Conqueror

Shooting a gun is a very enjoyable and rewarding experience IMO. I think it's also very practical knowledge that serves every person well. I personally own a number of firearms and enjoy teaching my noob friends how to use them. As others have said, it's all about safety. When I teach groups of new shooters, I tell them right off the bat that if they make a single mistake they will be sitting down for the rest of the day. A single mistake could cost someone their life, so it is a little nerve-wracking to shoot for the first time, but once you get used to it, it's a blast (forgive the pun). I generally prefer shotguns, but rifle and pistol are great fun too! CQ

Welcome to the family! I know Sensei Green well, and am good friends with his son (and to a lesser extent, his daughter). I train with Perry Sensei in NC. I'm sure you've heard some talk of our annual camp which is coming up in August. Unfortunately I've had to miss camp for the last several years due to academic commitments (and that will be the case again this August), but I highly recommend you come if you meet the requirements and have the time! And yes, your bones will eventually harden up. Over time the hard blocks will condition your arms and it won't bother you so much. CQ

If I understand what you're asking, I believe you're saying "Are there weapons in karate". In Okinawan Shorin ryu and Shudokan karate-do we do indeed study weapons, including the bo, sai, kama, noburikaman, tonfa, and nunchaku. Intorductory kata for the bo and sai are tokamina bo and chatanyara sai, respectfully. With respect, Sohan A slight correction: in Shorin-ryu we do indeed study weapons, but they are not considered a part of the actual system. That's why black belts can have different ranks in karate and kobudo - they are technically separate systems. Hell, "karate" even translates to "empty hand" - pretty much precludes the use of weapons. CQ

In shorin-ryu, Sempai = Senior student under black belt in a class Sensei = any Yudansha Shihan = Licensed Instructor Renshi = 5th and 6th Dan Kyoshi = 7th and 8th Dan Hanshi = 9th and 10th Dan The last three are honorary titles. Some instructors prefer to be called by their honorary title, and some prefer simply "sensei." For example, Pat Haley, a 7th Dan in Chico, CA, is always called Kyoshi by his students. Doug Perry, an 8th Dan in NC, is called Sensei by his students. I don't really see a problem with instructors preferring their honorary titles, so long as they earned them properly. CQ

Agreed wholeheartedly. I've failed several tests in my time, and it's always been a good opportunity for self-examination. CQ

It's not that I need some specific poems translated. I'd like to browse through a bunch of random poems and choose some that work best, but I need to have an image available of each poem written in any form of calligraphy. Am I making any sense? Probably not. :-/ JB

No one?

Hi all. I'm working on an "art project" per se, and I really want to incorporate some Kanji calligraphy into the piece (I'll eventually post pictures when it's done). Here's my dilemma: I want to use poems from feudal Japan (ideally some of the longer works by the old poetry masters), but I'm having trouble finding websites that offer both English translations AND images of the Kanji that would be used for the poem in Japanese. Does anyone have a good online source of Kanji calligraphy that might fit the bill? If so I'd be most appreciative!

Agreed, those points have always bothered me a little bit. Best of luck Joe.

Check out https://www.weaponsconnection.com - the prices are comparable for his hardened agena sai; a few people at our dojo have these and I must say they are very nice!

Yeah, I feel sorry for those who live in some of the more populous areas that have outlawed handgun carry. Here in NC it costs about $150-200 to get a concealed weapon permit. It's tough to beat a good pistol for self defense, IF you train with it. Too many people buy a gun and carry it around but never actually go shooting with it on a regular basis, and they expect to be able to use it effectively. Any weapon is just like karate - you have to train regularly to become proficient.

I don't work with swords, but my kama are certainly metal blades. The Bo is my favorite weapon, both for its feel and its practicality - it's easy to find a pool cue, broom handle, stick, whatever in a fight, but when are you gonna find some sai in that dark alley?

Our sensei has been training martial arts for roughly 50 years and holds an eighth dan... clearly the ranks come slower when you reach the upper atmosphere. As far as personal feelings, I never really felt different when I was promoted... still come to the same classes and learn from the same people.

Westerners do not understand that the point of martial arts is NONviolence. They just want to learn how to fight well, and unfortunately many dojo augment this emphasis and attitude. Kata should always come first - without kata, how can one ever hope to execute a proper technique?

Which history? All the ones I've read have Okinawa firmly established, complete with a monarch, by the time the 36 families arrived in (1388?).

Tode Sakugawa.

A good friend of my parents is a longtime (25 years) student of my sensei. When I was 6 he invited us to a demontration and I saw everyone from the dojo performing. I was hooked. The dojo didn't allow students under 7, so a few weeks after my seventh birthday I convinced my parents to let me join. The rest is history.

Kendo/Iaido are beautiful arts that are quite effective in their own rights. However, to echo what's already been said, they are not nearly as practical as empty-hand. It is rare that you would be attacked while carrying a bokken, broom handle, etc. Most of the time you'll be unarmed, and an empty-hand martial art would probably prepare you better for such a situation.

My philosophy is "if you attack me or mine with true intent to harm, I will hurt you until you are physically unable to perform any malicious act. I will then quickly depart the scene." In practice, that means "stomp them until they cannot conceivably sit up to throw a punch." Here in the south, the law says "do what you have to do to protect yourself or your loved ones. If that means killing, then kill."

I think both western and eastern media outlets have sensationalized the martial arts, but the western media has done much more to corrupt it. The western media contains much more unrealistic portrayals of the martial arts as a whole in my experience (although that's not to say some asian films aren't just as wacky!). I regularly get asked if I can do a back flip, or climb walls, etc. Ugh.

Congrats! I had a surprise test - the high-level underbelt classes are Tue-Wed-Thur, and on Tuesday night Sensei said "You're testing for Shodan this week." After I completed it on Thursday night, he told me I'd be promoted the following Tuesday. That was one of the happiest moments of my life to that point. Congrats again.

Almost unquestionably Okinawa. Okinawa was introduced to the martial arts by the 36 families in the late 14th century after Satto pledged to China, making it the first of the east-Asian coastal islands to possess the martial arts. Japan followed much later, presumably after the Satsuma invasion of the mid-1600s. Modern "karate" is a joint okinawan-japanese convention given the removal of the more dangerous techniques for practice by the public (a japanese phenomenon), but the roots are undeniably Okinawan. (I did a long paper on the transmission of the martial arts from India to Okinawa as my senior thesis in high school, the above comes partially from that. The dates are a little fuzzy in my memory but I believe them to be accurate).

Skeptic2004 - Yes, we met last year. Sensei mentioned you both coming back, but I guess we're down to one - sorry to hear that, hope you can make it back soon. I'm the only Jason in the dojo other than Perry's son, and he wasn't around, so I'm probably the one you're thinking of. I know you didn't mean to besmirch Perry sensei, and I didn't take it as such. I meant for my posts to be more of a "this is how I think it works in our dojo, maybe it can be generalized" than a defense of Perry. I'll be the first to admit we put him on a pedestal. Once he and I were doing some ne-waza and I got a decent hold on him, but I instantly let him go for no reason - it was like my subconscious thought it was wrong to get the upper hand on him and I let go without even having time to consider it. To get back to your larger question... I think it's not *necessary* to have this phenomenon, but I think it is a nearly-inevitable byproduct of the manner in which the martial arts are transmitted. Think of it... EVERY dojo I can think of is organized the same way - "master" founds the dojo, starts with small cadre of students, gradually adds more students as the originals progress in rank. To found a dojo one must be very skilled, but as a teacher this skiled person will be starting from scratch. So every dojo's "business model" (if you will) is one in which the totally unexperienced are trained by the extremely advanced. It seems inevitable that a degree of idolatry will emerge given that the uninitiated will always be amazed by skilled martial arts. Since we are "raised" this way, the habit becomes ingrained and so we forever put our original "master" on a pedestal.

I feel it's important for people to know a little something about me if I'm going to be offering advice or discussing advanced martial arts. It's common courtesy - pertinent information on a forum such as this.

meh, I don't even think or care about rank. In our dojo we don't have stripes on our obi or anything... I don't even know the rank of most of my fellow yudansha, just whether they line up ahead or behind me. It's not where you are, it's where you've been and where you're going. As long as I'm allowed to come to class and keep learning, my obi is just a piece of cloth that holds my pants up.