Practical Daoism in Everyday Life
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Vintage Shotokan Karate Video
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Dao De Jing #54: Cultivate Harmony
54. Cultivate Harmony
Cultivate harmony within yourself, and harmony becomes real;Cultivate harmony within your family, and harmony becomes fertile;
Cultivate harmony within your community, and harmony becomes abundant;
Cultivate harmony within your culture, and harmony becomes enduring;
Cultivate harmony within the world, and harmony becomes ubiquitous.
Live with a person to understand that person;
Live with a family to understand that family;
Live with a community to understand that community;
Live with a culture to understand that culture;
Live with the world to understand the world.
How can I live with the world?
By accepting.
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Book Review: Inner Wing Tsun by Keith Kernspecht
Review of ‘Inner Wing Tsun’ – a
course book for all martial enthusiasts
By Jonathan Bluestein
Inner Wing Tsun is a not a book, but
rather a poem; an ode to martial arts. It is a song of character, testifying to
the thought and nature of its author, master Keith Kernspecht. It ought to be
understood as Kernspecht’s artistic (rather than technical) transmission of his
arts in writing; a personal message, first and foremost from him to his
students, and to practitioners of Wing Chun worldwide.
A petite yet impressive work, it bears an aura of seriousness
and importance, conveyed strongly first and foremost through its oldschool
hard-cover design, as well as its highly professional editing.
Though
mass-produced, it has the feel of a collector’s novelty item. The book’s
atmosphere and tone are very rational and North-western European, and those who
see themselves at home with that sort of attitude will enjoy this work to the
utmost.
Falling mid-way between philosophical/psychological discourse
and a martial arts journal summarizing decades of experience, Inner Wing Tsun
reads like no other book of its kind.
Those looking for technicalities would be let down. This is not an
instructional. Rather, it is concerned with various Principles: those of
practicing, teaching and even living correctly. Most of these are based on the
author’s decades-long experience in his art (and his training in many other
arts along the way), but anecdotes and musings are also drawn from a myriad of
other source materials, oftentimes writings by great thinkers of Western
Philosophy and such. It is meant as a life-guide. A pocketbook for the right
mindset in difficult times. Something one carries along and goes back to again
and again as his or her martial arts path continues to evolve.
Albeit written from a Wing Chun
perspective, this book is not only for practitioners of this art. The
thoughtful anecdotes of the author on matters relating to personal development
in the martial arts can appeal to anyone. I myself am a practitioner and
teacher of other Chinese martial arts, and have thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
Covered are also some very advanced training and fighting concepts. The use of
actual empathy to gain an advantage in fighting, the ‘touching’ of an opponent
without touching in the psychological and spiritual sense, and more. All of
these easily reveal the depth of the master Kernspecht’s personal research in
his arts and practice.
The psychology of combat is a field of study often reserved to intuitive
learning by veteran fighters. Here however we are given a more coherent take on
this topic. It is here similar yet different to Rory Miller’s works, and covers
many aspects of the self-defense oriented combative mindset – from ritualistic
street brawling to intricate strategic maneuvering. Though none of these are
technique-specific in the book, that is actually an advantage, as the author
allows the reader a broad room for interpretation and implementation into what
he or she are already familiar with.
Some observations made by the author, I take to be simply
brilliant. For instance, he writes: “when our arm or arms are in contact with
the opponent, the only thing we need to do is to avoid our own arms!”. This
simple truth, which could easily be dismissed as being ‘all too obvious’, is a
great asset as an instructional order for a beginner student. I would not
exaggerate by saying that things such as this, put in the right context and
said to the right person, can save one months and sometimes years of training
with an incorrect mindset.
At 350 tiny pages (which do not sacrifice quality for size),
you could easily get through this book in one go if you wish, in no more than
3-4 hours. Yet the text draws you in, slowing the pace and tempting you to read
it more solemnly (as in other small but deep works, such as the Dao De Jing).
Regardless
of the time spent, if you are a serious martial artist, you would likely enjoy
this work.
Especially for martial arts teachers, this is a true gem for
expanding their general overview of training and instructing, and providing new
ways to think about old ideas.
This fine book may be ordered directly from master
Kernspecht’s organization (the EWTO). It ought to cost about 30$. You can make
an order by emailing the EWTO here: equipment@ewto.com
Thursday, January 15, 2015
The Aging Martial Artist
Jiu-Jitsu and the Mature Athlete: A Letter to a Former Student
As a man ages, he needs to get wiser in how he uses his body. Eventually, everyone declines as aging sets in. The biggest mistake I see is middle-aged men trying to compete and train like they did when they were younger. Even worse, is comparing their performances from their their younger days to the present day and the feelings of disappointment in the disparity. This will always be a source of frustration. No one can continue to dominate forever.You must acquire the grace to feel satisfaction in the moment. Improvements for the man over 45 will be subtle; the days for big gains and big strides are over. Improvements will come in other ways than increased physical prowess. Thankfully, the mental game continues to improve, forever. Things like learning to quickly relax, better breath control, reducing panic in uncomfortable situations, trickery, and of course, not hesitating to tap just as soon as you get caught -- struggling and fighting out of submissions is a young man's game and beneath the mature athlete. What's important for the older BJJ practitioner is to immediately acknowledge his mistake in getting caught in a submission hold in the first place. Simply tap and continue playing.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Girls Bests All the Boys in Grappling School
Friday, January 09, 2015
Kosen Judo and Brazilian Jiujitsu
What is/was Kosen Judo?
Kosen judo was a refinement of Kodokan Judo that was developed and flourished at the Kōtō senmon gakkō technical colleges in Japan in the first half of the twentieth century. Kosen judo’s competition rules allowed for greater emphasis of ne-waza ( ground techniques) than in mainstream judo and it is sometimes regarded as a distinct style of judo. Today, the term “Kosen judo” is frequently used to refer to the competition ruleset associated with it that allows for extended ne-waza.
Such competition rules are still used in the shichitei jūdō / nanatei jūdō competitions held annually between the seven former Imperial universities.
Differently to modern Judo rules leglocks were allowed (Leglocks started being prohibited by Kodokan rules in 1914 in shiai and randori as well. By 1925 all joint-locks except elbow locks were totally prohibited together with neck cranks. Kosen rules being the Kodokan rules derivative did not allow leglocks absolutely).
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How is Kosen Judo different or similar to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?
If you look at the Kosen Judo video below you can see many moves and flows that are different from modern Judo ground work (which is much more focused on pinning and more static). These videos were made in the 1970’s by 6 older judokas , among them (in the tapes) was the famous Masahiko Kimura himself (who beat Helio Gracie). When you look at the techniques displayed in the video, it looks very similar to Gracie Jiu-Jitsu (which is more focused on the basics than modern sport BJJ). Kosen Judo players also pulled guard in competition. Kosen had a pinning rule. Strategy is different than BJJ. There was more more turtling than BJJ etc.
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In short, Kosen Judo and Brazilian (Gracie) Jiu-Jitsu are similar but are still very different. Most of the techniques are the same, the competition rules are different. Kosen Judo has faded due to the popularity of modern Kodokan Judo (more focused on throws), while BJJ is fastly growing and always evolving with new techniques and flows.
Tuesday, January 06, 2015
Shugyou Training in Japan
Modern Musha Shugyo Part 1
Musha
Shugyo 武者修行is an old Japanese term for the practice of leaving one’s
home and traveling around the country to learn from people, engage in
challenge matches, grow, and perhaps even establish oneself. Rennis
Buchner has a great article on musha shugyo over on Acme Budo.
The past few weeks I’ve been on a modern version of the musha shugyo,
visiting Japan, training with some great teachers in different dojo, and
getting my butt thoroughly kicked along the way.
Even
in the old days, musha shugyo were not endless rounds of intense duals.
They were as much or more about learning and trying to find a job as
anything else. Buchner’s references from various Hoki Ryu records
provide a much more balanced and realistic view of what was happening
than the popular myths. Sadly, my journey was not about finding a job
teaching budo somewhere in Japan. There just aren’t many jobs for staff
budoka anymore. Today a musha shugyo is a journey of hard training, deep
learning and mental and spiritual development. For these purposes, our
journey was a wonderful success.
I
set out with a friend and one of her students to attend a private
gasshuku sponsored by the teacher of one of my teachers, as well as to
visit several dojo of my sword and jo teachers. Along the way we also
squeezed in a few sites and experiences from around Japan. Budo is not
just what happens in the dojo, and we didn’t want to miss the rest of
the experience that is Japan.
...
A
word about shugyo 修行 might be in order. Shugyo can be anything from
simple training done sincerely to ascetic exercises performed for
spiritual or religious purposes. Within budo, practice is viewed as
both training in the techniques of the system and developing students
spirit, heart and mind. For my friends and I, and for everyone at the
gasshuku, both aspects were fully present in our training. The technique
training is clear, but the spiritual side was there too. We learned to
not be put off by failure, as the teachers had us repeat techniques
until we could get them right. We learned to endure fatigue and sleep
deprivation because the socializing with the teachers could go late and
cut into the amount of sleep we got. Sleep was already a precious
commodity for my friends and I because we were suffering from jet lag.
In previous years I’ve gone to the February gasshuku and learned to
endure the suffering of training in the huge, drafty, unheated dojo, so
the November chill felt like a warm spring by comparison. By the end of
the third day we were also battling sore, achy muscles and a few bruises
from strikes that missed their targets and thrusts that were a little
too successful. At the gasshuku though, none of this was anything to
complain about. That too was part of the shugyo.
Saturday, January 03, 2015
Gender in Martial Arts Training
...
Channon’s article is brief enough that I do not want to rehash the entire structure of his argument here. However, he offers some tentative suggestions that I would like to introduce to our discussion. First, instructors interested in changing the way that gender is typically constructed within martial arts schools should “look for ways in which to highlight the abilities of ‘senior’ female practitioners whenever possible, particularly doing so in ways that are visible to younger members of the club” (p. 594) Secondly, they should “encourage integration in training as much as possible, including the more physically intense, partnered activities, such as sparring” (p. 597). Lastly, proceed with caution as circumstances differ. “Instructors and practitioners ought to be careful not to always insist upon integration, just as they do nevertheless encourage such practices among those who are not fundamentally opposed to them” (P. 599). The word “fundamental” is the key concept in this final caution.
While succinct, each of these recommendations requires a little unpacking. In Channon’s findings perhaps the key element in redefining student’s subconscious ideas about what their bodies are capable of is the provision of female role models. These are certainly easier to find in some associations and styles than others. Yet even those systems that seem to emphasize the “feminine” aspects of their art can still face difficulties in this regard.
Consider the case of Wing Chun. Most Chinese martial arts offer students one or more “creation myths.” The vast majority of these stories focus on male creators who attain martial excellence and then go on to found the social structures that the student is about to join. Given that China has traditionally been a highly patriarchal society, and most Kung Fu schools explicitly organize themselves as artificial kinship groups, the resulting emphasis on exclusively male “ancestors” is not surprising.
The Wing Chun creation myth is fascinating as it resists what was the dominant discourse within martial arts storytelling, and turns instead to a more esoteric set of motifs focusing on female warriors. Specifically, this system claims to have been created by the Shaolin nun Ng Moy and then taught to her first student Yim Wing Chun, a teenage girl facing the threat of a broken engagement and forced marriage to a local trouble causer. While the lineage myths of most systems are exclusively male, Wing Chun practitioners look back to not one but two female initiatory figures.
Many current female Wing Chun students find a great deal of inspiration in the story of Ng Moy and Yim Wing Chun. So do these characters always function as effective role models? This is a difficult question to answer in universal terms, but I suspect that the answer is probably no. As fictional figures from the geographically and culturally remote land of “Rivers and Lakes,” they are not as immediately accessible to the imaginations of all students as one might like.
The other issue has to do with the way that their story is typically told. Ng Moy is said to have modified the Kung Fu that she learned at the Shaolin Temple to be more evasive and strategic. Rather than relying on brute strength, as the Abbot Jee Shim did, Ng Moy decided to create a combat system that would be effective even when practiced by physically weaker females. Yim Wing Chun, the somewhat hapless teenage girl who becomes synonymous with the art, is adopted as a student precisely because she serves to rhetorically illustrate this point. If someone as young, weak and inexperienced as her could be turned into a deadly warrior, then the fighting system itself must really have a superior conceptual framework.
All of this nicely illustrates some of the core concepts and goals of the Wing Chun system. Yet the not so subtle implication of these stories is that all women must fight this way because they are all physically weak. I am not sure that this is a positive message for my female students to hear.
Nor, truth be told, does the origin of the story really have much to do with actual females at all. All of the early students of Wing Chun who can be historically verified are male. For instance, it does not appear that any of Chan Wah Shun’s 16 students were female. Despite the positive portrayal of female fighters in these legends, the first confirmed female students of the art do not appear until Ip Man starts to teach in Hong Kong in the 1950s.
So where did these stories actually come from, and how were they interpreted by their intended audience? Readers should recall that during the late 19th and early 20th century stories of female warriors became more common within various areas Chinese literature and popular culture. Douglas Wile has argued that this stemmed from the cultural shock that resulted from China’s various failed attempts to stand up to western aggression and imperialism. Given that the nation had now been shown to be militarily weak, it suddenly became critical to argue that some other inherent characteristic of Chinese culture would be sufficient to see it through. The turn to narratives about female warriors who could assure the people victory without relying on material strength was more of a commentary on China’s ongoing identity crisis (and military weakness) during the late Qing and Republic periods than it was an actual discussion of changing gender roles.
More valuable than “mythic types” are flesh and blood role models. Respondents to Channon’s study consistently noted that having highly visible female students or instructors was critical to changing their perceptions of what women in the martial arts were capable of doing. Of course we are now faced with a chicken and egg problem. It is hard to cultivate female leaders within a school if the retention of women is lacking. Nor can one improve retention without visible female role models.
There are a few things that might help to ease this transition. Channon notes that using female students to demonstrate techniques can be highly visually effective, and this is something that can be done at pretty much any level of instruction. I should also point out that it may also be possible to “borrow” good role models. In my area there is a pretty serious amateur kickboxing community with a lot of very talented female fighters on every card. A “class trip” to an event like this not only builds comradery, but it also showcases exactly how strong and skilled female fighters can actually be.
Instructors may also wish to consider what sorts of imagery they display in their schools (if any). Studies have shown that female science students will perform notably better if their high school textbooks and labs display pictures of women (rather than just men) working in related professional fields. I have no comparable empirical research to back this up, but I suspect that the same thing might hold true for martial arts training hall. Every type of student gains confidence when they see representations of people like themselves succeeding.
Channon’s second point has to do with the integration of all students into the classroom’s learning structure. Actual integration within mixed-sex environments might fail in a number of different ways. If every time students pair up for partner activities the female students are left to work by themselves in one corner of the room we have a fairly obvious problem.
Other times Channon’s interview subjects reported that the failures of integration were more subtle or rhetorical in nature. A number of women objected to being told “girl’s push-ups” when they were capable of doing plain push-ups during physical training sessions. In a martial arts class age, strength and physical ability are likely to vary tremendously. Being able to tell someone to do push-ups from their knees is probably quite useful. Verbally associating that variant of the exercise with the universal physical inferiority of women is not.
More troublesome is the issue of physical contact in sparring, rolling or the various sensitivity drills (push hands, chi sao…) that are used as critical training tools in a number of arts. A certain amount of restraint has to be shown whenever these exercises are used. Still, one of the most common complaints in Channon’s study (and my own experience fully supports this) is female students noting that their male classmates refuse to hit or seriously engage with them for “fear of causing injury.” Again, injuring your training partner is never the goal of such exercises, but such caution can be taken to ridiculous lengths. Occasionally male students will flat out refuse to spar with women as it violates their internal sense of “chivalry.”
Such attitudes are very destructive within a training environment. By refusing to use appropriate force female students are deprived of the opportunity to ever become competent fighters. When a school’s main goal is self-defense instruction there is the added danger of building a false sense of security which borders on negligence.
As I was reading the various interview reports in Channon’s paper it occurred to me that there may be an even more fundamental problem being brought to light here that in some ways transcends the topic at hand. One of the central goals of almost any martial art is to restructure how students approach the question of violence. Rather than responding to the threat of violence in the typical ways favored by cultural indoctrination, we wish to give our students both enhanced physical abilities as well as new options for thinking about the meaning and use of force. This is one of the many types of empowerment that can come out of martial arts training.
When male students refuse to engage with females because they are uncomfortable with the idea of “hitting a girl,” or their sense of chivalry is somehow violated by training with a woman, it is a pretty clear indication that they are not responding to their system’s ideas about the proper uses of force. Instead they are still subject to the dominant cultural discourse on violence. Thus it may be that a failure on the gender integration front points to other equally fundamental issues that need to be addressed.
Channon’s third point is to go slow. While it may seem uncontroversial to instructors within a style that there is no reason why men and women should not chi sao, spar or roll together, it may be much less obvious to a new student showing up at the school for the first time. Certain female students are hesitant to engage in mixed sex training.
Channon reviews two specific cases that instructors are likely to encounter. The first of these has to do with strongly held religious objections to the mixing of the sexes. Respondents to his survey reported that in some instances Muslim men refused to work with, or even acknowledge, female students in classes. Of course this issue is not totally unique to Muslims. As I pointed out at the start of this essay, our ideas about mixed sex training environments today are much different than what was acceptable in China a hundred years ago. If an individual takes a strongly principled view that mixed sex training is undesirable there is not much to do about it in purely practical terms.
Sexual abuse survivors were another category of students who (understandably) tended to be wary of mixed-sex touch. In this case the consensus view seems to have been to go slowly, but to eventually try to move the student to more robust forms of mixed-sex training. Again this was seen as especially important when a student’s goals included the building of real-world self-defense skills rather than just fitness or recreation.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
The Evolution of a Martial Art
Below is an excerpt from the Fightland Blog which examines how BJJ has changed over the years and speculates on which directions is may evolve. The full article may be read here.
The Coming Division: Will Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Give Birth to New Martial Arts?
Fightland Blog
Brazilian jiu jitsu is evolving but evolving into what? Anyone who has trained in multiple jiu jitsu schools will notice the differences in philosophy and technical emphasis that exist between academies. Certainly, there is a common body of techniques and transitions that they all share; but what they emphasize is so different, so as to call into question whether the term “Brazilian jiu jitsu” will continue to be adequate in describing them all.Either Brazilian jiu jitsu will reproduce new styles of martial art or it will continue to exist as a single combat sport, with disparate competition rule sets, the way Wrestling does. With the current state of jiu jitsu variety, simply saying one has a black belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu isn’t as descriptive as it was in the early 90’s. For the purposes of this article, I will oversimplify something that, for now, defies neat compartmentalization; I will describe what I see are the three basic modes of Brazilian jiu jitsu today.
In doing so, I acknowledge that this is based on my own limited and biased experiences with the art, in Florida and Southern California. I also acknowledge that the naming of these “modes” is problematic, as there is considerable overlap between all of them. Jiu jitsu styles are as varied and numerous as the people who practice it. Every jiu jitsu practitioner has a unique style, based on personality, aesthetics and physical aptitude. Nevertheless, the basic generalizations required to describe the current state of jiu jitsu work for the purposes of this article.
I agree with the expected rebuttal that it’s all jiu jitsu, “one flag” and a common lifestyle; but it won’t always stay that way. Nothing on Earth lasts forever; nothing living is free from the requirement of evolution; that which mutates and reproduces into varieties will thrive. Nothing stunts the development of life, intellectual or biological, the way inbreeding will; when a philosophical family tree takes the form of a double helix, falsehoods and imperfections linger in the gene pool of ideas.
As things stand today, I see three main modes or ideologies of Brazilian jiu jitsu, each having the potential to become a distinct martial art: first-wave jiu jitsu, second-wave jiu jitsu and third-wave jiu jitsu.
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