The Kiai of a Master - Part Two
The Kiai of a Master - Part Two
Some of those fortunate to read an advance copy of the book have said that this one book could quite possibly change the direction of all martial arts back to the way it was intended to be taught in pre WW2 martial arts. Where the development of the student Mentally, Physically and Spiritually took priority to winning a trophy or just making another fast buck teaching useless self defense techniques that have a better chance of getting the student killed then saving their lives.
Here are but 4 of these lessons lectures he taught in abbreviated form.
Success truth and God
To succeed in life you need God. There is only one God but understanding God is different to different people. It is like the old phrase, “There are many roads up the mountain”.One thing we all need in life is a purpose and a purpose is accomplished by the attainment of many goals all aimed at the same thing. The eternal search for God is the eternal search for the truth.
Japanese mentality
The Japanese have a group mentality and that we must always be thinking how will my actions affect my mother, my family, my friends and my country. They are taught this from birth and they are also taught to conceal their emotions. As an example they are taught to never show pain, sorrow or loss. Deliberate stoicism is internalized so as not to show any emotion.
The Most Important Lesson
The most important lesson I can teach you is the lesson of the line up at the beginning and the end of each and every class. This is from old Japan and it is so very important as it teaches you three words Respect, Compassion and Gratitude.
3 Kinds of People
There are three kinds of people you will encounter in life the first is the winner’s. These people have only one life and they live in the now and make use of every second they are alive. For the winner, there is no limit except your imagination. Einstein once said, “Imagination is everything. It is a preview of life’s coming attractions”. Moses once said, “Faith is a substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen”.
The second are the loser’s. These people live in the past. A realm you cannot change.
The Third type is the dreamer’s. They live in the future and are always waiting for something to happen.
The book has nine Chapters dealing with all aspects of a martial arts life and as O’Sensei often said “a martial artist is an artist of life”. Hopefully these nine chapters have captured this.
1.Zen, Buddhism, and Martial Arts.
2.Historical Information.
3. Dai Nippon Butoku Kai
4.Samurai Philosophy.
5. Samurai Psychology.
6.Exoteric Martial Arts.
7. Samurai Health.
8.Laws of The Universe.
9. Martial Arts and Business.
Most who have studied Japanese Martial Arts understand that when it comes to modern day karate many of the fighting principles of the samurai have been transferred to modern day karate.This was something that the Japanese added to Okinawan karate.This was spearheaded by the JKA under the guidance of Masatoshi Nakayama and Hidetaka Nishiyama and it was put into reality by some of the greats in the JKA like Hiroshi Shirai, Hirokazu Kanazawa, Takayuki Mikami, and Keinosuke Enoeda to name but a few of the JKA Legends.
Richard Kim who was staff instructor at the famed JKA Summer Camp in San Diego California during the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s had an integral apart of this as he would often lecture on history, psychology and philosophy of martial arts at these camps and this coupled with Hidetaka Nishiyama’s deep understanding of Biomechanics and Kinesiology brought many of these samurai principles to life.
Some were simple and others were very complex. Like Odigiri Ichiun principle of “strong beats weak” now considered obvious was first taught by him in the hay day of the samurai 1600’s. The more complicated “Ichi-e – ichi-go” needed more explanation then just a literal translation of “one cut one life” but many of these are explained in detail in this new book.
In closing perhaps the one person who summed up Sensei Kim and this book best was world renowned karate Sensei, Fumio Demura when he said “Sensei Kim taught old school martial arts the right way, he was most certainly the 20th Century Samurai".
