MIZU NO KOKORO

 by Phillip Starr

Back when I trained in karate, my teacher mentioned the phrase, “mizu no kokoro”... This is a Japanese expression that means, “mind like water.” What exactly did he mean when he said this? Oddly enough, it was my gong-fu teacher, W. C. Chen, who explained it me.

“In a fight your mind must be still, like the smooth surface of water in a pond”, he said. It (the unbroken water) is like a mirror and will clearly reflect what is placed in front of it. Thoughts and emotions are like pebbles and stones tossed into the water; they cause ripples, which distort what you see.”

He told me that ANY emotion, anger as well as joy, can cause such ripples. Extreme anger or fear is akin to dropping a small boulder into the pond; they do more than just create ripples and subsequent distortions... they create WAVES that are almost blinding!

How is the mind to be calm during a frightening and/or very tense situation? The answer can be summed up in one word...TRAINING! Realistic, traditional training. Learning to breathe correctly and maintaining breath control under stress is also key. There are those who espouse the “lizard brain” theory, saying that in times of extreme stress we lose fine motor control and so on and on, ad nauseum. Let me state for the record that this undesirable effect is to be overcome through regular, repeated training. I know. I've been there. More than once. More than twice... If one does not train regularly or repeatedly, certainly the undesirable “lizard-brain” theory comes into play.

THE MARTIAL PATH

 by Phillip Starr

Traveling the martial path is a lifetime endeavor. Many travelers anxiously seek the end of it and believe that they'll finally reach its end and become “enlightened” and understand it all. In time, one realizes that THE JOURNEY IS THE DESTINATION. The path is very long and to travel it requires a lifetime. There actually is no end to the path, no final point on a mountaintop somewhere that is inhabited by sages.

The path is not an easy one to tread. In some places it is wide but it becomes very narrow in others. It is filled with stones – some small and some large, pitfalls, overgrown thorny bushes, beautiful open fields, and precipices. Of course, to avoid many of the obstacles it's necessary to follow one who has been there before. That's your teacher; he/she can show you where many of the nastier obstacles lay and help you avoid them but you're certain to stumble across a number of them anyway. It's just the nature of the journey.

Many travelers will give up and go back the way they came after running into some of the obstacles and pitfalls. Each snag and drawback has a name. These include frustration, discouragement, anger, jealousy, fear, pride, and so on. There's always a way to keep moving forward. There isn't a single hindrance that cannot be overcome if one is determined and one's spirit is strong. The martial way isn't for the weak of heart. It's certainly not for everyone.

Your instructor can encourage and guide you and show you where to go and how to avoid some of the hazards that lie unseen, But you're the one who must walk the walk; no one else can do it for you.

And you're never too old, too experienced, too skillful, or too knowledgeable to avoid every difficulty. It's important to remember that.

MARTIAL ARTS IN TWO PARTS

 by Phillip Starr

When I teach seminars I often tell the participants that any given martial art can be divided into two parts, each of which must be studied in minute detail and trained thoroughly. If they acquire great skill in one but not the other, their ability to effectively apply their skill is almost zilch. So I'd like to look at these two halves of the martial arts pie....

The first is the development of effective weapons. There's more to this half than simply learning HOW to perform individual techniques. Every aspect of the technique has to be studied, practiced, and polished. And the weapons must be tempered and strengthened. You might become very skilled insofar as performing sword techniques with a plastic practice sword but you surely wouldn't even dream of battling an opponent with such a “weapon!” And in grappling arts it's easy to neglect some of the less obvious but crucially important aspects of your technique such as your grip (EXACTLY how is it to be done and can you do it with much speed?) and kuzushi (breaking the opponent's balance just prior to executing the throw).

For percussive arts, the bodily weapons MUST be tempered. You wouldn't want to walk into battle with a sword that hasn't been tempered, would you? The individual techniques by which your bodily weapons are delivered to the target must be perfected as much as possible, too.

The second half of the pie is what I call the “delivery system”; how do you penetrate the opponent's defense perimeter (without losing some of your molars) so that you can effectively deliver your technique? If your technique is strong but you lack an efficient means of delivery, they're useless. At the same time, if your delivery system is effective but your technique is lacking and the enemy simply stands there and asks if that's the best you've got, you're in a really bad spot. There is a technical martial arts term for what happens to you at this point; you become DOGMEAT.

The methods by which you deliver your technique must be studied carefully and practiced regularly. This will require the careful study of what I call the “Three Jewels of Combat”; distance, timing, and rhythm. These are thoroughly covered in my book, MARTIAL MANEUVERS. You must develop a high level of skill with your footwork, body shifting, and other similar methods of moving.

Neither of the two – weapons and delivery system - is more important than the other; they are both essential for a martial art to be effective. Sadly, many martial arts schools focus primarily on only one of these things (usually the development of weapons) and then toss students into the practice of sparring! Small wonder that many of them don't fare too well (particularly when they practice with students of other schools) and may become discouraged with their training. Some schools only lightly touch on the subject of the delivery system, believing that the practice of three-step and one-step fight is all that's needed. They are wrong. Much, much more is involved.

I understand their teacher's desire to retain students by ensuring that classes are fun and exciting but doing too much too soon – like having students engage in sparring long before they are ready – can only lead to a false sense of accomplishment and security. In the real world, actual self-defense situations with very real assailants are unmerciful.

LEARN THE CHARACTER(S)

 by Phillip Starr

I often urge my students to learn to read certain Chinese characters (particularly the ones associated with martial arts) because I believe that a firm understanding of the characters can lead to real insight into various techniques, forms, and even styles. I strongly suggest that practitioners of Japanese, Okinawan, and even Korean styles do the same thing. Let me provide a couple of examples...

Take the characters for “ninja” for example (忍者). The first character, “nin”, is comprised of two radicals. The uppermost radical is “dao” in Chinese (刀) and means “knife.” Actually, it refers to a type of sword with a curved, single-edged blade (broadsword). The bottom radical, “shen” (心) refers to the heart. Taken together, this whole character means “endure.” The second character, “ja” (者), refers to a person. So this tells us that a ninja is a person who can endure a great deal – remember, having a razor-sharp blade hung ABOVE your heart (thus, the placement of the radicals; the radical for the sword is above the radical for the heart) is a bit stressful, right? But such a man can endure this kind of stress and difficulty.

Now let's look at the well-known “knife-hand” (刀手), which is called “shou-dao” in Chinese and “shuto” in Japanese. The first radical is “dao” (刀) in Chinese and “to” in Japanese (pronounced “toe”, it's just one of several words for “sword” that the Japanese use), which doesn't really refer to a knife as we think of it. Rather, it refers to a curved, single-edged sword (broadsword). The second radical is “shou” (手) in Chinese and “te” in Japanese. The Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character, which they kept, is “shu.” So the name is literally “sword-hand” or “hand-sword.” But there's more to it that just simple semantics; it tells you something about the technique itself...

The Chinese and Japanese character for sword (jien in Chinese, and ken in Japanese, 剑) refers to a straight, double-edged sword. But this isn't the character used for the technique; that particular character refers (in both Japanese and Chinese) to a curved, single-edged blade. The key word in that statement is CURVED. If, when you execute a “knife-hand strike”, your hand and arm are aligned in a straight line, it's wrong; it should be gently curved from the tip of the little finger clear to the shoulder because your entire arm is supposed to represent the curved blade! And this curvature actually begets greater striking power.

I think you should be able to understand the importance of learning the characters and dissecting them so as to decipher the meaning of the radicals that form them. It can really give you much deeper insight into the art that you practice and/or teach.

LANDING A HIT?

 By Phillip Starr

Bruce Lee frequently used to refer to “landing a hit.” Just what did he mean, anyway? Actually, when used as he used it, a “hit” is a term used in fencing (which he studied) and it means to land a blow on the opponent and subsequently score a point. It doesn't quite compare to what the Japanese call “ikken hissatsu.” Ikken Hissatsu (一拳必殺) is a term used in traditional karate, meaning "to annihilate at one blow". This, however, does not mean that any clash can and should be resolved with the use of only one stroke, but it conveys the spirit that the karateka must utilize.

Traditionally, according to various practical applications of kata, karate was modeled so that a person could face more than one opponent simultaneously. However, with the advent of sports karate, this characteristic has been ignored, thus de-emphasising Ikken Hissatsu.

Actually, the term originated from Japanese swordsmanship, wherein the objective is to kill the enemy in a single stroke. In karate, however, the same objective is sought. Arduous training is required to effectively attain such a technique. It isn't something that can necessarily be achieved quickly, it requires that the practitioner develop a high level of skill in generating shock (what I call “body shock”) with his technique.

Some percussive martial arts (most of which are Chinese) emphasize the speedy delivery of multiple blows and their adherents strive to be able to execute many strikes/punches as quickly as possible. Of course, the problem is that such techniques cannot, according to the laws of physics and kinesiology, individually carry much power. The idea is to cause a cumulative effect so that the enemy finally succumbs to the rapid-fire delivery of multiple blows.

This is in contrast to martial arts systems that aim to disable or kill an enemy in a single blow. I remember one of my older classmates (who was at least 10 years older than me) bragging that he could punch me 4-5 times in the space of one second. My teacher overheard his not-so-veiled threat and walked over and remarked, “But I would need to punch him only once.” The braggart wisely ended the conversation at that point. My teacher believed in the old idea of “one shot per customer”...

This isn't to say that those who believe in the ikken hissatsu idea place all their faith in a single technique; they're prepared to deliver follow-up blows if necessary. But each follow-up blow will carry enough power to destroy the enemy. Because they carry so much power, combinations of such techniques will naturally be a bit slower than those that contain less power. Their practitioners hope that the enemy will ultimately go down under their cumulative effect.

I sometimes compare the difference between the two as that of shooting at someone with a .22 and a .44 or .45 caliber handgun. If the larger caliber bullet hits the enemy (pretty much anywhere), he'll bloody well stay hit. The .22 is a different story, although I'd rather not be shot with a bullet of any kind...

THE KNOT IN YOUR OBi

 by Phillip Starr

The next time you don your karategi, take note of where the knot is set; is it as high as your navel? Higher? Is it below your navel? Most martial artists don't know what the belt/sash was originally intended for (and still should be). It wasn't a delineation of rank, per se. It's actually a tool that is meant to promote correct breathing!

Eons ago, the ancients (in China) developed a form of breathing, which we call “reverse breathing. This special technique has the lower abdomen (as well as the flanks and lower back) expand outward upon exhalation, which is the opposite of what we know as “normal breathing.” If the sash (yaodai) was wrapped firmly around the lower belly, one could readily feel it when the abdomen pushed out against it when exhaling. Then one knew if the breathing was correct. Moreover, it fostered the development of very strong breathing and that helped develop increased power in one's technique (as well as promoting other side benefits).

For a long time, this technique was regarded as secret but with the passage of time, the secret eventually became fairly well-known and was practiced by a great many martial artists. But breathing isn't particularly exciting to practice and it was eventually forgotten.

In modern China you can see large numbers of people practicing a variety of forms of gong-fu in the parks every morning (they're especially fond of taijiquan). Many of them still wear a form of sash although it may well be worn underneath their upper garments. It's not unusual to see some of them wearing common Western-style leather belts! Cinched firmly around their lower bellies and hence, the dantien (“tanden” in Japanese), the tradition of wearing a sash during practice is carried on although I suspect that many of them don't know exactly why this is to be done; they do it because their teacher told them to do it...

Old pictures of karate teachers in Okinawa show them wearing a sash. When Gichin Funakoshi introduced karate to Japan, he became a close friend of the founder of judo, Dr. Jigaro Kano. Kano had developed a standardized practice uniform (judogi) and his students wore a cotton belt (obi) around their middles. The knot was pulled down so that it rested on the area of the dantien. Thus, if his students were breathing properly they could readily feel it.

Gichin adopted the judogi, making a lighter version of it (the modern karategi) and he began using the cotton obi as well. Early karateists wore their belts down low and I recall seeing the old-timers constantly pulling their obi's down as they would ride up a little higher during training.

Nowadays it's not unusual to see martial arts devotees wearing their belts rather high- some worn as high as old men wear their trousers!! This is incorrect and it's clear that these students (and probably their teachers) don't know what the belt is really all about; it's not to keep your jacket shut or simply a symbol of rank. It's a training tool and should be used – and worn – as such.

KIME

 by Phillip Starr

Kime (Japanese: 決め) is a Japanese word. It is the noun form of the verb "kimeru," which means "to decide". Kime (pr. “kee-meh”) is a commonly used term in Japanese martial arts. In karate it can mean "power" and/or "focus," describing the instantaneous tensing the body at the moment of impact during a technique. The tension at this time is mostly focused on the dantien ("tanden" in Japanese) and abdomen. In judo, the "Kime-no-kata" is often translated to "Kata of Decision." In other budo, the term refers to attacking a vital point. In all cases, certain finality is implied.

I remember many years ago, my karate teacher trying to get across to us the idea of applying kime. In fact, I'm fairly sure that he didn't fully understand it himself.

Nowadays, most practitioners of Japanese karate interpret the term as the instant (of impact) when the body is tensed for a split second. It is my belief that this interpretation of the word/concept is flawed.

When you punch or strike something in any fashion, the instant of impact wherein the force from your body is transmitted into the target is measured in micro-seconds. Trying to tense your muscles at that exact moment is pointless; you're going to be either too early or too late. It's best to let nature/physics take over and do its thing; if your structural alignment is correct, the force will be transmitted perfectly. Don't interfere because you'll just muck it up.

In my opinion, kime is the focus of body (that is properly aligned), mind, and spirit for a split second. It results in a deep, explosive power that is directed by your will (yi).

Unfortunately, the concept of kime is being lost in today's contemporary martial arts world. The concept of focusing one's being (for a micro-second) on a single technique is foreign to many modern martial artists.

I hope that you will practice and develop your kime through the practice of your basic techniques, formal one and three-step fighting practice, and kata. It is essential to understanding and practicing real martial arts.