a good thing) The first step it to toughen the skin on your hands by callusing your knuckles; these calluses actually create a cushion between your knuckle bones and the outside world. There are several ways to do this. One classic method is to drive your hand into a bucket of rice, sand or very small stones. Drive is the key word here. NO PUNCHING JUST YET! With a closed fist start with your fist on whatever is in the bucket then drive it into the bucket with a twisting motion until you get up to your wrist. There is not magic number for repetitions, stop before you feel discomfort. If you feel fine the next day, do a few more. Don’t be afraid to take a day off, a small injury heals faster than a big one, don’t train through the pain. This exercise will also strengthen the tendons in your wrists. When the skin on your hands feels pretty tough, you can start ‘punching’ into the bucket. Again, start off slow, just a few inches from the surface of whatever is in the bucket. Once you punch into the bucket work your fist into bucket until you are up to or a little past your wrist. DON’T PUNCH HARD – This is a resistance exercise. Anyway, start of slow, listen to your body and raise the level or your training with a speed that suits your body. (My personal preference is some type of long grain rice. Sand is to compact and small stones hurt a bit. The rice seems just right and acts a little bit like and abrasive to make your hands tough.)

What it all boils down to is that Aikido is the 'art of not fighting'.

One big difference is in the stlye of some of the joint locks. In Aikido, there is no joint lock technique that requires you to extend your opponent's arm out into a hyperextended position as in juji-katame. The body's natural defense mechanism draws the arms back to the body in a fight situation. If you have tried any type of grappling art, I'm sure you have experienced juji-katame, either on the giving or receiving end. If you are applying it, you may notice how your opponent will try to pull back their arm or roll out of it before the technique is fully applied. And if you've been on the receiving end, you know what I'm talking about. Many of Aikido's locks are based on application to the arm when it is close to the body in a 'pulled back' position. Although there are techniques that can be applied to an extended arm, they are only used if the arm is extended already. HTH

KI is real; media hype has simply distorted it. In less than 15 minutes a good instructor can demonstrate all basic principals of KI. But the idea of 'mastering' KI reminds me of what I saw on the cover to the box for the game Othello, '15 minutes to learn, a life time to master'. The kanji that is currently used to write KI is this 気 the original kanji is this 氣. In its most basic translation, KI is defined as energy but can also mean spirit or mind. But these are direct translations, it’s really impossible to clearly define certain Japanese words directly into English and have their true meaning completely understood. As you may already know, kanji is pictographically based, that is the origin of each kanji comes from a picture used to represent a concept. If we look at the kanji 氣 more closely we can understand the meaning of KI a little better. It’s really made up of two parts and without getting to technical let’s just call them ‘the top’ and ‘what’s in the middle’. The top part means some thing like smoke or vapor. And what’s in the middle is actually the kanji for rice, which was and still is the basic staple to the Japanese diet, and is where you get your ‘energy’. So if we combined the two in a philosophical sort of way and redefine the word KI, it’s ‘the power that can’t be seen’. Like I said, you really can not directly translate some kanji in concrete terms, remember they started out as pictographs a couple of thousand years ago, and since a picture is worth a thousand words, in some cases you’d need that many to define some kanji. Is KI real, does it exist? Of course. Can you do magical stuff with KI? Nope. I would have to say cool and amazing stuff, but nothing supernatural, nothing that circumvents any natural laws of physics or gravity. KI is the natural energy that exists equally in all beings and each person may develop his or her KI to its full potential. It’s simple, 15 minutes to learn; a lifetime to master.