Recently I discussed one of our Okinawan karate katas with a student, called Gojushiho (meaning 54 steps) which is a denomination of 108. I decided to do some research and I learned that it’s meaning had something to do with the number 108.  It’s said that all Buddhist temples have 108 steps, or walks of 2 sets of 54, or 3 sets of 36.  Interestingly they will be a denomination of 108. 

These 108 steps represent the 108 defilements, or character flaws which Buddhist practitioners try to identify and refine in their lives. These come later in the practice of Buddhism, after learning the Four Noble Truth and Eightfold path.  I will leave you, the reader to type 108 Defilements into a search engine and read them for yourself, since time and space don’t permit me the luxury of listing them all in this post.

Buddhism spread from India, to China and Okinawa / Japan.  The famous Shaolin Temple was Buddhist and the school of Shorin comes from the word Shaolin.  T’ai Chi Ch’uan has routines that consist of 108 movements.  There are also 108 major pressure points to be found in Chinese medicine.  Hmm?

Interestingly, Shorin Ryu karate portrays these ideas, embodied within the name of the kata.  It’s a curious propensity of Asian Martial Arts Masters, some also having been practitioners of Buddhism, to hide meanings within not only the application, or breakdown of a kata, but also right in your face – in this case the name of the kata Gojushiho, itself. 

This may be done to remind one of the Buddhist ancestral roots of the kata that they are performing and perhaps cause a student in future generations to pause and ask “What am I doing?  What exactly does this mean?”

It was a long time in coming but I managed to swing a sweet deal on a new Spyderco Police tactical folder. It has a VG10 grade, steel blade of almost 4.5 inches, housed in a fully steel lined grip with G10 scales (grips). 

This material is very sticky to the hand and doesn’t come dislodged from one’s hand easily. G10 is the newest and best scale material and makes Zytel and other polymers feel chintzy by comparison.

As an Eskrima / Escrima practitioner, I love the feel of a quality blade in my hand. After a firearm or a baton, the knife is your last “weapon” in a layered self defense carry package.

Of course, there are still martial arts skills behind the blade, but if you need the edge, then the Spyderco Police model affords you a formidable and lethal self defense option.

The knife comes with drilled out holes for left or right hand, tip-up or tip-down carry.  Spyderco’s signature, large 1/2 inch deployment hole in the blade is extremely easy to use by comparison to a thumb-stud.

Mine locks up tight in the vertical or horizontal directions like a bank vault. The blade is flat ground and wickedly, razor sharp.  It’s ideal for both slashing techniques and with the gimping on the blade and contoured G10 handle, very safe for hard thrusts as well.

Having such a long blade this knife affords plenty of room on the handle for use as an impact or kubotan striking device, whether open or closed.

Finally, it has a lock-back with a small depression to insure that a tight grip is not going to accidentally release the blade’s locking mechanism.  A very well made, safe knife for last ditch tactical self defense carry.  I love it, but then again I love all well made knives!

I recently got involved in a heated discussion with a few guys.  We discussed traditional martial arts and their value, or lack thereof, as battle proven systems.

I mentioned the Boxers of China, who used kung fu, the broadsword and other weapons. They scoffed at the fact, and pointed out that they were simply killed with bullets.

But were they all?  With all things being equal – ancient weaponry such as flintlocks, knives and such, would the Boxers have fared well?  I believe yes, they would have.

Is the mastery of Karate or Kung Fu useless in battle?  I’d like your comments if you stumble into this post and have a minute to give your opinions. 

I plan on continuing my discussion with the original gentlemen that I mentioned above and would like other’s input to bring to the table.

It is a privilege to have had the luxury of 36 years of formal martial arts training.  I encounter so many people that are bound up in fear, who for can’t fully express themselves in every facet of life.  I thought about this for awhile and in every case the barriers in most people’s lives are fear based.

I was very much the same in my youth but after my first few years of karate training, I noticed that I was becoming more extroverted and carefree.  It became very clear to me that I wasn’t afraid of much anymore.  Even as a young man, I would hold my tongue about various things, not venturing to voice my opinions or behaving in certain ways for fear of some type of negative response from others.

Martial Arts have given me a deeper understanding of myself, how I see the world and how to interact with other people. I see the martial arts philosophy in operation in every facet of my life. In my thoughts, my opinions, my way of performing tasks and even the most mundane routines that exist in my life. There exists humility, respect, order, creativity, symmetry and balance in life.

I see this as a result of a life spent, devoted to the pursuit of various martial arts arts. I highly recommend martial arts for personal self defense, naturally and to build one’s self-esteem, and live without fear.  But even more than that, as a method or way to approach life’s hurdles with confidence and to enjoy the challenge of living life without fear.

I’d like to post regarding a Shorin Ryu karate practitioner who I feel not only teaches solid traditional karate but also displays great devotion to martial arts and to the students that have passed through the doors of his dojo.

Mark Day, owns and operates the Academy of Traditional Martial Arts, located at 118 West Main St. South Amherst, Ohio. Mr. Day is highly skilled in both Okinawan karate and Chinese Kung fu. Whether it’s Sensei Mark or Sifu Mark – either title denotes his stature as a highly skilled teacher of Japanese and Chinese martial arts.

Mark has devoted himself to martial arts since his early teen years and has never stopped training with top-notch Instructors in the “greater Cleveland Ohio” area. If you enter his website which is linked above, you can find his lineage, which outlines his journey in the pursuit of martial arts expertise and diversity.

We share the honor of being students of Master William C. Duncan, who currently resides in North Carolina. Master Duncan is an 8th Degree Black Belt in Shorin Ryu Karate and is a 5th Generation Master Instructor of Yang Ch’eng-fu T’ai Chi Ch’uan, Sun Lu Tang Hsing-I and Pa Kua Ch’uan.

It’s been my pleasure, on many occasions to “hang out” with Mark at various tournament competitions, ceremonies, promotion boards, and recognition festivities. I’ve also been a guest at his dojos for scheduled classes, personal training sessions and various karate related functions. Mark Day is the “real deal” and it’s always been a lot of fun to spend time with him training, or just talking about martial arts.

Mark Day’s students always perform very well in competitions including forms (Kung Fu and Karate), weaponry and free-fighting. Students range from youngsters to adults older than Mr. Day, and they all show great progress as well as a recognizable fondness for their teacher. This is, no doubt prompted by the great care that he takes in nurturing each student regardless of their age or skill level.

Mr. Day actively competes when he’s so inclined and never fails to place highly in the top levels of martial arts competitions. He has won many competitions more recently, but a very notable showing was at the “Arnold Classic Martial Arts Festival” in Columbus, Ohio, held on March 2nd, 3rd & 4th, 2007.  This annual event draws thousands of competitors and spectators from the body building, athletic and martial arts communities and is hosted by the Governor of California himself.
 
Having received his 5th Dan in Shorin Ryu karate in November 2006, Mark entered the Masters’ Divisions (ages 36-50) in breaking and forms.  In very rigorous contention with Nationally and Internationally recognized masters, Mark placed third in breaking and won silver medals in Southern Chinese empty hands forms and weapons forms, demonstrating Toy Gar technique.

There are many people that I’ve encountered in 36+ years of formal, martial arts training and teaching. Mark is one of the few, that are at the top of my short list of martial arts pals. His dedication to perfecting his arts, the quality of his performance, and the ability to instruct others, are all top notch.

There’s lots of good reasons to recommend a karateka like Shihan Mark. After putting all of his qualifications aside, he’s a down to earth, easy to know person, who never puts on “airs” and is always open-minded. He’s a lot of fun in training sessions and a guy you can just sit down and shoot the breeze with.

If you’re looking for a martial arts training center in the Cleveland OH. area that offers a wide variety of traditional martial arts with a great atmosphere and instruction – then by all means stop and visit Mark Day at the Academy of Traditional Martial Arts!

First, as in a new TV series, I think it’s really cool that people keep on experimenting with this stuff. Today we have convenient and high quality self defense products that are available at affordable prices. In past centuries 98% of these were not even invented and certainly none, in their modern form.

Some of us martial arts practitioners were discussing this stuff and the topic shifted to karate and agricultural implements against the katana or rattan sticks against Spanish swords. The destructive ability of someone with many years of martial arts training is truly a formidable factor to consider in anydiscussion of this sort.

One guy related:

I was thinking about Okinawan weapons and how they really couldn’t be very good against a Samurai with a katana. So – I got all of my stuff out – sword (hair splittingly sharp) and all Okinawan weapons and waiting for my son to get home and swing the sword at me and see what would transpire.

I was able to easily defend myself with all weapons (at training speed, reduced for “live” blades). The best to worst were: Eskrima sticks, (nunchaku – weren’t tested due to lack of control issues but my guess is #2), sais and kama I experienced extreme timing issues to get metal on metal deflections, the tonfa was miserable to handle, I couldn’t find a block that wouldn’t risk a “cut-through” and death but my son suggested that I hold them upside down – so I did and they worked much better with the t-handle as a hand protector – but still kind of lame.

We figured that even basic agricultural weapons were better than none, given the plight of the Okinawan farmers against trained Samurai. Plus, we deduced that the Samurai – would be closing more distance and swinging at speeds, that were some crazy exponential of the speeds we were using. Also, we realized quickly, that I was able to avoid getting hurt by sheer virtue of years and years of training compared to my son taking one step and a soft swing (with a mind for pulling it) if things went wrong on my end. All the while realizing – that a Samurai would keep coming like a Tasmanian Devil. I feel like Angel Cabales may have been right on, in saying: “give my opponent an 18 ft spear and I will defeat him with 18 inches of rattan.”

Our Instructor weighed in at this point and gave us some more food for thought:

Naturally, your ability weighs heavily when you try primitive weapons against an armed, unskilled person or your student for example, even when he has a katana in his hands. BUT…..the same thing was true in Okinawa 200 – 300 years ago. A young hotshot samurai, even trained from childhood, unexpectedly finding himself in a life or death fight with a 30 year karate man with a stout set of kama or sais. He could have gotten his ass handed to him, and anyone seeing it would have remembered it and talked about it. And that’s how karate got its serious reputation.

He went on to relate – “I recall doing sai training with a 2nd Dan when I was a 4th or 5th. We did drills back and forth for a half hour or so, in a room full of other black belts, under the direction of our Master Instructor. First, one guy would attack and the other defend, across the room, and then we would trade roles. At the end of the half hour I was dismayed to see that my training partner was badly marked up all over his forearms because his blocks had been off just enough, often enough, for my sais to tag him. I hadn’t been touched. I’m not mentioning this to brag, but to point out the difference, a decade or so of training makes. If we’d been defending against a sword, he would have died. I wouldn’t have.

This was just my observation, and I would NEVER minimize the seriousness of going up against a live blade, particularly something like a katana in trained hands.”

So, the consensus was that in absence of guns, Tasers, stun guns and such – Martial Arts training is definitely of great value for self defense in any situation.

Dana White has made put MMA on the map and brought MMA into mainstream fighting sports and he’s obviously a great businessman. I do have a beef about him though – he appears to be a very fickle boss to work for. Yesterday’s heroes are today’s dog-meat and Dana White will be right up front and say so in interviews.

I may be out of order (chronologically) but first he was mean spirited in his remarks that “Tito Ortiz isn’t a fighter” and that he was unfocused and basically finished in the UFC. C’mon Dana, Tito Ortiz is a warrior and one of the most focused and conditioned fighters that steps into the Octagon. So, he wants to pursue some acting, or wants a raise and you respond that you’re “not in the Tito Ortiz business?”  Shame on you for treating your assets and your fighter’s fan bases so rudely! Just type in “Dana White Tito Ortiz” in the search box at Google or YouTube and listen to the disrespect yourself.

Dana White needs a bigger hat size IMHO, because his head is getting so big, calling Tito “the rocket scientist” and “the genius” sarcastically because Tito isn’t his “boy” aymore and wants t call some of his own shots in life.

Then he was “amping” on Randy Couture about not defending his title and dodging contenders to wait for an easier opponent. That seemed to straighten itself out as Randy retired from the UFC, obviously disgruntled but non-specific as to what exactly went down but now he’s returned and won the heavyweight belt back again only to lose to newcomer Brock Lesnar.

My latest peeve is that Mr. White, has formed some sort of little vendetta deal, sponsoring the U.K vs.USA which is admittedly good for business. What better than to cash in on the rivalry that’s older than the hills – the USA throwing off the yoke of British rule.  We are allies of course, but there’s always a little extra something when it’s the UK vs. the USA in any competition.  Dana White, finding a good young fighter with a gift for gab in Michael Bisping, has started his latest season with Bisping as a coach of the UK Team.

I find this annoying since Bisping is a decent fighter that Dana White won’t promote in a fight against anyone of top notch caliber.  I mean he’s had tons of fights put all seem to be hand picked for Bisping to win.  How long do you groom a guy or maybe protect him, I should say?  Long enough to keep the ratings up I guess.  Bisping has many more fights than others who have been in title fights already, but his grooming (protection) has gone on long enough. It’s embarrassing!  Put him in with Forrest Griffin, Anderson Silva or Kendall Grove and let’s see him fight somebody to warrant his appearance as Team Coach on the weekly “Ultimate Fighter” program.

C’mon Dana I’ve been a fan since Rorion Gracie promoted the 1st UFC card and although you’ve done a good job, lately you seem to be getting a little flaky and transparent in this fan’s eyes.  Straighten up and fly right dude and I’ll put my hands together for you again, like I used to!

Out of the few disciplines of martial arts I’ve studied over the years, my favorite for it’s simplicity and ease in learning, is stick and blade fighting – called Eskrima.  It is a very deadly knife fighting art. 
 
We train with sticks and live blades (dull if you have a training partner). I think many of the guys that carry a fancy tactical folding knife think they’re bad-asses because they have this knife or that knife. Boy, they don’t even have a clue what a knife fight is all about.
 
I pick a gun first, a 22″ to 24″ stick second and a knife third for deadly weapons.  A stick defeats a blade, a gun defeats a stick or a knife.
 
Angel Cabales was once quoted as saying “give my opponent an 18 foot spear, give me an 18″ piece of rattan and I will defeat him every time.”  He fought in many death matches in his long life, before his passing.  I have been able to train under a 3rd generation student of his for quite awhile and under the student of another FMA Master as well.

I don’t think you can find another martial art that is more natural and simple to learn the basics of the system. It’s easy to swing a stick or blade and once the footwork and drills are learned, as well as the many nuances of this system of fighting, you can consider yourself “well armed” with only a short stick or a knife.

A fellow student/practitioner who is a highly ranked karate expert, asked my teacher some questions regarding transformations into the study and practice of the traditional Internal Systems of Chinese Martial Arts.  A correspondence ensued that I would like to share with you, since I find it to be of value and very informative:

“The way I was taught Tai Chi, you don’t dwell on flow and chi and so forth when learning the routines.  You concentrate on making each posture correctly in terms of body alignments, timing and positioning.  If this sounds external, it is.  We first work to make the outward structure exactly correct.  And you are doing that pretty well.  When I said previously that I would make a few corrections if we were face to face, I meant primarily corrections to form.
 
Chinese Internal martial arts develop in three stages:  First, correct external form.  Second, correct internal energy and flow.  Third, it transforms into shen, or spirit.  Many people think it’s all about chi and never get the form right.  This is like trying to push water through a kinked hose.  You really have to be in front of a competent teacher to get all the alignments right (”get the kinks out of the hose”).  A couple of rules to follow, once you are exactly copying correct form, are to 1) Try to relax everything that doesn’t need to be tense.  This means that you consciously, over a long time, learn to feel the tension in your body and release it if you don’t need it to make the posture.  2)  If one thing moves, everything moves.  This means that you develop exact timing, and that every movement involves your entire body;  you never just move an arm or a leg, for instance.
 
The transformation from the first stage (external form) to the second stage (energy and flow) happens when you practice very correct form while consciously working on relaxing everything that doesn’t need to be tense and moving everything when anything moves.  You become aware of your energy moving, and this eventually becomes the driving force of your practice:  you feel it from the inside out, and the energy inside drives the external body.  It’s kind of like a water balloon, with the internal pressure of the water altering the external shape of the balloon as you apply different pressures to it.  The water pressure is the energy, or chi, the balloon itself is your external body, and your hands changing the shape of the balloon is your mind.
 
Martially, if you develop this, all of your technique is unified and never segmented, as is usually the case with hard styles.  When you hit somebody, the force comes from the floor and is routed out through your hand through correct alignments and timing and lack of extra tensions that would break up the power waveform.  You get out of your own way and let the energy come out.
 
So, there it is in theory.  Working with somebody who knows how to do all this can quickly help you to reach good results.  Frankly, it’s almost impossible to develop this without somebody showing you how. I hope this helps!”

My Shorin Ryu Karate and T’ai Chi Ch’uan teacher is William C. Duncan, who currently resides in North Carolina. He is an 8th Degree Black Belt in Shorin Ryu Karate and is a 5th Generation Master Instructor of Yang Ch’eng-fu T’ai Chi Ch’uan, Sun Lu Tang Hsing-I and Pa Kua Ch’uan. 

Master Duncan is also an accomplished author and has received rave reviews for his last novel, a fictional work, based on a notorious Hispanic Gang that rules the drug trade flowing into our country.  I’d highly recommend getting a copy of his book: “Six-Gun Two-Step” and enjoying it’s super-charged story line, while learning about the methods of modern drug gangs in the process.  I couldn’t put it down!