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Raising the standards of the martial arts

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Continued Education For Martial Arts Instructors

6/8/2020

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Author: Bret Gordon
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In the United States, anyone can open up a martial arts school. You don't even need to have any training whatsoever. All you need is the ability to sign a lease, and everything else you need can be purchased online. While I doubt the number of complete beginners going out and opening their own school is anything to speak of, what we do end up seeing is just about anyone who has a 1st or 2nd Dan deciding they are qualified to teach.

Historically, the reason the Menkyo system existed was to license instructors. It has always been something separate from one's individual progress (now expressed in their belt rank), and that's why many modern systems have carried on the practice alongside the kyu/dan system. Even if a formal Menkyo system does not exist in a particular style, there has always been a tradition of instructor certification (either formally or informally) that gave the student the authorization to teach outside of their home school, and traditionally this was reserved for those of 4th Dan or higher.

Some organizations run official instructors courses, and some groom their students individually to become teachers through shadowing and other methods. I don't believe there is a right or wrong way to produce instructors, as long as there is actual training involved and you are not just thrown onto the mat without being taught the intricacies of how to teach. I mean, it doesn't matter how good you are at math. You still need a degree in education before you can teach even at the grade school level. However, let's pretend for a minute that an actual license to teach is unnecessary since in this country, it effectively is. So much more goes into being a martial arts instructor than just being proficient in the curriculum (which is why instructor's licenses are important in the first place), that I would beware any teacher that does not seek continued education. But what I'm about to detail is not what you think...


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Japanese Ki Centers and Christianity

2/10/2020

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Author: Bret Gordon
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As both a Christian and a Reiki practitioner, I often encounter confusion of how I can intertwine the principles and practice of both. Surely Eastern practices of healing and energy cannot be Biblical, except that they are. Reiki* is the Japanese practice of energy healing. It consists of Gassho (meditation), Reiji Ho (invocation) and Chiryo (treatment). Chiryo invovles the use of various hand positions used to interact with the receiver at various points on their body, commonly known as chakras. In this article, I won't get into the scientific validity of Reiki and want to focus on justifying the practice and use of chakras from a Christian perspective as there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding.

Let's put aside the fact that Dr. Usui was a Christian preacher or that he discovered Reiki specifically while looking for an answer regarding how Christ healed through the laying-on of hands, which is mentioned numerous times in the Bible and exists in nearly all cultures globally, and instead discuss the chakras themselves.


The chakras, also called Ki Centers (this term will be important later), are located at various physical points on the body. There are minor chakras in addition to the main ones shown in the image but I am not going to discuss them here. Any scholar of theology will understand the importance of numerology. There are 7 main chakras, seven being the number for God Himself as it symbolizes completion and perfection.


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It's All About Balance: A Deeper Study Of The Arts

1/13/2019

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Author: Bret Gordon
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One can hardly engage in any physical endeavor without hearing the term "balance." Depending on the context, this could mean anything from the way your bodyweight is distributed to making sure you're addressing all of your needs on a physical, mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual level. As martial artists, we tend to focus so heavily on the physical aspects of training that we neglect everything else. But as my last article addressed the spiritual refinement in Budo (click here to read), I want to get even deeper. 

Historically, many of the most prominent martial artists were also healers. They were doctors, bone setters, massage therapists and energy workers. The truth is that these endeavors are not separate from martial arts. Rather they are an extension of them, so much so that to practice martial arts without delving into the healing arts is to never reach mastery. Unfortunately, the Chinese internal martial arts (Taijiquan, Xingyiquan and Baguazhang) seem to be the only arts that prominently feature the healing arts as a staple of their training, to the point that most people ignorantly believe that the classification of an internal martial arts signifies that it is meant solely for healing and not for combative purposes. This couldn't be farther from the truth. In this article, I want to highlight both what it truly means to be an internal martial art, what the healing arts are, and the necessity for studying them as part of your journey of Budo. 


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The Relationship Between Aiki And Reiki

12/29/2016

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Author: Bret Gordon
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Since their inception, martial arts and healing arts have always been intertwined (think inyo/yin yang). Some of the best martial artists have been doctors, healers and bone setters. Basic first aid should in fact be required to teach any form of martial arts in my opinion. When discussing internal power and energy, the connection between martial arts and healing arts becomes even more apparent. 

In Japanese martial arts, the concept of internal power is known as aiki (commonly translated as "joining energy"). It's a term that has as many definitions as it does practitioners. Thanks to the popularity of Aikido, most people characterize aiki as merely blending with the opponent's force and redirecting them into a soft lock or throw. However, as an instructor of Aiki Jujutsu I tend to define aiki at another level. Ultimately to me, aiki is a pre-conditioned state of being. Internal power is generated in the way you stand, the way you walk. Aiki is learning how to use the body in its most efficient state so that anything that comes into contact with it is affected. In a defensive scenario, aiki is the systematic process of receiving the force of the attack, processing it and returning it through the point of connection. True aiki is characterized by instant kuzushi (off-balancing) that affects the attacker's entire body. This is accomplished through proper breath control, timing and a relaxed yet focused structure within our own bodies.

But the concept of joining energy is hardly unique to martial arts. Everything in the universe is comprised of energy, so in reality whenever you come into contact with anything you are joining your energy with it. In the healing art of Reiki, you are joining your energy with that of the recipient to enhance the body's natural healing powers. This may sound like pseudoscience but the principles of Reiki are instinctive in all of us. When you injure yourself, your first reaction is to grab whatever you just injured and apply pressure. Often this is accompanied with thoughts like "Please stop hurting" and shortly after, the pain begins to subside. This is the basis of Reiki. The body intuitively knows what's wrong and has the power to heal it. However, if something is off (such as Chakra misalignment which is very common) then the healing powers may be hindered. That's where the Reiki practitioner comes in. When a Reiki practitioner lays their hands on the recipient, their healthy energy overpowers and supercharges the recipient's energy flow to assist in the healing process. But how does it work and how is this even remotely related to Aiki Jujutsu?


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Reiki - The Other Side Of Internal Arts

9/20/2016

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Author: Bret Gordon
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A good martial artist learns not only how to break the body down but how to fix it as well. It's no coincidence that many of Japan's famous teachers were also bone setters and healers. Acupuncture, acupressure and bone setting are skills that every martial artist should know, but there's more.

I've written a lot about internal martial arts and the concept of aiki, but aiki has a cousin that's often neglected in martial arts conversations. Reiki, the Japanese concept of "Universal Life Energy," is a method of energy healing. First codified in the Usui Shiki Ryoho (Usui System of Natural Healing) by Dr. Usui Mikao, reiki involves stimulating the body's natural healing powers through the laying-on of hands. By connecting the practitioner's life force with the patient's, energy is stimulated within the body and concentrated on the ailment to promote fast and natural healing. So how does it work?


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The Difference Between Healthy Tai Chi & Fighting Tai Chi

8/14/2016

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Author: Richard Clear
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Recently it has come to my attention that there is a distinction being made here in the USA regarding a so called difference between Tai Chi for health and Tai Chi for self defense. Having studied for the last 30 years from over half a dozen senior Tai Chi masters and directly from 2 different original Tai Chi family lineages (Yang and Wu styles) including Wu style family members who are the world heads for Tai Chi I must admit that at first I found this very confusing. When you ask any senior Tai Chi master about the “difference” between Tai Chi for health and Tai Chi for self defense you either get a funny look or a fairly excited answer about the current sad state of affairs and that there is no difference between Tai Chi for health and Tai Chi for self defense.

Tai Chi is Tai Chi. There is No difference between the Tai Chi that is healthy and the Tai Chi that is for fighting / self defense. Of course there are a lot of “so called” Tai Chi teachers in America today who would like the public to think that these things are different. Why? The unfortunate and simple answer is that so many of the folks who are teaching Tai Chi only for health got their Tai Chi certification in a weekend workshop and the only way that they can try to compete in the market place with someone who actually knows Tai Chi is to try to say that those who have more knowledge and information are somehow teaching something different. Hopefully, this begs the question concerning what exactly is Tai Chi for health and what is Tai Chi for self defense?


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