Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” It seems there is no shortage of Karateka and Kobudoka demonstrating kata they clearly never had any formal instruction in. It seems that when they post these videos, the teaching of humility conveniently vanished; or maybe it was never taken to heart in the first place.
I hope everyone is safe and keeping well. In today’s post I wanted to say how much I enjoyed training this morning. It was a perfect Fall day to get outside and practice Karate and Kobudo. One silver lining to Covid-19 is getting me out of the dojo and back outside (rain, snow or sunshine) for practice and for that I am grateful. On days like these I have no desire to return to training inside, even if it was safe enough to do so.
Just a bit of housekeeping today. First, I’ve been updating “The Study of China Hand” by Itoman Morinobu so it is currently unavailable, but after it is done I will be offering it as an ebook in addition to the usual paperback.
Next, I continue to work on the translation of Nakasone and Mabuni’s ‘Introduction to Karate-do’ which I am happy to say is currently being proof-read by some very generous friends. Afterwards will be formatting and layout. In addition I am adding quite a bit of supplementary material including Mabuni’s articles from the magazine ‘Karate Studies’ (Karate no Kenkyu 空手の研究). The first is ‘Karate ni sente nashi’ which has already been translated by Mark Tankosich who is generously letting me use his translation. The second one is a short article on ‘Karate Kumite’ (also provided by Mark).
Just a quick update that I have a first pass translation of Mabuni and Nakasone’s Kobo Jizai Goshin Kenpo Karate-do Nyumon (攻防自在護身拳法空手道入門). It’s rough, and there’s still much to be done including: double and triple checking the translation, editing, proofing, formatting, and many other things, but I’m happy that I was able to complete it.
Things are slowly returning to normal in some places and I’m happy to see that, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for Karateka and Kobudoka. It will probably be some time before we are able to practice together and even then, we won’t be sure what that will consist of. In the meantime we can continue to practice and study by ourselves.
