英文版本
The Day of First Dan grading
Rare to this island. Per the effort of Master James FENG, the Motohiro Fukakusa Shihan is on invitation to visit Taiwan and take the chairman of the grading of Taiwan Akido members.
This is a golden opportunity once in a lifetime. Apart from anything else, I immediately enroll in this qualification upgrading.
During this grading process, I’d like to share what I see and what I get to my dear friends:
1. Mountain as I see, not as my prejudice be:
For single year long, I have dedicated all myself to career jobs and got break big through. In the other side, my pay back is the less time to practice techniques of Aikido. Although stick on daily home work to practice basic swordworship and skill. It can only maintain the body stretching and breathing development. Since the effort is not as enough as the practice in dojo, I can feel my technique is become tardy.
In the same time, FENG sensei has travelled over the Earth, to take place of seminars and make friendship with lots of Shihans of global dojos. Finally, it is a great fortune to invite FUKAKUSA Shihan to visit Taichung and become the chief grading qualification officer.
It is chance my work is completed well between phases. For this upgrading qualification, I re-schedule my daily work to make up the delay progress of prior year.
Oh, My! The first practice of after back to dojo is a big shock to me.
What the technique is so unfamiliar to me and different to what I have learned 1 year ago?
Between techniques, there is some extra Atemi appended! (A.te.mi? [1])
After practice of classes, I got the points. All they are the fusion with the techniques of standard international and Tokyo Hombu dojo native ones. What I get is an improvement technique sets from traditional techniques of this very Wushaolin dojo.
I try to includes the changes as:
Interpolate Atemi between movements of technique,
as compare to music, it is more like to add Major third and Perfect fifth into root keys and then the single key will become beautiful and harmonious major chords. In such a way, with Atemi the transition techniques additional to basic techniques, the movement comes to more smooth and Uke can not guess out the next movement of Tori’s. Also the Tori can deploy Atemi to confuse and defocus the Uke, and takes more advantage from this.
For advanced techniques introduce, all my senior classmate will take the job. For me, I’d like to go on narrate what I learned from Shihan’s accomplishment.
2. Confront million people ahead, I courage myself to walk through in faith
In my career, lots of time to run projects with Japanese companies.
Generally speaking, before the goods shipping out, Japanese customers will send the audit people come to vendor site to qualify all the operation details.
Customers need to make sure every processing step is strictly following the industry standards.
The scenario will become: During the audition days, just only one Japanese auditor brings one SOP book then all the processes of this vendor will be huge changed. If this vendor has set the mind on, they will upgrade his operation flow to a new improvement. Sometimes this improvement will be the good base to jump to high revenue in future.
That is the special characteristic of Yamato people: Serious and careful.
And the imposing manner of put everything under control is based on the solid faith and SOP. Make skill with thousand times of practice and accumulate the experience.
The single man can stand before million people at the place where he visits first time.
I guess it is the ‘Faith’ for people to keep in mind. The faith to spread forward Aikido- the martial art with Love.
With the faith in single I can stand before the messes.
And this very spirit is just what we want to get through sweatily practice on the mats every time? With the international standard of Irimi and Awase, our body knows what to follow; with the martial are concept of love and timing to deploy skill, our mind knows where to stand at.
Although Fukakusa Shihan is 72 years old but he keeps moving smoothly and swiftly.
On the mats, sharp mind lightning out through his eyes.
I believe, once a man dedicates himself in one focus, ambient everything will telepathy to response.
Coming dojo with this attitude, people have the base to gathering fund/partner/approach/arena, and through the martial way to achieve the final truths.
Also sublimate myself; upwardly explore the meaning of physic and fate.
Never mind the world change, take Shiahan’s exploit as my model ever after,
dedicated myself to discover the next level of Aikido day by day.
Above all is what I get from this upgrading event.
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Reference:
[1*] Atemi: (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atemi)
In Japanese martial arts, the term atemi (当て身?) designates blows to the body,[1] as opposed to twisting of joints, strangleholds, holding techniques and throws. Atemi can be delivered by any part of the body to any part of the opponents body. They can be percussive or use 'soft' power. Karate is a typical martial art focusing on percussive atemi. The location of nerve and pressure points, such as might be used for certain acupressure methods, also often informs the choice of targets for atemi (see kyusho).
Some strikes against vital parts of the body can kill or incapacitate the opponent: on the solar plexus, at the temple, under the nose, in the eyes, genitals, or under the chin. Traditional Japanese martial arts (the ancestors of judo, jujutsu and aikido) do not commonly practice atemi, since they were supposed to be used on the battlefield against armoured opponents. However, there are certain exceptions.
Atemi can be complete techniques in and of themselves, but are also often used to briefly break an opponent's balance (see kuzushi) or resolve. This is the predominant usage of atemi in aikido.[2] A painful but non-fatal blow to an area such as the eyes, face, or some vulnerable part of the abdomen can open the way for a more damaging technique, such as a throw or joint lock. Even if the blow does not land, the opponent can be distracted, and may instinctively contort their body (e.g., jerking their head back from a face strike) in such a way that they lose their balance.
The development of atemi techniques arises from the evolution of the Japanese martial arts, in particular jujutsu. Early styles of jujutsu from Sengoku-era Japan were created as a means of unarmed combat for a samurai who had lost his weapons on the battlefield. The purpose of jujutsu was to disarm the opponent and use their own weapon against them. As such, strikes to the body were limited as the intended victim would have been wearing extensive body armour. However, in later styles of jujutsu from Edo-period Japan bare-handed strikes to the body became more common as full-scale military engagement began to decline. This meant that the jujutsu practitioner's opponent would not have been wearing armour and the vital points that form the crux of atemi-waza were more exposed. Thus atemi began to play a pivotal role in unarmed killing and restraining techniques, which later gave birth to martial arts such as Atemi Ju-Jitsu.