In the historical perspective, a key factor of a nation being able to enjoy a healthy growth has been to maintain culture in one hand and martial arts in the other hand. That is, maintaining both of the above was critical in governing a nation. – Shoshin Nagamine
Karate and Nuclear War Read More »
We train. Because we cannot predict when we will face a powerful, devious enemy. Or what it will take to prevail.
John Boyd and Musashi Miyamoto did not triumph in their quest for mastery by seeking approval from strangers. They trained diligently, relentlessly, seeking knowledge everywhere and anywhere they could find it, tested it thoroughly and applied it assiduously.
Loyalty and Integrity Read More »
…we flow through postures to meet changing conditions. Like the course of a river, or a rope in the air. In this sense there are no postures…
If we treat the kata as fetishes, as objects possessing magic powers, as if they could confer mastery on their own, just by knowing them, then they fail in their purpose.
The use of instant reversals and deceptive maneuver, what Boyd called fast transients, is a staple of the combative technique of throwing and grappling arts. This essential tactic is built in to all of our karate techniques. It has not been fully grasped.
From my book True Karate Dō: The time to decide what your life is worth is now. If you wait it will be too late. The world is changing. Everyone knows it. We try to stay on familiar ground. We try to orient like we always have. We hope the world we knew will come back.
Urgency in True Karate Dō Read More »
One difference between the natural world and the virtual world is that in the natural world you are somewhere. You can be there and do something. You can stay where you are, or go somewhere else. That may be obvious. But it may not be obvious that in the virtual world you are never anywhere.
Farm Raised or Wild Read More »
Walking home, late at night, you hear something behind you. A sound, unexpected, out of place. Pulling up to your house, in the driveway, in the dark. Something looks wrong. The window shade never looks half-open like that. Or the front door is not quite closed. Someone you know well says something, casually, that seems
Miyamoto Musashi lived in turbulent times. He sharpened his sword-fighting skills at the great battle of Sekigahara, in sixty duels and ceaseless training for single combat. Later, living alone in a cave, he wrote the Book of Five Rings. His story is legendary. His example of the traditional virtues of courage, skill and integrity retold in novels
Is “Nothing” Sacred? Read More »
Posted by Jeffrey Brooks, Mountain Karate We love our training. We know what it is, and what we get from it. Not everyone does. So from time to time, we run into people who criticize karate. They say it is not as aggressive as this martial art, not as esoteric as that martial art, not
The Best Martial Art Read More »
Our karate is for everyone who wants to do it. Not just for a few competitors, not just for unusual people who are dedicating their lives to the pursuit of a martial arts ideal. We do have some amazing athletes in our style. We have a few who are dedicated practitioners, aspiring at a very
Karate as Life Skill Read More »
Researcher Steven Kotler writing in the Harvard Business Review, listed four conditions that produce a flow state – intense concentration, goal clarity, feedback as to how well you are doing, and a properly matched challenge to skills ratio. We use these continually in martial arts training. If the challenge level is set lower than the
The science of high-performance – of advanced states of body and mind known as “Flow” – confirms what we discover in traditional karate training: Training the hara is essential to effective martial arts. In one sense the “hara” refers to the center of the body – our center of gravity, the center of our energy.
We generally train using a single-combat model. That is a challenge. Size matters. So do skill, speed, determination and defiance. To engage multiple opponents, to be outnumbered and surrounded, is much harder. We can’t just figure we will know what to do. It is possible to take an advantageous position, moving to stack the opponents,
