I’m wearing a worn, black pair of gi pants and a Star Wars t-shirt. Far from formal dojo apparel. The sweat has rendered the grey t-shirt black and droplets coming off my forehead splash on the unfinished concrete floor. I just finished a set of shadow boxing and I’ve been using an 8-pound sledgehammer as a workout implement for the past fifteen minutes as my son watches in fascination from the corner. My muscles and joints are all screaming for me to stop, and my knuckles are throbbing from the use of my newly-installed makiwara post outside, but I’m only half way through my workout as the next hour will bring a minimum of three of each of my katas…
Clean, emptied out garage makes for a decent training area
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been using my garage as a makeshift dojo. The floor is bare, unfinished concrete and is pock-marked everywhere that something heavy or frequent traffic has damaged it. I fastened a padded punching square to the south wall and have a jumprope, an 8-pound sledgehammer and a small table to hold my water, phone and small training implements as may be required for any given session. I have a small incense burner to provide an ambiance to the environment, but with little to no ventilation inside the garage short of opening the large overhead door, I keep incense burning at a minimum.
When people hear about the martial arts, they have some pretty stereotypical images of a dojo in their heads. For the most part, people imagine a polished, hardwood floor, tatami mats in the corner, punching bags and kanji banners across every wall. Or at least, over whatever walls don’t contain photographs of the style’s masters or some the weaponry associated with the style. It’s clean and pretty and usually oozes a “karate movie” feel. But in fact, most traditional dojos (unless they’re the head of the school) never look like that.
The small table in my “dojo” holding everything I need and nothing that I don’t
When I travelled to Japan and Okinawa in 2001, one of the things that surprised me was the venue in which we spent most of our time training. Unlike the expected image of a karate school, or dojo as it is properly referred to as, we trained in a variety of different locations, including but not limited to the beach, on rocks, in school gyms, in garages and in back yards. One school we trained at the most was owned by my Sensei’s instructor and was located above his house. It contained some of the fancy elements, such as a hardwood floor and his training certifications, but little else.
There was nothing fancy. The entire ambiance was created by the efforts and energy put forward by the student body. And what energy there was! We didn’t have a single morning or evening where we weren’t drenched in sweat and felling pain along some or most of our body parts. But we learned a lot. I recently sent photos of my garage to one of my friends back home in New Brunswick and identified it as my “dojo.” His response was to laugh at the appearance. The sad part is, he’s trained in my style of karate, as well.
After only two weeks of use, my makiwara (just outside the garage door) has already shifted and has had to be adjusted. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing…
The point is, you don’t need a fancy or expensive location. You don’t need tons of equipment or have your training area look like something out of a bad 50’s samurai movie. In fact, if you study traditional karate, you can perform the majority of your (solitary) exercises within a 1-square metre space. That’s it! You can perform your katas, bunkai and kumites as well as a huge score of exercises too numerous to list out, including every push-up variation, squats, lunges and shadow boxing.
You reach certain limitations once you incorporate a partner or students, but let’s be honest: at that point, you may be using a local school gymnasium or go outdoors to a soccer field or something of the like. Some of the most traditional karate schools in Okinawa are tucked away behind a single, unmarked door in a back alley. Karate is a free-floating art, which can literally be practiced anywhere. ☯
I have clear memories of all the stuff I had to go through when I was first diagnosed with Type-1 Diabetes. Since my older brother had a wide variety of illnesses, junk food and sugary snacks were never really a staple in my household anyway, but I remember that certain things took a dramatic change nonetheless. I was no longer allowed to drink juice whenever I wanted. I was subjected to frequent daily shots for insulin and finger pokes for blood glucose testing. It was a traumatic time for a 4-year old who hadn’t even had the opportunity to grab life by the horns.
The irony is that all the traumatic stuff is the only reason I’m still alive, even if some of it was misguided, wrong and in some ways caused more harm than good. Back in good ol’ 1982, carbohydrate counting wasn’t a thing at my hospital. Maybe if I had lived in a larger centre, there would have been better Diabetes education available. But in my hometown, there was a singular mantra when it came to the control of Diabetes: Don’t eat sugar! That was it. In tandem with a morning injection of short-term insulin and an evening injection of basal insulin, my blood was tested once a day before bed and I was good to go.
Yes, you read that right! My blood was only tested once a day. Quite a far cry from the dozen times I finger poke myself these days, or the Sensor Glucose readings I get from my pump every five minutes. Not to mention that my first glucometer was roughly the size and shape of a brick. (There’s an illustration of that glucometer in my previous post: When Diabetics Get High… (but not the way you think) But Diabetes therapy has come a long way from it’s beginning, when a person diagnosed with Type-1 Diabetes usually considered it a death sentence.
A photo of the first insulin pump
Pump therapy, along with carb-counting and exercise, have made the life of a Type-1 Diabetic easier by scores from what it previously was! As illustrated above, the first insulin pump was basically the size of a large backpack and included metal parts and was cumbersome and impractical. It looks like something Tony Stark developed in a cave. Would I use something like this today? Obviously not, but back in 1963 when Dr. Arnold Kadish designed it, it would prove to be the launching pad for an insulin therapy device that would be widely accepted.
Smaller insulin pump. Source: Wikipedia
Smaller versions were developed by others roughly a decade later and they started being developed with wearability and accessibility in mind. But it wouldn’t be until the early 2000’s that insulin pump therapy would catch on as a common thing. One of the main obstacles is the overall cost. Although I don’t remember the exact retail price of my most recent insulin pump, I do know that it ran to the tune of about $8,500. If I didn’t have benefits through my work, I wouldn’t be on pump therapy.
That’s without taking into consideration that a box of infusion sets runs at about $200/month, reservoirs are about $50/month and the CGM sensors are about $400/month, making for a lovely total of almost $1,000/month when you factor in the insulin and test strips and anything else I may not have mentioned. Is it any wonder why people without solid medical insurance can’t take proper care of themselves? But I digress…
My point is that Diabetes therapy follows the very same trends as modern electronics and technology. When computers started becoming a thing, the average computer took up an entire room that had to be temperature controlled. Imagine trying to play Candy Crush on one of those bastards? The concept of a “personal computer” didn’t take hold until the 1970’s and even then they were boxy, clunky, difficult to move around and were pretty limited in what they could do. Today, the average smart phone has more computing power than what astronauts originally used to land on the moon.
The same can be said for insulin pumps. What started out as a huge, boxy, metallic backpack has now become a small, inconspicuous 3-ounce plastic box. Smaller than most cell phones. And technology is just getting better and better. There are different aspects being developed, including an artificial pancreas going through clinical trials, which could be promising for the future of improved Diabetes control. Who knows, maybe we’ll reach a technology that will allow for the wearing of a simple “insulin patch,” like a nicotine patch, and forego injections and needles altogether! We’ll get there, eventually. But getting there is the obvious problem and as the old saying goes, the waiting is the hardest part. ☯
I feel like today is as good a day as any to stagger up onto my soapbox and talk about some of the trends I’ve noticed when out in public. The way we do business and how consumers behave have long been influenced by everyone’s needs and expectations. These days, the internet has become the top choice for the newer generation, where online shopping, communication and even ordering food has become the new “normal.” This has become even truer in the past six to eight months since the onset of COVID-19.
But there’s been a strange shift in the balance between competent employees and consumers who understand that they’re at any given location to exchange money in return for a product or service and not to be catered to like royalty. Although most “normal” people simply go in, get what they need, pay and get out, there’s a percentage of the population that just isn’t happy until they’ve complained about something, gotten someone fired or received free products or services (Looking at you, Karen!). This is where one of the biggest running jokes of the retail world comes in: The customer is always right…
The expression “The Customer Is Always Right,” comes from all the way back in the early 1900’s and is thought to have first been used by a British department store owner named Harry Gordon Selfridge. You can Google/Wikipedia this guy for his background, as he isn’t necessarily the focus of today’s post, despite the title. But the expression was originally intended to convince staff to provide top-notch service to their customers AND provide patrons with the belief that they’d receive nothing but that good service.
Oh, how times have changed! Over the past century, this expression has become less about the business and more of a weapon that consumers use to get more than what they pay for. I’m not saying that the customer is always wrong, per se. I’m simply saying that it’s irresponsible and naive to think that the customer is always right, because they very rarely are.
There are, of course, exceptions to the rule (I SAID NO PICKLES ON MY BURGER KYLE!!! SERIOUSLY, HOW HARD IS IT NOT TO PUT PICKLES ON MY BURGER…) Some facets of industry tend to employ people who fall under the influence of becoming automatons, who are not stimulated or challenged by their work and who feel that being paid for their efforts is not enough. A lot of the time, this leads to sloppy work, laziness and will actually cause the problems that lead to the misnomer that the customer is always right.
It wouldn’t be one of my rants if I didn’t tell a story, so here we go! About a decade and a half ago, I was a front store manager for a well-known pharmacy chain in Canada. Part of my duties included the ordering of stock for our shelves with the products that were required and to reduce shrinkage. Like most businesses, we had a return policy that was limited in the sense that unless it was our own store brand, we only accepted returns if it could be proven that the item was purchased at our location (receipt) and that the fault lied with us (expired items, etc).
I feel that I need to explain that retail locations in Canada are under absolutely NO obligation to issue refunds or accept returns. Once money has been exchanged in return for a product or service, you’re basically on your own. Whether or not you can return an item totally falls on the specific location’s policies and you’re basically at THEIR mercy, not the other way around. Any business can refuse service, even if that service involves a refund or a return and even if most businesses do genuinely try to keep the customer happy by complying. But back to my story…
In walks a Karen… And this was back in the day before the term “Karen” was coined for the running joke the internet has made of it. Just to keep from constantly picking on people named Karen, I’ll simply refer to this person as “the customer.” Anyway, Karen… I mean the customer came into my retail location with the intention of making a return. A usual and typical part of every cashier’s daily duties, this normally wouldn’t have been a big issue.
The customer waited her turn in line and when she finally reached the cashier, explained that she had purchase a package of name-brand batteries and wanted to return them. Although I wasn’t there for this part, I was told that even the customer’s explanation was abrasive. The cashier did her job well and inquired as to what the problem was. Were we past the expiration date on the package? No. Was the package open before you got it home? No (which wouldn’t have made sense anyway, since we weren’t in the habit of selling open products).
The cashier asked the customer what the company had said when she called their customer service line marked on the packaging, and that’s where shit slipped off the rails! The customer explained that it isn’t her job to make calls and try and get her product replaced and she wanted her money refunded. My cashier explained that our store’s return policy didn’t allow her to accept a return for an item that was sold in good faith in a sealed package and that the responsibility for replacement now fell to the battery’s company and/or manufacturer. This led to one of the most self-entitled demands in retail history: “I want to speak to your manager!”
Now, I wouldn’t necessarily describe myself as a stoic. But I do have a significantly higher ability than most to maintain a control over my reactions; a result of a lifetime of training and control. But despite this fact, I don’t suffer fools easily and I tend not to take crap from self-entitled people, whether it comes on the job or not. So when I got to the front and was instantly confronted with an angry customer who is ranting about how my cashier provides terrible customer service and should be fired, I was already working towards trying to find my inner Zen.
Once the customer explained what had happened, I calmly explained our store’s return policy (which my cashier had already done) and how we wouldn’t be able to refund her money. The only thing such a customer hates more than not getting what they want, is having the manager they requested tell them the EXACT same thing that the employee did. It’s like their kryptonite. She got flustered and red-faced and started screaming at me in front of the line of customers, all of whom she was holding up because of her bullshit.
At this point, I felt that it was no longer a worthy battle and simply a matter of removing her from the store. Since one needs to know and accept WHEN to pick their battles, I didn’t feel that a pack of batteries priced at a few dollars was worth upsetting and disrupting the flow of waiting customers who WERE actually just there to conduct normal purchases. I go the customer hustled out the door, eventually on the threat of contacting police. I joined her outside, where I had a frank conversation with her.
Folks, I’m not a total asshole! (Most of the time) If this customer had calmly asked for the manager and had maturely explained her situation as opposed to kicking and screaming like a petulant child with a loaded diaper, I likely would have done something for her. Anything. Replaced the package. Provided store credit on a gift card. Something. There was a god chance that even though I wasn’t supposed to, my vendor would have reimbursed me for the faulty batteries and I could have helped this lady out.
But once she turned into Bitch-zilla, all bets were off. And the reality is that this type of behaviour from consumers is becoming more and more prominent. It’s almost as though consumers fail to understand that they’re there for the exchange of money for a product and nothing else. Do we want your business? Oh yes. Do we want your repeat business in order to maintain our profits? Most definitely. Let’s not kid ourselves, businesses are there to make money. But that doesn’t mean that businesses should allow their staff to be abused by the likes of people like that.
“The customer is always right” has become harmful to modern-day businesses, because employees, and most managers if they’re worth their salt are having none of it. You can go on Google and YouTube and find all sorts of videos of employees reaching their breaking point and basically sending rude and entitled customers straight to hell on the next thing burning. But there are a lot of reasons WHY this slogan is not only false, but has become harmful to businesses everywhere.
I found a pretty good article on Huffpost.com entitled, “Top 5 Reasons Why ‘The Customer Is Always Right’ Is Wrong.” It’s a pretty good article, and covers certain aspects including but not limited to the fact that working on the basis of the customer always being right makes the employees feel less valued and unhappy, which results in worse customer service. It also provides an unfair advantage to rude customers who just wanna watch the world burn.
It’s important to be decent and reasonable when dealing with the businesses you frequent. No one owes you anything, and even though most businesses will do what they can to keep your business, I think we’re all mature enough to understand that most overall companies (especially franchise chains) won’t miss the small amount of money your shopping provides. Especially if it means the comfort and protection of their staff. For toxic customers who are genuinely bad for a business, there’s the door. Be sure to let it smack your ass on the way out, the way your momma should have!
In closing, one last little detail about my story that just adds the icing on the cake… The package of batteries the customer purchased were on special and she demanded having them refunded at the original, full retail price. So not only did she expect a refund, she expected more money back than she had paid! Snowflakes… I think we owe it to ourselves to be better to each other than that. We all have times when we get frustrated because of something retail-related. Maybe you bought the wrong size. Maybe it wasn’t the product you expected. Shit happens. You simply need to understand that it’s not the employees fault, and businesses won’t roll out a red carpet and massage your feet as a result. There’s enough suffering in the world without intentionally adding to it. Shop safely, my friends! ☯
Never, in the history of mankind has anyone ever calmed down after being told to calm down. Has this ever happened to you? There’s nothing I dislike more than being genuinely upset about something and having someone try and tell me to calm down. The same concept applies to bad moods. I’ve never understood why people feel compelled to assume that one’s bad mood is attached to an underlying condition. For example, have you ever tried assuming that a lady’s bad mood is because of a particular “time of the month?” How did THAT exchange go for you? You probably can’t answer on account of your wife/girlfriend/sister breaking your jaw for making the assumption…
This same concept can be applied to Diabetes. I know I harp on the pitfalls of Diabetes in a lot of my posts, but that’s because the list of symptoms and complications is almost endless. And mood swings are one of the worst. Although every person is different, there’s no denying that uncontrolled blood sugars will cause a change in one’s mood and emotional well-being. For myself, high blood sugars will turn me into the loveable care bear you all recognize into an angry grizzly hell-bent on destroying anything in his path. I’m usually the same before my morning coffee. But I digress…
There have been so many times in my youth when this phenomenon affected my position in life or my relationship with others. Since my blood sugar control was limited to testing about once or twice a day and treating when I “felt” a low, there were times when I was a mean grump and treated those in my immediate surroundings harshly. Most times I wouldn’t even be aware that I was being a total ass but that wouldn’t stop the damage from being done.
Eventually, some relationships ended and some were forever altered into something less special. I mean, who wants to be around a cranky bastard all the time, right? But I’ve had times when my increasing bad mood has caused friends to avoid me and relationships to be damaged or lost. And this is not even including the fact that badly controlled blood sugars will usually make you sluggish and lethargic, making people believe you’re lazy or unmotivated. There have been days when I would just sit there with no energy, while friends and associates would try and convince me to go do something, anything other than sitting like a lump.
Knowing what I know now (say THAT three times fast), I understand that the frequent testing of one’s blood sugars and proper control of one’s Diabetes could have prevented those symptoms and I likely would have had a much happier adolescence. Hindsight is a hell of a bitch. At least I understand and have a much better control now. Life in general is the only thing that makes me cranky now, hahaha… haha… ha (cries a little while laughing). ☯
Sometimes, you need to just sit back, take a breath and have a laugh. I found this little gem while cruising the World Wide Web for something else and I couldn’t help but chuckle. I can totally admit that I don’t know the story behind what’s happening in this photograph, but besides making me giggle like a schoolgirl, I think it also illustrates a few important life lessons.
The first is that life is, in fact, a matter of balance. As my friend Daryl once told me, life is like a battery; some positive, some negative, all POWER. But the balance among all things is what’s important. The second lesson is that no matter how disciplined you are or how hard you’ve conditioned yourself, the world can sometimes be overwhelming and cause an overt reaction from even the most serene of people.
That being said, I should once again point out that I don’t know what the story is behind this photo. There was a story a few years ago about a group claiming to be Buddhist monks collecting donation money for a temple in Thailand. I think this was in New York, and the “monks” would approach arriving tourists and try to hit them up for donations. They would apparently become aggressive and even violent if people refused. That probably should have been a sign that they weren’t genuine. But the photo certainly gave me a laugh. ☯
No, before you panic and scroll beyond my post, this isn’t about difficulties in the washroom! At least, not in the traditional sense… As most of you know, I make use of an insulin pump for my insulin delivery. I’ve been on pump therapy for over five years now, and recently upgraded to the Medtronic 670G. I’ve also started using Continuous Glucose Monitoring, which has presented its fair share of challenges, despite being a comfort now.
But my “toilet troubles” came in the shape of an issue I faced about two weeks ago during a change of infusion set. I had been doing work in my back yard and worked up quite a sweat. As a result, I decided I should grab a shower. But once I was in the shower, I remembered that I only had about 8 or 10 units left in my current reservoir and I would need to change my set up once I got out of the shower.
As any Type-1 Diabetic using a pump would agree, “naked” showers are a rare treat. For those who may not understand, a “naked” shower refers to one you get to have where you don’t have an infusion set attached to your gut and can enjoy the shower without the dangers of pulling the set out from washing. Having a shower line up with the actual change of one’s infusion set is rare, so I chose to rip the infusion set out while I was in the shower in order to reap the benefits.
The infusion set includes a round piece of sticky adhesive material, fastened to a hard piece of plastic that hold the actual cannula that delivers the insulin. I decided to pull an NBA imitation and toss the infusion set over the top of the shower door and hopefully get it into the trash bin. Instead, I successfully managed to come up a bit short and it landed right into the open toilet bowl!
Once I was out of the shower, I stood there and tried to decide how I would get this discarded piece of medical equipment out of my toilet bowl. I judged that I didn’t want to take the chance flushing it, as I didn’t want to risk clogging the line. I’m also not one for submerging my hand into an open toilet bowl, despite how often I clean it. As a result, I needed something that could successfully grab the infusion set without contaminating say, a kitchen utensil or an implement that I would never feel quite right using again, regardless of how well I cleaned it.
My solution is that I ended up using two Q-tips to try and pick it out. I struggled for several minutes looking like some dark comedy of someone with paper chopsticks, eating leftover Chinese food out of the grossest carton possible. Plastic and wet adhesive are reasonably slippery when wet. Add in trying to grab onto them with wet cotton swabs and you’d have yourself $10,000 if this were the 1990’s and someone caught it on film and gave it to Bob Saget!
I did finally manage to fish the infusion set out and toss it in the trash, after several attempts. I’ve often given my son Nathan a hard time about closing the toilet lid, since there’s a small shelving unit with toothbrushes and my electric shaver hovering right above the toilet. Leaving the toilet lid up is often a recipe for disaster since Nathan is quite clumsy and has come close to dropping his brush in the toilet on more than one occasion.
I should have followed my own directions, as this could have been avoided if I had closed the toilet lid before showering. Of course, I could have simply kept the infusion set on a shower shelf until I got out too, I suppose. But it made for a funny incident and goes to prove that Diabetic problems are not simply limited to medical ones. ☯
Something that occasionally crosses my mind is how there will be a significant employment exodus in the fact that a number of industries have unfortunately discovered that some of the employees they’ve sent home are no longer essential. Months and months of having certain positions sent home without the benefit of a “work at home” plan have rendered some jobs obsolete. The flip side to this, is that all the people who are no longer able to work in their chosen industry will turn to many of the employment positions that were intentionally abandoned by folks who didn’t want to go out into the world during the pandemic.
Regardless what your position or chosen career may be, we’ve all found ourselves in a very specific position at one time or another. The position I’m referring to, is subjecting ourselves to a job interview. No matter how confident in your material you may be, no matter if you’ve worked in the industry you’re interviewing with before, the stress and anxiety that comes with sitting through a job interview can do a number on you.
Throughout my life, I’ve found myself on both sides of the table. I’ve been the interviewer and the interviewee. And especially in the past year, I must have sat through about a dozen interviews while I’ve been busy trying to “find” myself and I’ve learned a thing or two. So despite the fact it has nothing to do with Buddhism, martial arts or Diabetes, I thought I would share some of the gems I’ve discovered about interviewing.
These are a combination of things that have worked for me, as well as things that I’ve noted when interviewing others. So some of it might seem pretty obvious, but not necessarily to everyone. Here we go…
Show up early: You would think this one is obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many people are fine with walking in at the last minute. I’m not saying you need to show up an hour before your scheduled appointment and sit in the waiting area like some sort of psycho. But arriving fifteen minutes ahead of your appointment makes a good impression and can even be important in helping you deal with unexpected obstacles, like construction zones, finding an unknown address and being available in the event the appointment prior to yours ends early;
Dress professionally, not for the job you want: I don’t care if you’re applying to work for waste management or if you’re applying to be CEO of a fortune-500 company… Dress properly. Dress pants, shirt and tie at a minimum. People always say “dress for the job you want,” but that’s total bullshit! Dress to the nines, no matter what the position you’re applying for. It shows your commitment to getting the job and your level of professionalism;
Make eye contact and smile: You want to give your interviewer your utmost attention. There’s nothing worse than an interviewee who drifts off and has you repeat a question. Pay attention and listen. Actively listen;
Don’t be afraid to admit you don’t know: If you’re asked a question and you don’t know the answer, then you should admit that you don’t know. Potential employers don’t like it when you make up some random shit. And you’re almost guaranteed to get called out on it. Employers much prefer someone that can admit they don’t know and are willing to look it up or learn, than someone who will phone it in by trying to lie or make stuff up;
Use the power of “WE”: You want to be a part of that specific company? You want that job? Then include yourself! When asking questions or answering theirs, use “we” to start creating the idea that you consider yourself a part of that organization. What benefits do “we” have included? What schedule do “we” use? It creates the impression that you’re part of the company. You’ll be surprised at the effect it has;
Study up: You can’t know everything, but if you apply for a specific job you should have some rudimentary knowledge about the industry you’re interviewing with. Applying to be an insurance broker? Maybe you want to study up on your Province’s insurance laws and regulations. Applying to be a government employee? Try learning some of the legislation that regulates the specific branch of government you’re interviewing with. This ensures that you can show some minimal knowledge in the job you’re trying to get;
End the interview with a “thank you” and a handshake: No matter how you think the interview went, good or bad, be certain to thank your interviewer(s) for their time and provide a firm farewell handshake. This not only shows your commitment to professionalism, it shows your gratitude for the time that was taken to interview you.
It feels a little strange writing about something that isn’t my usual forte, in terms of this blog. But given the state of the world and how the employment industry is going, knowledge can be an incredible advantage. being qualified for a position is only half the battle. Being able to PROVE you’re a fit for the job and being confident is the other half. ☯
If you don’t run in martial arts circles, all the terminology and the different forms of martial arts can be somewhat overwhelming. With more than a couple of hundred different styles/types of martial arts from all around the world, divided by style, type, school and sub-styles, it can all get a little convoluted. You have striking styles, grappling styles, weapons styles and uncounted numbers of hybrid styles. Without delving too deeply in how some styles are descendent from another and so forth, let’s focus mainly on the style I’ve been studying all my life: Uechi Ryu Okinawan Karate.
First, let’s cover off some basics so that we’re all on the same page. Karate is an Okinawan martial art, not to be mistaken with a Japanese martial art. Yes, yes, I know… Okinawa is part of Japan; a prefecture of Japan, in fact. For those who don’t know, a prefecture is a sort of jurisdictional division, like a country, Province or state. And although some descendent styles of karate were founded in Japan, karate owes its roots to Okinawa. Hence, the distinction.
Karate, or Karate Do as it’s meant to be pronounced, means “empty hand” with the latter term meaning “way of the empty hand.” The fighting style came about when the original masters returned from China where they had learned a number of different styles of Kung Fu. In the case of my style’s founder, he fled to China in order to escape the military draft. But hey, nobody’s perfect!
Originally, martial arts in Okinawa were referred to as Te, or “martial skill. Once the inclusion of Chinese Kung Fu came about, it was renamed Tode, or “Chinese Hand.” For the most part, Te was used as a fighting art for law enforcement and the rich and generally included the use of a sword or other edged weapon. Te is also way, WAY older than Tode. This is why the true origins of karate as I know it come from Tode.
Once karate made its way to Okinawa, it became divided by three separates schools or “styles” (although they never referred to them as separate styles): Naha-Te, Tomari-Te and Shuri-Te, after the three main cities on Okinawa. To some extent, every traditional style of karate, including the subsequent Japanese styles, can trace their roots to one of these three original schools. In the case of my style, (Uechi-Ryu) it got it’s humble beginnings in Naha, making it a part of Naha-Te.
In the beginning, there were no differing styles. Karate was karate and students from those three cities would train together with no discerning difference in techniques and style with the exception of small, cosmetic aspects. As specific “styles” began to emerge due to the inclusion of specific forms and techniques, most were named in honour or remembrance of their founders, which is the case for Uechi-Ryu, which was so-named by students after Master Kanbun Uechi’s death in 1948.
The only real distinction that could be made amongst the three styles were that Tomari-Te and Shuri-Te were pretty linear styles with Naha-Te being more of a circular style. But in speaking with some of the original masters way back then, most of them were surprised and even indifferent to the prospect that people were referring to their karate as “this style” or “that style.” For them, it was all just karate.
One of the things that makes me sad is that Uechi Ryu is not a mainstream form of karate like many of the more recognizable styles, like Shotokan, Kyokushinkai or Goju-Ryu. Ironically, Goju-Ryu is Uechi-Ryu’s sister style and is almost identical to Uechi-Ryu. Same katas, same circular blocks and movements, same original background. But this means that if you try to see Karate’s family tree, Uechi-Ryu is often not included.
You can check out Uechi-Ryu’s full background by reading the Wikipedia entry, which I have to say is pretty accurate and complete. But today’s face of karate differs quite a bit from it’s humble beginnings two centuries ago. Many popular styles of karate are simply hybrids or combinations of previous or traditional styles. The aforementioned Kyokushinkai, for example, is a hybrid combination of Goju-Ryu and Shotokan karate. And new schools and styles seem to emerge with every passing decade. At the end of the day, karate is karate. A punch is still a punch and a kick is still a kick. Finding the style that works for you and that you can commit yourself to is the key. But knowing the roots that started it all will open the door. ☯
I just got through watching both seasons of Cobra Kai, which are now available on Netflix. The series follows the exploits of Johnny Lawrence and Daniel Larusso, respective antagonist and protagonist from the 1985 original “Karate Kid.” This time around, Lawrence is the focus as he struggles through a failed marriage, an estranged son and bringing back his Sensei’s failed karate dojo, which is Cobra Kai. It’s a fantastic martial arts series, focused on karate. I can’t wait to see what Season 3 will bring.
It got me feeling nostalgic for the original Karate Kid movies, which included two sequels and a rebirth with “The Next Karate Kid.” You’ll noticed I haven’t mentioned 2010’s remake of the The Karate Kid, starring Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. Although it was a decent movie, it’s based on Kung Fu, not karate and was basically a slap in the face to the original. But through that nostalgia, I started researching and falling down the YouTube rabbit hole and discovered some interesting facts about the film series, including the involvement of Fumio Demura.
Fumio Demura is a well-known martial artist who studies Shito-Ryu karate and kobudo. I came to find out that Demura played the stunt double for Pat Morita’s “Mr. Miyagi.” This came as a surprise to me, since I knew of Demura through his books. Demura wrote a series of books in the 1980’s covering a number of weapons used in Kobudo. Since joining Kempo Karate in 2016, I’ve slowly introduced the bo staff and sat into my training regimen.
Since there’s a limited amount of coaching time on weapons in the dojo, I decided to order two of Demura’s books, Bo: Karate Weapon of Self-Defence and Sai: Karate Weapon of Self-Defence. In these books, Demura covers a number of basic concepts for both weapons and includes several photos and diagrams. They’ve been helpful, despite the fact that I don’t focus heavily on weapons.
It was cool to read about his involvement. We’re all aware that movie actors use stunt doubles, but it was neat to find that one of my favourite movies included a stunt double that I’ve read and studied about. If you study karate or kobudo, I highly recommend you search “Fumio Demura” online and see what you can find. Any of his books are definitely worth a read. ☯
It’s my opinion that life has more than its fair share of difficulties. It’s no secret that the world has its fair share of suffering and occasionally loves to spread it around. This is why it’s always shocked and surprised me when individual persons seem to make and effort to increase another person’s difficulties and struggles or cause suffering in others. Isn’t life hard enough? It would seem to me that there are enough battles to be fought without people intentionally causing issues for one another.
If I take my own personal situation as an example, one person’s failure coupled with lies that they likely hoped would exonerate them, got me caught up in a whirlwind of unnecessary disciplinary action that’s turned my work and personal life upside down for the past two years. It’s been one of the hardest periods of my life and has made it difficult to live normally, including emotional roller coasters, occasional estrangement and closing myself off and even missing the birth of my second child.
I just recently heard of a similar situation happening to one of my best friends, and it sets a fire under my posterior. I know that the internet as well as the world in general, absolutely loves making jokes, memes and poking fun at the likes of “Karens,” “Kyles” and “Chads.” And it’s no secret that I often comment on “snowflakes” and the over-sensitive nature of recent generations. It seems that with the passing of recent decades, people have become more and more sensitive to menial actions and things.
I remember a job I held, about twenty years ago. Yes, I’m THAT old! Let’s move on, shall we? I worked in a call centre for a Canadian courier company and I absolutely hated it. Part of my assigned duties included taking incoming calls from people who were trying to track their parcels. On top of the fact that people are ridiculously impatient and were usually pissed when they phoned in, I dealt with one of the few times where my bilingualism was a hindrance; because I took shit from people in both official languages.
It got to the point where my gut would kill me with every shift I went on. At one point, I chose to discuss my concerns with my supervisor, who promptly explained that I wasn’t in any physical danger and that of course people would be pissed about being unable to locate their package. I was told I needed to stop being so sensitive and to quit worrying about the words others were using. Then I was told to get the hell back to work. Oh, how the world has changed…
Can you imagine if someone spoke to an employee that way now? The blowback would be significant. In fact, this is also a slippery slope amongst the employees themselves. With everyone having become so sensitive and getting offended about everything, it seems to take very little to get someone in serious trouble, even when the subject of that trouble is ridiculously menial. Now, I know what you’re thinking: if an action or comment sincerely bothers someone, then it isn’t menial.
And although you may be right about that aspect, it doesn’t mean the other person deserves to have their job jeopardized or their lives affected because you can’t handle a comment or action. And that’s the problem. It seems that these days, all it takes is an uttered complaint for a person’s life to be completely turned upside down. People need to realize how their comments and actions can be destructive to others. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, people need to quit being snowflakes and complaining about everything. There’s enough suffering in the world to deal with, without people doing it to each other. ☯
The Blogging Buddhist 