Bubishi

 

Video Message from Iain Abernethy re: Coronavirus

From Iain Abernethy:




Considering current world events, martial arts are not that important in the great scheme of things. However, they do matter to martial artists! They are part of your identity and a major part of your lifestyle. For some, martial arts are also your profession and how you provide for the needs of your family.


In these abnormal times, anything we can do to maintain any sense of “normality” will be good for us physically and mentally. We martial artists seek to develop an indomitable will and to rise to challenges. We are also a strong community who seek to support our brothers and sisters in arms. In these challenging times, I’d like to share a few thoughts that I hope our community will find useful.


 This video is about:


1) What students can do to keep training and progressing
2) What instructors can do to help students keep learning and progressing
3) What students can do to help instructors
4) What professional instructors can do to help deal with current financial difficulties and prepare for future growth.


You’re not alone. We are all in this together.


All the best,
Iain


IMPORTANT: This video contains no information about the virus itself. I am a martial arts instructor and I know to keep in my lane. For that side of things, my strong advice is to follow the official guidance in your locality. Ignore the musings of the unqualified, the ill-informed, the triumphantly complacent and the hysterically unhelpful.

Breathing Exercise

Sorry if Jesse Enkamp bothers anyone, but his stuff is always good.  In this video, he describes a breathing exercise that is rather simple, but gets your body and your brain working together to achieve what he calls "peak performance," also known as optimum output.  If you have ever had a cramp in your side from running or doing any type of cardiovascular exercise, that is your diaphragm telling you it does not like how you are trying to use it! 


This exercise does not require any space or special equipment, so it is easy to do just about anywhere, perfect for out mandated stay-at-home world.

When Coronavirus closes the dojo...

While we who study Karate-do appreciate Chinese influence on our martial arts, we do not take so kindly to a Chinese virus that closes our dojos and forces us to train elsewhere!  For many of us, a closed dojo means we will have to suspend training altogether.  Of course, Jesse Enkamp has produced a short video to help keep your body, mind, and spirit going in the direction of the Karate way:

Iron and the Soul, by Henry Rollins

The following is an essay by Henry Rollins, (the last) lead vocalist of the punk band Black Flag.  This story is about his life as an adolescent finding purpose, confidence, and resilience through physical training.  I wish I had a Mr. Pepperman in my life when I was at that age!  I have found that training in Karate-do has the same sort of effect as what Mr. Rollins calls the Iron.

"I believe that the definition of definition is reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself.


Completely.


When I was young I had no sense of myself. All I was, was a product of all the fear and humiliation I suffered. Fear of my parents. The humiliation of teachers calling me “garbage can” and telling me I’d be mowing lawns for a living. And the very real terror of my fellow students. I was threatened and beaten up for the color of my skin and my size. I was skinny and clumsy, and when others would tease me I didn’t run home crying, wondering why. I knew all too well. I was there to be antagonized. In sports I was laughed at. A spaz. I was pretty good at boxing but only because the rage that filled my every waking moment made me wild and unpredictable. I fought with some strange fury. The other boys thought I was crazy.


I hated myself all the time. As stupid at it seems now, I wanted to talk like them, dress like them, carry myself with the ease of knowing that I wasn’t going to get pounded in the hallway between classes. Years passed and I learned to keep it all inside. I only talked to a few boys in my grade. Other losers. Some of them are to this day the greatest people I have ever known. Hang out with a guy who has had his head flushed down a toilet a few times, treat him with respect, and you’ll find a faithful friend forever. But even with friends, school sucked. Teachers gave me hard time. I didn’t think much of them either.


Then came Mr. Pepperman, my advisor. He was a powerfully built Vietnam veteran, and he was scary. No one ever talked out of turn in his class. Once one kid did and Mr. P. lifted him off the ground and pinned him to the blackboard. Mr. P. could see that I was in bad shape, and one Friday in October he asked me if I had ever worked out with weights. I told him no. He told me that I was going to take some of the money that I had saved and buy a hundred-pound set of weights at Sears. As I left his office, I started to think of things I would say to him on Monday when he asked about the weights that I was not going to buy. Still, it made me feel special. My father never really got that close to caring. On Saturday I bought the weights, but I couldn’t even drag them to my mom’s car. An attendant laughed at me as he put them on a dolly.


Monday came and I was called into Mr. P.’s office after school. He said that he was going to show me how to work out. He was going to put me on a program and start hitting me in the solar plexus in the hallway when I wasn’t looking. When I could take the punch we would know that we were getting somewhere. At no time was I to look at myself in the mirror or tell anyone at school what I was doing. In the gym he showed me ten basic exercises. I paid more attention than I ever did in any of my classes. I didn’t want to blow it. I went home that night and started right in.


Weeks passed, and every once in a while Mr. P. would give me a shot and drop me in the hallway, sending my books flying. The other students didn’t know what to think. More weeks passed, and I was steadily adding new weights to the bar. I could sense the power inside my body growing. I could feel it.


Right before Christmas break I was walking to class, and from out of nowhere Mr. Pepperman appeared and gave me a shot in the chest. I laughed and kept going. He said I could look at myself now. I got home and ran to the bathroom and pulled off my shirt. I saw a body, not just the shell that housed my stomach and my heart. My biceps bulged. My chest had definition. I felt strong. It was the first time I can remember having a sense of myself. I had done something and no one could ever take it away. You couldn’t say sh–t to me.


It took me years to fully appreciate the value of the lessons I have learned from the Iron. I used to think that it was my adversary, that I was trying to lift that which does not want to be lifted. I was wrong. When the Iron doesn’t want to come off the mat, it’s the kindest thing it can do for you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, it wouldn’t teach you anything. That’s the way the Iron talks to you. It tells you that the material you work with is that which you will come to resemble. That which you work against will always work against you.


It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can’t be as bad as that workout.


I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain is not my enemy; it is my call to greatness. But when dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain correctly. Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you’re not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and self-control.


I have never met a truly strong person who didn’t have self-respect. I think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off as self-respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on someone’s shoulders instead of doing it yourself. When I see guys working out for cosmetic reasons, I see vanity exposing them in the worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for imbalance and insecurity. Strength reveals itself through character. It is the difference between bouncers who get off strong-arming people and Mr. Pepperman.


Muscle mass does not always equal strength. Strength is kindness and sensitivity. Strength is understanding that your power is both physical and emotional. That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart.


Yukio Mishima said that he could not entertain the idea of romance if he was not strong. Romance is such a strong and overwhelming passion, a weakened body cannot sustain it for long. I have some of my most romantic thoughts when I am with the Iron. Once I was in love with a woman. I thought about her the most when the pain from a workout was racing through my body.


Everything in me wanted her. So much so that sex was only a fraction of my total desire. It was the single most intense love I have ever felt, but she lived far away and I didn’t see her very often. Working out was a healthy way of dealing with the loneliness. To this day, when I work out I usually listen to ballads.


I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me. Learning about what you’re made of is always time well spent, and I have found no better teacher. The Iron had taught me how to live. Life is capable of driving you out of your mind. The way it all comes down these days, it’s some kind of miracle if you’re not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. They are no longer whole.


I see them move from their offices to their cars and on to their suburban homes. They stress out constantly, they lose sleep, they eat badly. And they behave badly. Their egos run wild; they become motivated by that which will eventually give them a massive stroke. They need the Iron Mind.


Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind.


The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.


The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.


https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/henry-rollins-iron-and-soul/

Wash Your Gi

Class is over, you change out of your gi and stuff it in your bag, leaving the dojo until the next class.  You don't feel like doing laundry that night, and maybe sensei went a little easier than normal on the class so you did not sweat that much.  Your gi will be fine until the next class!  You do this a few times, it becomes more of a habit than not, and then you start to wonder why your gi smells like roadkill wearing dirty gym socks. 


Bacteria are on everything.  The roadkill gym sock smelling bacteria thrive in a warm, moist environment, a.k.a. the skin of your body, and must be washed off regularly in the bath or shower.  Your gi picks up this bacteria along with sweat, body oils, and dead skin cells that you produce when you exercise.  When you take off your gi and stuff it in your bag, not only is the bacteria and its food present on your gi, the moisture from your sweat does not get a chance to evaporate, creating the perfect environment for bacterial reproduction.    








Of course, most of us do not have access to a drying cabinet, so we hang our gi to dry.  You should use heavyweight hangers, as a gi made of 12oz cotton is pretty heavy when it is wet.  Heavy hangers for your gi are definately worth the investment.  I have an antique hanger from an old defunct cleaners for my jacket.  It is essentially a heavy wooden dowel curved into a bow shape with a stout steel hook for the hanging part.  I hang the pants on a separate hanger with clips.  Slapping and straightening the gi after it comes out of the was makes it much easier to fold.  We do a lot of line drying at my house, so I have a garment rack that I hang my wet gi on. 


While we are on the subject of caring for your gi, properly folding your gi after it is washed and dried will give you at least the physical appearance of knowing what you are doing, even if you do not.  This might not be so important in day-to-day class at the dojo, but for a test, especially before the national board, you want to put your best foot forward.  Imagine how it looks (and smells) to a test board to be evaluating someone in a dirty, rumpled gi!  A neat and clean appearance conveys one's humility and respect for others that all true martial artists strive to embody.  An added bonus to folding your clean gi properly:  it turns into a neat compact bundle that fits easily into your bag.








Think of folding your gi as a mental preparation for your next class.  This is what people who practice Iaido (drawing and cutting with a katana, or "iaito" as it is called) do when they fold the hakama, which are the multi pleated skirt-like pants that are worn in that art.  You are making a cognitive shift to focus only on the task presently before you, which is what we are doing during "mokutso," the silent meditation before class begins. 


Folding the Karate gi is so much easier than folding a hakama.  Check this out:






Clean body (and clothing), clean mind...

For Those About to Test...

Testing for rank promotion is stressful, especially if you are going before the National Test Board at the Honbu Dojo.  They even have a bucket standing by for those who are unable to, well, keep it inside.  Visualization and positive energy are the keys to keeping your stress emotions in check.


Jesse Enkamp explains how to do this here.

Okinawan Diet

From Karate by Jesse, a.k.a, The Karate Nerd.

If you want to maintain good health into old age, be more Okinawan. That is, practice karate, and eat a diet low in calories but high in nutrition.  And remember "hara hachi bu."

Hara what?  Read more here:

https://www.karatebyjesse.com/the-karate-diet/