DEAFENED BY MY OWN PREJUDICE.

I’m walking home after working out today. A woman, standing out on the street, says something to me. It sounds like “Do you have any change?” or something to that effect. I politely dismissed her, and then she asked me again, and this time I listened. She asked me “Can you show me how to read this bus schedule?” Anything really good that I felt about myself was immediately cast aside. Here I am, literally, a big scary black man, dressed like a vagabond, carrying my big bag of crazy with me, walking down the street, my street, in Jacksonville, and I was too concerned with my own prejudice to actually hear an older white female ask me for help with reading a bis schedule so that she could get downtown. all because at first glance, I thought she looked crazy. The worst part is that I ride the bus too, and the schedule is sometimes hard to read, so I had so much empathy for her. Ugh – worst Autrelle ever.

ONE WAY WE CAN DO IT.

“http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/law_enforcement_courts_prisons/crimes_and_crime_rates.html

We are literally killing each other at a frightening rate. Literally. Killing. Each other. Take a moment to think about that.

Now, the way my mind sees things, I feel that they are very easy solutions to these types of things. What I mean when I say that is that, the ideal situation seems easy: let’s stop killing each other. I realized today that I need to find ways to communicate my ideas better, and find ways to reach a larger audience. My ideas are not original, and they are not complex, but it usually takes a conversation to get my point across. I think that the key is to give out little pieces of the big picture. Not pieces of the puzzle, because that very wording suggests that life is something confusing and not to be understood directly, through direct observation and your own experience. So I offer you a piece: Let’s stop hurting each other. I want to start a Harm No One Day. A day that we can all acknowledge and make a conscious decision to hurt no one. Period. Imagine a day when:

• Spouses don’t hurt each other
• Parents don’t hurt children
• Humans don’t hurt animals
• Strangers don’t hurt each other

You get the point by now. Harm comes in many forms, whether it’s someone beating a child, a soldier in the line of duty that has to kill an enemy combatant, a police officer shoots someone, a business overcharges someone for a product, a lover yells at their significant other. I’m not proposing some sort of “love everyone day,” but simply, just don’t hurt anyone. Period. We have all had harm inflicted on us at some point or another, and knowing how that feels, only a complete lack of empathy, if not humanity, we allow us to want to inflict that onto anyone else. It’s funny, because in thinking of a logo for this, my first thought was a fist, with that circle around it and the line through it thingy, and I remembered that the very word, Bu, which is the prefix for Martial Arts in Japanese, is made of two characters: “spear” and “stop.” The meaning implies stopping violence. It’s all full circle. My path is clear. I’m working ON it.

WHY DO BIRDS SING? I MEAN, WHY DO MARTIAL ARTISTS FIGHT?

Condition One: Protection of Self and Others. In either case, a Martial Artist has to be both tactical and strategic. It’s not enough to know how to counter a groin kick with a joint lock. Martial Artists have to understand the ramifications of their actions and plan ahead accordingly. I have seen several occasions where a Martial Artist could have easily beaten someone that was immediately threatening them, but did not, due to the strategic implications. This could mean that for legal, social, or really any reason, it was more important and appropriate to keep the situation non-violent. Some examples might be that beating up a person would fuel more violence in the future that could not be contained, or that beating up a person could mean that they could not provide for their family afterwards because of the injuries. At other times, a Martial Artist can decide to beat the other person up. This can be for many reasons as well. Some examples might be that the other person left no avenue for a safe retreat, or the other person could be the sort that, if not dealt with in a harsh manner immediately, because a growing threat over time.

When it comes to others, Martial Artists are naturally protective, if not overly so. The proper function of Martial Arts, and thus Martial Artists, is the protection of others by warding off violence against them. The same ideas rise here as far why a Martial Artist would or would not fight in the protection of others. In the perspective of the Martial Artist, defeat of an enemy is literally a given, a foregone conclusion, and the decision is not so much “Should I fight?” but more “Should I let this person go home or die?” Protection of others can be a bit more intricate. This is because the person being protected is the consideration, not the person trying to hurt them. Here, the Martial Artist says “The most important thing is that my friend/spouse/child not be hurt.” So a Martial Artist can sometimes intervene, and by presence alone, ward off the intentions of someone thinking to do harm. Other times, the Martial Artist acts faster than breathing, to eliminate anything that threatens someone in his company. This is because the Martial Artist values life, and more so, humanity. Anyone that would try to hurt someone else has lost their humanity, lost their way. When the Martial Artist has to act in way that injures or kills someone like this, it is not the same, since they are acting in preservation of humanity and life, not in the destruction of it.

Condition Two: When Martial Artist fight each other. First of all, I’m not talking about sport or competition. When Martial Artist fight each other, it is usually over a philosophical disparity on the matter of style. For example, two Martial Artists can study two different Martial Arts. One or both of them feel so strongly that the other is doing something so remiss, that they fight over it. This is the strongest and most obvious example of style as a motivator for fighting. Another example could be that two Martial Artists practice the same style, but have different instructors. This is a bit more complex, because what they are fighting over now is not so much the style or method of their particular art, but the style or methods used by their particular instructor. A last example is that two Martial Artist that have the same instructor fight each other. This is usually very personal and based on nothing more than a hurt ego. When fellow students are at odds with each other, it is generally because they both seek favor in the instructors eyes, and they see the other person as a threat to that. Some instructors allow this, to a degree, as it sometimes builds stronger bonds between the two rivals. Usually it is not tolerated at all, and left up to the individuals to deal with. Note that the issue of style here is the manner the student feels that the teacher should be treated.

Of course, there are challenges. To be sure, whenever there is a challenge, someone will get hurt. Even in this day, and most people would politely, or at least publicly, disagree, challenges are still accepted. There are several types of challenges:

• When a student challenges a fellow student of the same school. Both students have the same teacher. One may be senior to the other in rank or experience.
• When a student challenges a student of the same style from a different school.
• When a student challenges the teacher of his own school.
• When the teacher challenges one of his students.
• When a student challenges someone from a completely different style, teacher or student.
• When a teacher challenges someone from a completely different style, usually another teacher.

The reasons for these challenges vary. They are sometimes purely academic, a desire to know how one would fare. They are sometimes issued out of malice toward the other. Other times, challenges are issued because the other party has committed a perceive act of malice, and the challenge is designed to hand out “justice.”

20 BOOKS.

1. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Her first full depiction of her philosophy and the ideal man that lives by it. The creative individualistReally deep shit, for real. If you read this and only get a story about an architect, you need to call me so we can have a long fucking talk.

2. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Her philosophy, even more fully spelled out. Here she shows the role that the mind plays in the world, and the consequences of what happens when those creative productive minds say “fuck you” when they are not properly dealt with.

3. The Art of War by Sun Tzu. I prefer the Thomas Cleary translation. Trust me.

4. Go Rin No Sho by Miyamoto Musashi. For real. A strategy book written by a man that killed dozens of other martial artists in duels, and died from cancer. Can’t go wrong.

5. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. If ever a love story was written, this is it. As a somewhat uneducated reader, here’s what I got out of it: Love does not have to be perfect to be genuine, and sometimes, if not usually, that genuine love is what is perfect.

6. Seraph On The Suwannee by Zora Neale Hurston. Another love story from a different angle: What do you do, how do you feel, when everything you do, to show how much you love someone, is not enough? How do you push through that?

7. Song Of Solomon by Toni Morrison. I have never cared about my own past and the legacy I might leave until after I read this.

8. The Art Of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian. A Jesuit priest that is somewhere in the middle of a Venn Diagram consisting of The Art Of War, The Prince, and How To Win Friends And Influence People.

9. Honoring The Self by Nathaniel Branden. At some point, you are going to have to start giving a shit about yourself and other people. He talks about being honest with yourself and your self-esteem, so that you can have the empathy to know others and really be a whole person.

10. Anything by or about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Just read his words, his quotes. There are power in his words.

11. Same thing with Martin Luther King, Jr. Same reason.

12. How To Be Good by Nick Hornby. The author of High Fidelity gives you a delicious premise.

13. Pedagogy Of The Oppressed by Paulo Friere. This is some pretty rad shit. If you consider yourself any sort of teacher of student, if you care about really learning how to affect change in yourself and in others, or I should say, WITH others, you need to read this. The foreword blew me away. You’re going to hear so much about this, and see some radical changes in me, when I finish this one.

14. Logicai Chess by Irving Chernov. The best book I have EVER read on chess, period. The surest way to learn how to THINK about what you are doing when you play.

15. Winning Chess by Irving Chernov. Logical Chess focuses on the strategy, or overall plan of a game. This book teaches you how to address the situation when it becomes tactical, that is, when you have to address an immediate danger. The focus here is how to use tactics as forceful moves for powerful combinative play.

16. Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess by, well, duh. An excellent primer for learning the game, no board required. A very weird book, as you would expect.

17. Traditional Aikido and Takemusu Aikido series by Morihiro Saito Sensei. Pardon my bias, but hands down these books are the still the most authoritative and encyclopaedic presentation of Aikido out there, period.

18. Tao Of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee was the man, period. How could you not read his book?

19. White Noise by Don DeLillo. An extremely well written book that makes you think.

20. The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. LOTS of great stories here. It makes your mind work as well.

TIME FOR SOME ACTION.

I know that I have been rather quiet lately, but it is with good reason. Basically, the city I live in is becoming a cesspool. People are getting beaten up and raped while riding their bikes out at night. Little girls walking home from school are getting kidnapped and murdered. It’s getting out of hand. I have been quietly working on updates on the AJNM, but my main focus has been trying to raise awareness in my community by offering self defense discussions and martial arts lessons. You’re going to hear more about that from me than anything else.

AIKI JO’S HIDDEN SECRET: ROKU NO JO.

Big things do come in small packages. While I have been working on the AJNM, I have also been sorting what exactly needs to happen to make Aiki Jo a proper fighting method. I have so far concluded that mastery of the various Kamae is the first part, and understanding how and why the Kamae changes, offensively and defensively. Certain options and variations naturally lend themselves to a particular posture, yet the postures are all fluid and interchangeable. That’s when it hit me that Roku No Jo is just that, a way to practice the various changes from each Kamae. Here’s what Roku No Jo is:

1. Starting in Hidari Tsuki No Kamae, thrust with Choku Tsuki
2. Raise the jo with the Jodan Gaeshi movement
3. Step forward and strike with Migi Uchikomi
4. Draw the jo back to Migi Gedan Gaeshi No Kamam
5. Step forward and strike with Hidari Gedan Gaeshi Uchi
6. Turn the jo with the Chudan Gaeshi movement, which puts you back in Hidari Tsuki No Kamae, and starts the practice again

This is the first stage. Later, you combine the counts of the movements, eventually making this a two count exercise. I find that if you use this as an exercise to practice Kamae, instead of strikes, you will find a key ingredient to using the jo flexibly in a combat situation. Here is what I’m talking about:

1. Start with Hidari Tsuki No Kamae, which is the basic Jo Kamae
2. Prepare to change with Jodan Gaeshi
3. Make Migi Chudan No Kamae, the basic striking posture, same as when holding the Ken
4. Draw the jo back to the rear to make Migi Gedan Gaeshi No Kamae
5. Bring the forward and make Chudan Gaeshi No Kamae
6. Turn the jo with Chudan Gaeshi and return to the first posture

And there it is. Right there in front of me. A drill that teaches you the all of the basic postures: Tsuki No Kamae, Uchi No Kamae, Ushiro No Kamae, Chudan Gaeshi No Kamae. It also teaches the basic jo changes: Jodan Gaeshi, Gedan Gaeshi, and Chudan Gaeshi. Note that there is a definitive high, middle, and low in the Kamae and the jo switches. Think about that.

THE VARIOUS METHODS OF DEFENSE IN AIKI JO.

As a birthday present from me to you, and since I’m not sharing the notebook for now, I’ll at least let you see a bit of what I have been up to.

1. Choku Barai – Direct Parry. Barai is the principle of warding off. Usually with Barai, you will stay on the line, or cross the line in such a way to dominate the line and space. With Choku Barai, the jo is used to ward off thrusts and strikes using a semicircular motion that is controlled with the rear hand holding the jo. When you use this parry, you do not change your kamae. For example, if you were attacked while in the left thrusting stance, you would stay in the the left stance to parry with Choku Barai.
2. Kaeshi Barai – Reversing Parry. With Kaeshi Barai, you take a step away from the attack and bring the rear end of the jo up to ward off strikes and thrusts.
3. Kesa Barai – Diagonal Parry. This parry has the final form of Kaeshi Barai, but does not use a reversing movement. The name comes from the angle that the jo makes when parrying.
4. Kaiten Barai – Rotary Parry. With Kaeshi Barai, you reverse the jo while stepping back to parry, and then rotate the jo a half turn with the right hand. This is practiced on both sides, and no matter which side you practice this on, the right hand is the hand the controls the rotary movement. Plenty of practice with Hachinoji Gaeshi and Hasso Gaeshi will prepare you for this.
5. Age Barai – Rising Parry. Here the jo is raised over the head to parry a strike or thrust. This is usually followed by Maki Waza. Maki Waza means that you use your jo to knock away your attacker’s jo and then finish with your own thrust or strike. There are many instances where instead of hitting your attacker’s jo, you would hit their hands. This is actually the case with most parries and it is worth the time to discover some of these ideas in your practice.
6. Jodan Gaeshi – High Jo Reversing. Jodan Gaeshi is a Nagashi movement. It is not a firm parry, but a way to deflect an attack while moving off of the line. Usually, in a Nagashi movement, you yield the space.
7. Gedan Gaeshi – Low Jo Reversing – After a strike or thrust, the jo can be moved to your rear and swept forward for a parry. This type of parry is done as an
8. Awase Dome. That means that you are parrying a similar attack, such as Gedan Gaeshi Uchi.
9. Chudan Gaeshi – Middle Jo Reversing. This means that you hold the jo with the Gyakute grip, and release with the rear hand while turning the jo with the forward hand. You finish the movement with the Choku grip. As a parry, it can done as a Barai movement or as a Nagashi movement. When done as Chudan Gaeshi Barai, there are several Maki Waza that can be practiced. When done as Nagashi, there are several Kaeshi Waza, or Jo switches, that can be practiced. The final form of Chudan Gaeshi, minus the turning of the jo, is often used as a parry in several of the Kumijo.
10. Uchi Barai – This is the case when a movement such as Uchikomi is used to parry an attack.
11. Uchi Dome – This is the case when an attacker’s strike or thrust is forestalled by a strike or thrust of your own.
12. Nuki Waza – Here, you let your attacker strike or thrust freely, but they miss.

OK, FOR REAL THIS TIME, NO MORE MANUAL.

It’s not personal, my friends! I have a major revision to do that will make the text of the manual complete. At that point, I will be working hard on my Aiki Ken and Ken Jo no Riai manuals. To those of you that received a copy, I hope that you enjoy it as it is, and keep swinging your Jo, as I will be swinging mine!

IF YOU WANT THE JO NOTEBOOK

It’s in the Box.net widget located on the sidebar of this blog, and it’s titled “Draft 5.” If you have any trouble downloading it, please email me!

THIS MONDAY

Hopefully, if I’m not too lazy, I will have an amazing draft six of the Aiki Jo Notebook and Manual for you all to look over.  Oh yes. Draft Five of course is still available.

NO JO MANUAL FOR YOU!

I’ve stopped sharing the Jo Manual for now, since I’m working on a major revision.  Anyone that has a copy now, please let me know what you think.  Ciao!

JO DORI KAESHIWAZA.

Kaeshi Waza: When being thrown in this manner, uke has to be careful to not let go of the jo with his right hand, or nage will surely strike him with the jo across the belly and knees. Flow with nage’s attempt to throw, and once the jo is past your belly, as uke begins to thrust, first release the jo with your left hand and grab nage’s left hand with it. Then let go with the right hand throw nage with Shihonage Ura.

more about "JO DORI KAESHIWAZA.", posted with vodpod

12 LAWS OF LIFE.

This guy is really on point.

You’ve probably heard the saying, “As you sow, so shall you reap.” It means that our lives are created by what we do, not by what we intend. It means that we can harvest only what we plant. And every day you’re planting something, so choose wisely.

The biggest and most important influences in your life are created by small daily acts.  For example – Meditate, Study, Set Goals, Save Money, Exercise, Floss, Smile, and Say Thank You.

That’s just a small example.

Songbird on Ubuntu 8.10

Songbird playing Better Than Heaven by Bloc Party

Songbird is the sh*t!!!! Get it and get going.

I’M STILL HERE, EVERYONE.

I have been keeping myself busy writing my first draft of my Jo manual. It’s truly become a labor of love. Writing it has forced me to not be satisfied with just “kind of” knowing the proper Jo movements. I’m currently working on the second revision and the videos for the illustration. Keep your eyes peeled.