The Essential Films of Jet Li Jet Li began training in Wushu at the age of eight and quickly rose through the ranks in Chinese competition. Over the course of nine years, Li joined the Beijing Wushu team and racked up metals everywhere he went. At seventeen, Li called it [Read More]
So, you do martial arts? Whenever you tell someone that you do martial arts, I’ll near guarantee that what pops into their head is an image of rows of people in white gi punching in unison to the commands of an instructor in the front of the room. Although that [Read More]
Martial artists are, generally, great people. In fact, I’ve long maintained that martial artists are a better group of people than non-martial artists. I’ve done a fair bit of traveling, and I suppose I may be biased, but I have found martial artists to be more sensitive, compassionate, and caring [Read More]
Martial Word Wednesday “Maai; 間合い” Origin: Japanese There are many Japanese words in martial arts that we try to translate into English, and don’t do justice to the term. Maai is one of those words. It’s often translated as “distance.” In Aikido, it’s described as “finger-tip distance.” As illustrated in [Read More]
Time to Learn Time is often considered a relative concept, forever fleeting. Yet we chase it with steadfast determination. We all know when it’s time to learn. In the world of martial arts, it is a paradox that is both vexing and humbling. Simply put, martial artists have a skewed [Read More]
師父 (Shīfù) Origin: Chinese (Mandarin) Pause, breath, and show gratitude. You are a product of both nature and nurture, many people and many experiences have helped shape you into, well, you! Of all the things in your environment, the people often around you and the places you frequent typically wield [Read More]
Introduction Unless you’ve been isolated from pop culture for the last decade you’ve most likely heard of Avatar: The Last Airbender. If that’s the case let me summarize it. It’s an animated tv series that aired from 2005 to 2008 on Nickelodeon set on a fantasy world with elements from [Read More]
Origin: Japanese Besides the words “Black Belt”, there are few words that conjure up the idea of martial arts in English speaker’s minds more than “Sensei.” So much so, that it’s essentially worked its way into the English lexicon. The same way someone would understand what a “Jedi” or a [Read More]
功夫 (“Kung Fu” or Gōng fū”) Origin: Chinese (Mandarin) Pssst…wanna know a secret? Kung Fu isn’t for fighting! Ok, now that I’ve ruffled a few feathers, let me tell you what I actually mean; Kung Fu doesn’t translate to what you likely think it does. Believe it or not, it [Read More]
步 (“Bù”) Origin: Chinese (Mandarin) Today we are changing pace and looking to China for our word of the week. In various forms of Kung Fu, it isn’t uncommon to see this character used when discussing stances such as Horse Stance or Cat Stance. If you study a traditional Chinese [Read More]
Origin: Japanese Ranks are a very complex subject in martial arts. As such they are highly debated. The exact meaning of the coveted “black belt” varies by system to system, and even school to school. Most modern Japanese martial arts, and quite a few others, have adopted the kyu/dan belt [Read More]
Origin: Japanese The definition of a menkyo is a license. In koryu (see previous Martial Word Wednesday), these are certificates that the soke (inheritor of the system) gave to those allowed to teach the art. In some ways, this is the equivalent of a shodan or black belt today. These [Read More]
Title: Fujita Seiko: The Last Koga Ninja Author: Phillip T. Hevener Publisher: Xlibris Publish Date: 2008 Format: Paperback/Digital Pages: 92 Cover Price: $10.00/$4.50 ISBN: 978-1436301763 Anyone who’s ever been into martial arts has been into ninjas at some point in their lives. You could say almost everyone was into ninjas [Read More]
Koryu is a Japanese word which literally translates as “old school.” Not in the modern, hip vernacular, but instead as a school that is old. It can also be translated to be “old style.” Koryu specifically refers to Japanese traditional art that developed before the Meiji restoration of 1868. In [Read More]
Ura; 裏 Ura has the general meaning of “behind” or “the other side.” However, there are several different levels of meaning and connotation occurring simultaneously in this word. Ura, in its usage in aikido and other Japanese martial arts, references a techniques that occurs after the attacker generated power or [Read More]
Foreword You might’ve heard there’s a new Kung Fu tv series coming. For those who might not know, there was a tv show back in the ’60s called Kung Fu, starring the late David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine. The protagonist, a Chinese American man raised at the Shaolin Monastery, [Read More]
We, the traditional martial artists of the world, are a weird lot. But I probably didn’t need to tell you that. See, unlike nearly every other hobby, sport, pursuit, and pastime, we put an awful lot of stock in the way our preferred way of spending time is represented in [Read More]
Omote; 表 Omote has a general meaning of “outer” or “surface.” But like many things in Japanese culture and language, it has a couple layers of understanding occurring all at the same time. The term in aikido specifically, and Japanese martial arts in general, refers to a technique that occurs [Read More]
Many martial arts come from other cultures with different languages. This new weekly article, Martial Word Wednesday, is designed to shed some light on some of the ideas present in other languages that don’t necessarily have a place in English. -do Do is a suffix that is used in Japanese [Read More]
There are unusual weapons from around the world. This is a monthly column on Martial Journal in which we analyze and describe these weapons. Come back every month for a new installment. The Uchine Origin: Japan, Late 14th to Early 15th Century History The uchine was first described in manuals [Read More]
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