HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I wish all our students and parents a very happy new year. Are we getting any closer to peace and goodwill toward one another? I think it’s all up to us. Peace comes from within. As the Buddha said, “The person should look for peace within and not depend on it in any other place. For when a person is quiet within, the self cannot be found. There are no waves in the depths of the ocean; it is still and unbroken. It is the same with the peaceful person.” Bring peace, love, and compassion into the world from the treasure you have within your heart, for “where your heart is, there also is your treasure.”

WHAT HAPPENED IN SEPTEMBER:

AAC DEMO TO BENEFIT RED CROSS FOR KATRINA VICTIMS AT CARTERET SCHOOL, BLOOMFIELD, SEP 30:

If you don’t already know, Carteret Elementary School in Bloomfield is the school where I work in the day, helping teach a self-contained class of intermediate disabled children ranging from grades 3 through 6. Over the summer, the Music teacher, Mrs. Hernandez-Kinloch, and I had planned a fund-raiser for the American Red Cross in the form of a martial arts demonstration but when hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, I knew we had to earmark the funds for the disaster victims. I know first-hand what it means to lose everything, to be evacuated, to be a refugee and live in tents, and to be relocated to start life all over again. And I also know first-hand the generosity of the American people. So this fund-raiser was particularly meaningful to me as it offered me the unique opportunity to repay the kindness I had received thirty years ago.

Carteret’s Principal, Ms. Gina Rosamilia, was more than receptive to the idea and promptly put things in motion to help me plan the event as soon as school started. I sent flyers home with the students and sold tickets. At the Asian Arts Center, we began practicing for the exhibition and I planned every step, every move. All the adults who were to participate were very excited about the chance to help out. Then, Friday evening, September 30, we set out to Bloomfield.

The Multi-Purpose room (in other words, the Gym/Auditorium) had been carefully set up by the custodial crew, with 150 chairs in place as estimated. As we warmed up on the stage and practiced, the spectators, parents, students, teachers, and many interested karate practitioners from a nearby dojo, trickled in and slowly filled the auditorium. Then, at 7:30 p.m., an excited Ms. Rosamilia introduced me and we rolled into action. In between the katas, drills, weapons, and self-defense techniques, I took great care to explain what we did for the benefit of the children present; the audience broke into thunderous applause each time we completed a kata or a drill. Cameras flashed and video recorders whirred; I felt like a celebrity. To conclude the program, I fielded questions and answered curious parents and students. Then we thanked everybody and bowed out at 8:30. It was a greater success than I had anticipated. Ms. Rosamilia beamed with delight and pride and all the well-wishers expressed their appreciation to us. We had managed to raise $1,000. It was a wonderful feeling for all involved. I most certainly wish to thank all my students who were involved in this exhibition: Jerry Yoskowitz, Gregg Scott, Brooke Bizub, Michael Boasso, Justin Howard, Alice Freund, Miro Musulin, Larry Geyman, Chris Ilao, Sal and Michelle Amoreno, Macauley O’Connor, and Dean MacLeod.

WHAT HAPPENED IN OCTOBER:

OSHIRO SENSEI’S SEMINAR IN MT VERNON, NY, OCT 8:

In past years, sensei Cleve Baxter has held his seminar and tournament at the Louis Armstrong Community Center in Corona, Queens; this year, however, he changed the location to his dojo in Mt Vernon in Yonkers. So, on this dreadfully rainy Saturday, I took sensei Herbert (“Duke”) Allen and Brooke Bizub with me to sensei Baxter’s dojo. After losing our way briefly on the Cross Bronx Expressway, we did manage to get back on track and arrived in Mt Vernon by 2:00 p.m., the appointed time for the seminar.

Located in an old building which probably used to be a more expansive train station in older days, the dojo was not easy to notice. The building led us into labyrinthine corridors and hidden rooms. As we came into the dojo on the second floor, we were greeted by Mr. Baxter’s students. Directly ahead, I saw the matted training area occupied by a group of referees-in-training taking a written test for their certification. Sensei Miyazaki of Queens sat on the side watching. I greeted him effusively. Mr. Baxter came out of his office and met us with the news that he had decided to relocate the Yamanni-ryu seminar to the Royal Regency Hotel where Oshiro sensei was staying. He apologized for the inconvenience but pointed out that his dojo was too small to accomodate over twenty people swinging bos and sais. To make up for lost time, he would shift the schedule to 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. (Instead of the original 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. as advertised.)

A few stragglers wandered in, including Caron Keppler, one of Miyazaki sensei’s students. When she noticed there was no seminar going on, I joked to her that it was cancelled. With a twinkle in his eye, Miyazaki sensei echoed my put-on. Torn between believing her own sensei and sensing something was afoot, Caron looked quizzically from me to him, begging for a truthful answer. I finally burst out laughing and told her the real story.

The Emerald Room where we relocated to in the Royal Regency was a bare, carpeted room in the basement. I couldn’t imagine it was used for banquets or anything of that nature, considering its odd dingy look, in contrast to the snazzy feel of the lobby. We met Oshiro sensei as we exited the elevator; he was wondering what happened to everybody. After we changed and settled in, sensei Baxter bowed us in, introduced Sensei and left to take care of his tournament business. I became the one in charge.

Sensei started the class with a typical lecture on Yamanni-ryu and, bypassing the warm-ups, taught sai basics. After the standing and moving exercises, he took everybody through the two sai kihon katas, then Kyan-no-sai. When he saw that some students were unable to follow, he had me take them to the side and work with them while he took the rest through Nakan Dakari-no-sai. At 4:50 p.m. we took a break. It was a warm and sticky afternoon; for the first time, I felt parched. During class, Kowa Chhe from Brooklyn had joined the session with a dozen of his students and family members; I noticed his limp as he hobbled over to greet us. Upon my inquiry, he revealed he just tore his hamstring two hours ago from demonstrating a snap front kick at his dojo. Ouch.

Sensei talked to Duke Allen and me about his trips to Germany and how different they were from American students. In general, Europeans don’t have commercial dojos; they have clubs that are subsidized by the government. Rent is minimal. Students train without a sensei in charge; what they do instead is vote a sensei to lead the group! Sensei found Spanish practitioners to be more similar to us. They follow a particular teacher and do as told. The French, on the other hand, simply refuse to speak English and Sensei finds it brutal to communicate with them (or order food). We joked around about the European mentality.

We resumed training at 5:00 p.m. with bojutsu. My purpleheart, usually as smooth as glass, was sticky from the humidity. Sensei gave another lecture on Yamanni-ryu and karate. He told us how secret Yamanni-ryu was when he began training with Kishaba sensei; Okinawan people had heard of it but none had ever seen it. When he was finally given permission by Kishaba sensei to demonstrate the art, his own karate teacher, Nagamine sensei (the founder of Matsubayashi Shorin-ryu karate) saw it for the first time in his life.

Sensei then went over the basics and was about to start everybody on Suuji-no-kon until he looked at the low ceiling and decided instead on Choun-no-kon/sho (Suuji-no-kon contains a high upward thrust with the bo.) He hit a snag when some students were unable to follow. He pulled them out and gave them to me to teach. I concentrated on a difficult section of the kata, broke it down and drilled them over and over on it, step by step.

By 6:15 p.m. Sensei paired up the participants and introduced them to very simple kumibo involving thrusting techniques. We trained until 7:00, then Sensei concluded the class with a question-and-answer session. I bowed everybody out. Kowa Chhe took over with the photo session. Outside, it was still relentlessly pouring. It was a long and treacherous drive home and I looked forward to seeing Sensei again the following week-end in San Francisco...

THE RBKD’S WEST COAST YAMANNI-RYU SEMINAR, OCT 14-16:

...Leaving rain-drenched, soggy New Jersey for sunny California was a relief, but going to San Francisco to train again with Oshiro sensei was heaven. Arriving at San Francisco’s airport on Friday afternoon, Oct 14, I briefly saw Sensei at the terminal as he was about to pick up Minakami sensei, a Shito-ryu instructor from Seattle.

Driving to San Mateo–where my hotel was located, in proximity to Sensei’s dojo–on Rte 101 was murder. It felt as if I had four flat tires, even though my rental car was a brand-new Corolla. Arnold definitely has to do something about this stretch of road.

Located on 25^th Avenue, the main shopping drag in town, Sensei’s dojo is a storefront that opens up into a warm, friendly waiting area replete with reading material and a seating arrangement that lets visitors and parents see into the matted training area through a glass window. When I walked in at 5:00 p.m., Sensei was teaching a Shorin-ryu karate seminar to a small group of students and instructors from the surrounding areas and as far away as Fresno and Seattle. They hail from different styles but all had one thing in common: they all came to learn from the most insightful and genial karate teacher I have ever known.

At 6:00, the karate session was over. I bowed in and went to change in the back of the dojo. At 6:30, a small group of us (about ten) gathered for the RBKD Instructors-only session. Sensei started with saijutsu; he went over the basics, standing and moving, pointing out what and how we should teach our students, and showing us what we ourselves should endeavor to do to move our weapons more efficiently. Afterwards, we trained on bojutsu; Sensei picked a difficult section from Shirataru kata and trained us on it repeatedly. We ended class at 8:00 p.m. and retired to a nearby Japanese restaurant for a fabulous, authentic, Japanese meal (the kind you don’t find in NJ.)

SATURDAY, OCT 15: Today’s open seminar took place in the familiar Japan Cultural Center on Sutter Avenue in San Francisco, smack-dab in the middle of Japantown. I arrived at 8:00 a.m., just in time to help Sensei and his students carry in boxes of equipment and other paraphernalia into the gym. We set up the reception tables and the refreshment area.

As the gym filled up with students and parents, I estimated between 25 and 30 participants had come, a third of whom were children between 9 and 16, many of them 3^rd generation Japanese.

Sensei called us to line up at 9:00 a.m. and had Sil Piccoletto, his most senior student, lead the warm-ups. Then he began with bojutsu. We went through the two basic katas, the Do-Nyu-no-kon forms; Sensei no longer broke down the steps and had us perform those katas in a smooth fashion. Next, he took us through Choun-no-kon/sho and dai. Beginners were relegated to his students Sil, Hide, and Al for help. In Ryu-bi-no-kon, Sensei covered the “dragon’s tail” whipping technique. To finish the session, he took the rest of us through Sakugawa-no-kon; he told me I jumped too high in the signature backward leap. We took a break at 10:30. Swinging a bo for an hour and a half is hard work.

Last evening, at dinner, Minakami sensei had expressed concern over the “accomodations” (meaning cookies and snacks available at break time) since Tomoko sensei (Mrs. Oshiro) was in Okinawa and therefore not around to supervise. However, Sil and Laurie had done pretty well, making a fresh, strong pot of coffee, sliced up oranges, provided pitchers of iced water and many plates of chocolate candy which lasted all day in spite of the many children.

We resumed, refreshed, with saijutsu. Sensei called on me to lead the sai basics; then he took the class through the two kihon katas, Kyan-no-sai, and Nakan Dakari. Satisfied with everybody’s performance, he introduced Kishaba-no-sai/sho. Finding that some students were not familiar with the kata, he gave them to me to teach.

At 12:00 noon, we stopped and broke for lunch. I went straight to my favorite noodle shop, Tampopo (named after a famous movie about a man in search of–the perfect noodle) and had some fabulous yaki soba (buckwheat noodles.) On this breezy, sunny afternoon, it was wonderful to be alive and in San Francisco.

I returned to the Cultural Center’s now empty gym for a cup of coffee and some quiet time. Soon the place filled up again and we got ready for the next item on the agenda: the Gusan. It’s the Okinawan name for a short stick (5 feet long) or cane; in Japanese martial arts such as Aikido, it’s known as the Jo. Sensei had introduced this weapon only last spring. He took everybody slowly through the short kata.

At 2:30, we stopped and Sensei broke up the class into three groups: one continued working on the Gusan kata, one he would lead through Kishaba-no-sai/dai, and the third he gave to me to take through Sakugawa-no-kon. After a while, he relieved me and let me practice the sai kata. He came by later, watched me and made corrections on a crucial section. Nothing feels better than being able to do something just right.

At 3:30, we prepared for kumibo. First, Sensei had Sil, Will Cho (from Fresno), and me hold the uchikomi bo (padded shinai) for the three lines of students to file through and strike. Next, we paired up and practiced some defensive kumibo techniques.

At 4:00, Sensei gathered everybody and conducted a question-and-answer session. We then lined up and bowed out.

I made plans with Sensei to bring him out to New Jersey mid-April next year and said my good-byes. I took a walk through the Japanese mall across the street and treated myself to two scoops of green tea ice cream. It doesn’t get any better than this.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MARCH: KURASHITA SENSEI IS COMING TO THE AAC THE WEEK OF MAR 6-12.

Kurashita hanshi, 9^th degree black belt, President of the Goju-ryu Kokusai Karate Kobudo Renmei (International Goju-ryu Karate Kobudo Federation) will be visiting us from Okinawa the week of Monday, March 5, through Sunday, March 12, for a week-long seminar.

Sensei’s teaching schedule will be as follows: Monday through Wednesday: 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 7:30 to 9:15 p.m. Friday: 10:00 a.m. to 12 :00 p.m. and 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. (Sensei would like to take time out on Thursday to visit New York City). Saturday and Sunday: 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., then 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. (These two seminar days will also be open to outsiders who wish to meet and train with Sensei.)

The week’s training fee is $200 (for full or partial training). Please try to make as many classes as you can, especially the daytime ones; those will be more like private lessons, so take advantage of them.

THE ANNUAL St JUDE HOSPITAL’S FUND-RAISER, WEEK OF MAR 13-17: We will be kicking off our 11^th annual fund-raiser for St Jude Children’s Hospital. As with previous years, students will be asking their parents, relatives, and family friends for pledges and train during the week to accumulate pledge-hours. Let’s try to beat last year’s high of $3,000!

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ANDY JAMES’S THE SPIRITUAL LEGACY OF SHAOLIN TEMPLE :

A book review and personal notes

by Sensei Tran

Andy James tackled a topic that very few authors have considered. Only three other writers have successfully linked Buddhism to martial arts: Trevor Leggett, with Zen and the Ways, Yuasa Yasuo, with The Body, Self-Cultivation, and Ki-Energy, and Nagaboshi Tomio (a.k.a. Terence Dukes), with The Bodhisattva Warriors. Mr. Leggett did a tremendous job of defining Zen and showing its pervasive influence in Japanese martial culture. Mr. Yuasa took a psychological and scientific approach and determined the psychic function of martial arts. Sifu Tomio dug up more material than anybody could think possible in his research into esoteric Buddhism and what came down to us as modern martial arts with a classical pedigree.

Mr. James does mention Dukes’s work in his book and, quite accurately, points out the one-sidedness of the latter’s view and conclusions.

Andy James has a very respectable background: a British subject from Guinea of Chinese ancestry, he got involved in karate in his youth, then went on to study Buddhism and Vipassana meditation. The involvement turned to passion; he next sought out, and trained with, the best Chinese Ch’uan-fa teachers of his time. Eventually, he abandoned a promising career as a corporate accountant for that of a meditation and T’ai Chi Ch’uan teacher in Toronto. His wife divorced him.

With his understanding of Buddhism and the Chinese internal arts, James is able to draw such pertinent conclusions as:

1. Indian Buddhism became Chinese Buddhism once Bodhidharma passed on the Dhyana tradition to his Chinese successor Hui-ke; it became Ch’an-na (later Zen in Japan.)

2. The Qigong exercises Bodhidharma taught at Shaolin influenced in no small degree the Taoist meditators who went on to develop the arts of T’ai Chi Ch’uan, Baguazhang, and Xingyiquan on Wu-dang mountain.

(James sees a blending of Buddhist and Taoist arts at this point. There is a blurring of “internal” and “external” arts.)

Earlier, James accused Terence Dukes of bias against the Taoist arts; here, he shows the reverse bias by leaning towards the notion that the Chinese internal arts represent the evolutionary ideals of the earlier Shaolin arts.

Because of his emphasis on the philosophical teachings of Buddhism and Taoism, James concentrates mainly on the health-promoting Qigong value of martial arts. And, regrettably, he identifies esoteric Buddhism almost exclusively with Tibetan Vajrayana.

The truth of the matter is, esoteric Buddhism developed in India quite early (3^rd century A.D.) and reached China in the 8^th century. In the 9^th century, it passed to the Japanese monk, Kobodaishi; the tradition became known as Shingon Buddhism in Japan. In many ways, Ch’an-na is sometimes regarded as a form of esoteric Buddhism also.

As James delves into his subject, it becomes apparent that the three internal arts (Taijiquan, Baguazhang, and Xingyiquan) were developed as the physical expressions of Taoism’s cosmological principles of the Taiji (the Yin/Yang concept of alternating extremes), the I-Ching (Book of Changes) and the Five Elements. Taijiquan exemplifies the first, Baguazhang the second, and Xingyiquan the third. The physical complements the ideological, demonstrates it formally, and imparts health and vigor to its adherents. The idea, and ideal, is to bring Taoism to life through the execution of its cosmological tenets in one’s own body.

Those who study those arts, then, either acquiesce to such tenets or seek to attain health and longevity through the embrace of those principles. In short, when you learn Taiji, Bagua, or Xingyi, you assume an understanding, or espousal, of the concepts of Qi (ch’i or ki), the evolution/involution of the yin-yang flux, the Eight Trigrams, and the Five Elements. Non-believers should abstain.

So then, the question remains, what is the rationale for learning and practicing the Buddhist arts, the Shaolin-based arts, represented today by many Shaolin forms and their Okinawan relative, karate?

Shaolin-based martial arts did not become extinct, neither did they change into Taoist arts (the way one theory promulgates that dinosaurs evolved into modern birds); there is no cosmological basis in Buddhist thought. And the Buddhists are not concerned with longevity. The only aim of Buddhism is to realize Awakening (thus becoming a Buddha) and ending the cycles of birth, death, and rebirth. Pugilism, as well as self-defense, are meaningless because of the prime directive of ahimsa (non-harming of living things); besides, what self is there to defend?

Esoteric Buddhism seems to provide the answers with its rituals of movement (mudras), invocations (dharani), and visualizations (dhyana) that help the practitioner realize his identity with the Essence Buddha (Mahavairocana) in his body during the process of performance. It is an identity of Body, Speech, and Mind that the practitioner achieves: the mudras are movements, actions, and gestures that characterize a particular Buddha’s emanation (or deity), the dharani his speech/Dharma, and the mental visualization of his being.

It is my fervent belief that the Buddhist esoteric rituals became the katas of karate. One witness to a Japanese Shingon ritual, sensei Gary Gabelhouse, wrote a very enlightening article (that you can view online at gojuryu.net) in which he describes the priest’s movements as nearly identical to a Goju-ryu kata. The priest, afterwards, helped him analyze his katas and explained the esoteric meaning of his techniques.

In his notes on Goju-ryu, Miyagi sensei himself said, “The hand position at the ending of Sanchin is the same as that of a Buddha statue.”^{^[1]}

Zenko Heshiki sensei, a 7^th dan teacher of Shorin-ryu karate and Zen priest at the Daihonzan Chozenji in Hawaii, had this to say about the katas of Goju-ryu and Buddhism: “Numeric symbolism is also present in the karate style known as Goju-ryu. The ultimate Goju-ryu kata, Suparimpei, literally means 108. The other Goju-ryu kata, Sanseru (meaning ‘36') and Seipai (meaning ‘18') are factors of the number 108. Keeping in mind that Buddhism originated in India and traveled to Japan through China, it should not be surprising to find Chinese symbols of the 108 Defilements.”

The Defilements referred to by Heshiki sensei are human proclivities to turn away from good and do evil. In the Buddhist view, they total 108. That’s 36 per each of the Three Worlds: the World of Desire, the World of Form, and the Formless World.

“Upon the exhaustion or elimination of the 108 Defilements through shugyo (the austere practice of bodymind transcendence), one enters a state of enlightenment...While zazen, or sitting meditation, is the most widely recognized form of shugyo, Karate itself can and should be practiced as a form of shugyo. Kata–the true essence of karate–represents steps to eliminate the 108 Defilements, thus leading to the state of enlightenment. Through the intense practice of kata, the student literally climbs the steps or strikes the temple bell of the Self.”^{^[2]}

Echoing my own understanding of the true translation of “karate”, Heshiki himself translates it not as “empty hand” as so many people are wont to do, but rather as “the hand which emanates from the Void,” indicating its spiritual Buddhist origin. Indeed, knowingly, Heshiki describes the dojo as “the place of enlightenment, the place of the Do or Tao or Way, the place where the mind and body are cultivated and come together.”

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WORDS TO LIVE BY:

–“What you do comes from what you think. When you are fearful, you have chosen wrongly. You must change your mind, not your behavior, and this is a matter of willingness. Change does not mean anything

at the symptom level, where it cannot work.”

A Course in Miracles

–“The mind is very powerful, and never loses its creative force. There are no idle thoughts. All thinking produces form at some level. You do not guard your thoughts carefully enough.”

Ibid.

–“Mindful attention causes beneficial thoughts that have not yet arisen to arise. It also causes harmful thoughts that have already arisen to vanish. In the one who is mindful, the good that is to be will be realized.’

The Buddha Speaks (excerpted from the Anguttara Nikaya)

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RECOMMENDED READING:

THE TRUE POWER OF WATER by Masaru Emoto, published by Beyond Words Publishing, Inc. 2005. After I saw the movie What the (Bleep) Do we Know? I hurried to check out Emoto’s books and his work as featured in the movie. This is simply the most sensational discovery of our lifetime! Imagine, water actually recognizes our thoughts, positive as well as negative, and reacts accordingly! The pictures that Emoto takes of water crystals after they have been exposed to words, music, or images are absolutely incredible. Now just think: this planet is mostly water, and our bodies are also mostly water...What are our thoughts like? Are we influencing the liquids in our body the correct way, or the negative way? You’ll be stunned after you read this book (and his other books) and you’ll see things in a very different way. There’s hope yet.

^{^[1]}Memories of My Sensei, Chojun Miyagi by Genkai Nakaima