*Warning-My uncensored take on things. Also, if you are sensitive and your feelings are easily hurt, you sound like a bitch-don't read my blog.
Caveat Emptor-Let the buyer beware, my book excerpts and this blog are worth exactly what you paid for them.
Chapter Three-Ryukyu Ronin
I began training in Ryukyu Kempo in 1986 with Kyoshi Greg Lindquist. I started training at Ryukyu Kempo Headquarters in 1990 and continued training there until 2007. I am still very active, still training. I will never stop working on the things my teacher taught me.
My teacher is gone. I will never acknowledge anyone as his equal.
There is nobody remotely close to his skill level and depth of knowledge and
there
is nobody else that I would be willing to follow as a true Master. We
were all fortunate to train with a living legend, perhaps the last real
Master of Ryukyu Kempo. I will spend the rest of my life trying to polish and perfect what he taught me.
Japanese characters/Kanji for Ronin- Literally “wave man” a man adrift, tossed by waves, a masterless samurai. There is a small group of serious martial artists I am currently training with.This is the symbol we have chosen for ourselves, worn proudly on the backs of the shirts we designed. We have no problem standing alone, or being outside of a group.
Ultimately we all must be able to stand alone with our martial arts.
We are constantly studying and refining kata, weapons, Tuite, Kyusho and tying different techniques together. It is pretty interesting so far. We spend a lot of time polishing certain kata and specific life protection techniques.There is no rank,no egos, no money involved and there are no politics. It is a wonderful thing and I am perfectly happy.
To me, this is how martial arts training should be.
This is nothing but pure martial arts training, working on what we choose.
After all these years of training, I can stand alone, I don’t need anybody to hold my hand.
I have no interest in training with large groups of people, especially a group full of people who don’t like each other. I am only interested in drama free martial arts training.
I do not have the time or patience anymore to deal with other people’s bullshit.
It sounds bad to say I don’t care, but the reality is, I just don’t care-save the drama for your mama.
The martial arts I learned from my teacher are enough to keep me busy for the
rest of my life. Until I find my teacher's equal, I do not feel compelled to listen to
anyone else tell me how to train, do kata or technique.
You do things your way and I will do things the way my teacher showed me.
My loyalty begins and ends with my teacher.
At this point, I am more concerned with training and passing on the Master’s teachings to a few worthy individuals than I am about belts, money , who is better than the other guy, who did what, who said what……..does it really matter any more ? Any of that crap? It sure as hell doesn’t matter to me.
I feel our teacher challenged us on many levels-to be better people, to be honest, fair, to persevere and most importantly : to find the right individuals to train with and teach.
I feel like I owe that much to my teacher- for all the time he invested in me, for trusting me, yelling at me,correcting me and for sharing his life protection techniques.
The Master stated to me many times I only needed to have 2-3 serious students,not to worry about having a martial arts school but to have the right individuals, decent people with good, strong character, to train with and teach.I could not agree with him more.
My teacher gave me his permission on several separate occasions to have some private students-that is all the permission I will ever need to train people,I asked for and received my teachers permission and blessing.
Let me be perfectly clear about something:
I will always work on kata and techniques the way my teacher showed me.
I will also take his ideas about kata, body mechanics, technical applications
of life protection techniques and add to them, expand and build on these ideas.
Something I have noticed over the years is how many martial arts
practitioners want everyone to do things their way, often trying to
dictate kata, exercises and technical applications to their own standards and
ideas and trying to tell you this is the only way they can be done correctly.
I have a problem with this and so should any other intelligent, free
thinking martial artist.You cannot put martial arts into one box and
say "this is it, this is the only way we can do it".
Does anyone else see how ludicrous this is? Yet in every group or
association there are people doing this every day, saying this is the
only way it can be done or if you didn't get NaihanchI 7 Office,
the latest updated version, you cannot do or understand Taika's
martial arts. This is complete and utter bullshit.
Don’t be offended if I don’t want to do a kata or exercise or technique the way you think it should be done.Or if you choose to be offended, it’s your problem, not mine.
I stood in front of the Master almost every week for 17 years, being fixed, corrected, yelled at and cross-examined. I spent hundreds, actually a couple thousand hours training 3 feet away from him, with him watching my every move. I know what he wanted and how he wanted it done. Generally because he was in my face telling me.
So I wouldn’t forget or misremember, I wrote it all down, every night after every class.
I also have an interesting memory that is pain based, I never forget a beating or a particularly painful technique.Like many others, I graduated from Ryukyu University with a degree in hard knocks.
The world is full of people claiming to be students of the Master. I know most of the
people who trained for many years with him.
I wonder how many people claiming to be students of the Master can honestly say the same thing? That they spent years training in front of/with a martial arts legend every week.
That they had a close, personal relationship with a martial arts master. I know how lucky I am.
Does any of this make me great? Hardly, but I worked my ass off,took my lumps, paid my dues and learned many things over the years from my teacher.
Years ago I was obsessed with getting a black belt from the Master. Once I received this from him, I realized how much more I had to learn and quit worrying as much about belts/rank.
I never asked to test or asked for rank. I waited for it.
It was enough for me that I was training with an Okinawan karate master.
I figured when my teacher felt I I was ready, I would be tested. Belts and titles mean very little to me at this point, whether it’s my own or someone else’s.
Can you defend yourself and your family? Protect your life and the lives of the people that matter the most to you? That is what’s real, that’s what we should all be training for. That’s all that really matters in the end. I don’t care how pretty your weapons katas are, how many katas and exercises you know, how pretty your little calligraphy is, how good you look in your uniform,how many belts you have, who gave you what title. Do you train hard? Do you have good life protection techniques? Can you put people down quickly?
This is real martial arts, not a social club or fraternity-you better be able to fight when you have to or you are truly pissing in the wind.
Delusions of Grandeur-Over the years of my training, there have been many people who seemed to believe they were going to be the one to get a Menkyo from Taika .
( A Menkyo kaiden is a scroll or certificate given to the person that will assume the leadership position of a martial arts system and has the rights to teach that system). I wish I had 5 dollars for every time someone told me how great they or their teacher are and how he would go on to take his place when he retired. Heard this one a lot.
I have heard multiple people over the years say they or someone else were his best or most special student, that he had chosen them as The One. (I believe delusions of grandeur are a classical symptom defined in the manic state of bipolar disorder and also present in schizophrenia).
I have heard many people over the years stating that they or their instructor were going to be handed the keys to the kingdom.That they were the Master’s right hand man and would take over after he was gone.
The only living person that has an actual certificate and teaching license
in
their possession is my first instructor, Tasshi Greg Lindquist. Tasshi
Lindquist is the only living recipient of a nin te sho certificate,
publicly awarded to him by the Master. This certificate gives Tasshi Lindquist full rights and responsibility to teach the public and private family art of our teacher, as well as evaluate and award rank and titles in his art.
If anybody else had been given one, it would be shouted from the rooftops , would be all over the Internet and message boards and the subject of martial arts gossip the world over.
Had this ever happened, we would have heard about
people’s heads exploding, martial artists throwing themselves on the ground, kicking and screaming- having tantrums and weeping openly in public. We would certainly hear of some holding their breath until they get one , with some actually turning green and dying from envy and frustration.
Or perhaps I am wrong, according to all the people I have heard speak of this, there must be several floating around-who knows, maybe everybody but me received one. Maybe there are hundreds. As our teacher would say “I don’t think so”.
I stepped back from organized training in 2007 for a variety of reasons, but spending more time with my family,especially my son, was certainly on my mind. Nothing in my life is more important to me than my family. I was also tired of the grind, politics and just tired of some people in general. There are no bad feelings, just a general discontent with the status quo.
It was around this time that a fellow practitioner made a rather interesting observation:
He said he thought the Master had taught us 95% of what he was going to.
At the time, it certainly seemed that he was correct-we were not doing a lot of Tuite or Kyusho or much technique in general. We were doing a lot of exercises, footwork……….etc.
All of it was very relevant, but not very satisfying.
I felt that we were not working on the things I really wanted to do.
Chapter Ten-Pain is Weakness Leaving Your Body
" From life's school of war, that which does not kill me, makes me stronger"-Friedrich Nietzsche
Bogu Kumite-
Bogu/full contact fighting is only one aspect of Taika's art, but a very important
one that should never be neglected.We did a lot of bogu fighting in those days.
Our instructors would throw the beginners in with the advanced students-
It was painful, you got your ass handed to you repeatedly.
I'm still not convinced it builds character, but it will toughen you up, make you mean.
You learn quickly to keep your hands up, how to block powerful kicks and punches and the importance of moving to your opponents weak side.
You also learn what it feels like when people are trying very hard to knock you out and
kick your ribs in.
There are two kinds of people in this martial arts world:
Those who do bogu fighting and really like it and those who try it and never want to do it again.
*If you don’t want to get hit or kicked, maybe you should find and practice a martial art that is not based on striking and kicking techniques. Perhaps you should look for a hobby that doesn’t involve hard work or pain.Try sewing, macrame, basket weaving, finger puppets, finger painting or kite flying . Excuse me-I digress.
Bogu fighting hurts-it is an exercise in pain , but it teaches you to fight, to respond, to accept the pain and continue fighting. Life is a test and what better test than to fight someone trying very hard to knock you out, to physically hurt you.
I loved bogu fighting then and I love it to this day- a chance to hit people, hit and kick them as hard as you can and not get into trouble/thrown in jail ? Sign me up.
I had been training for several months, working on basics/ exercises and the first katas.
Aside from Bogu fighting and endless kata training, we did a lot of heavy bag training, shield training, suburito drills (wooden sword) lots of tuite/grappling and makiwara.
*Makiwara-just a quick word on this, please allow me a moment to vent- I have been listening to people bitch and moan about makiwara training for years. A lot of people don’t like Makiwara. A lot of people are also lazy, weak crybabies.
(This is too hard, ow-that hurts) If you are too much of a pussy to hit a makiwara, then don’t hit a Makiwara. Nobody cares!
There are different types of makiwara, this is the one I prefer. A thick, wrapped bundle of rice rope attached tightly to a thick board.
I Hate Crybabies! This is what I see in my mind when I hear people complaining.
*I don’t want to Bogu fight, it hurts when I get hit- I don’t like to hit the Makiwara, it hurts my little hands and makes me cry”. Our teacher would say ”Like doodle (little) baby”.
If you want to have the punch technique of a schoolgirl, by all means,
don’t ever do any heavy bag work, makiwara or hand/arm conditioning.
Pictured below-Okinawan karate legend Choki Motobu working technique on Makiwara.
These photos are public domain in the United States
Okinawan martial artists are well known for their striking techniques, particularly the penetrating
power of their punches, as well as specific knuckle, finger and thumb strikes.
Shigeru Nakamura and Choki Motobu were legendary for their punching technique and power
and well known use of the makiwara. My teacher is equally legendary for his punching technique and power and well known use of makiwara.
Do you see a pattern forming here? I sure as hell do.
When I first trained with the Master at the 23rd Street Headquarters, guess what lined the walls-Makiwara!
Guess what we trained on under the direction of our teacher? Makiwara!
I may not be a genius, but there must have been some reason for this. At the 23rd Street Headquarters I saw the Master hit a makiwara, drive it to the wall and hold it like there like it was nothing. For the record, I never saw anybody else come halfway close to duplicating that feat, on the type of makiwara we were training with. As hard as I tried,I could never duplicate this feat.
Like everything else we do, there is an art to training with Makiwara. If you are simply punching a Makiwara to toughen up your knuckles/hands, you are only scratching the surface.
I know our teacher stated in his later years it wasn’t necessary, but I will keep my thoughts on that to myself.
I would ask this: How did they (Motobu, Nakamura, Taika) learn to strike so effectively when they were younger? How did our teacher have such a devastating,penetrating punch technique? HMMMM………..I am sensing a pattern here.
Some people say makiwara is mindless, punishment training. I would respond to these people to please try and take a punch from someone that has been using a makiwara correctly for years-they will knock your dick in the dirt ! Most Okinawan systems and martial artists still use makiwara. We just have to hit you well one time.
In my home training area, my personal torture devices include a 250 pound heavy bag I work out on, a Wing Chun dummy, 2 Makiwara and a thick canvas bag filled with 10,000 steel BB’s for iron palm, finger and hand conditioning. I have been doing this sort of training and conditioning since 1986.I know all of this training works for me.
The last time I struck somebody in the body with real intent, (they deserved it) it felt like I was hitting a soft bag of water, the effects were immediate and extremely effective. It all comes down to your personal choice and what is packed in your sack.(I have 3 large testicles in mine) Do what you want to, I choose to train on a makiwara.
End of sermon.
“You can only fight the way you practice”-Miyamoto Musashi
