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KENPO COMES HOME PART 3
By Jeff Speakman
If you will allow yourself to think this way for just a few moments we can trace the art of American Kenpo directly to the empty hand art of Wu Shu, called Chuan fa. That means this amazing art of “personal defense” or “escape patterns”, as it is originally referred to, was the art taught to the Bodhisattva Warriors, the protectors of Buddhism, in a way the original knights templar--and we are all their direct descendants. Although I have spent many years of my life researching and inquiring of many different religions and belief systems, I had only a cursory knowledge of Buddhism and this encounter opened the door for me to really plunge in.
Metaphorically Buddhism’s journey of self discovery and self actualization mirrors the journey of the martial way. Not “the” path to discover who you are in all of this, but “a” path of discovery, a way to learn about yourself and celebrate the fact that you are here. You see, that is the point of the martial arts, and how it deviates from the various sport fighting systems of the day. There needs to be a real sense of grace, beauty and realization of the common good mixed in with the physical mastery to be a complete journey. A balance of the yang to go with the yin as it were, or as Nagaboshi Tomio points out in his book Bodhisattva Warriors, “non-spiritual physical arts practitioners may get attached to their own supposed virtues or attributes. Such an attitude closes the door of the path”. A concept that is lacking so much in the over-commercialization of the martial arts so prevalent in the United States and now other developed countries as well. That is why staying connected to the old school ways is so important to me, my students and many of my friends in the martial arts world. And that is why I have remained so closely connected to my original Goju-Ryu instructor Hanshi Lou Angel. You see, Mr. Angel tested for and received his third degree black belt directly from Gogen Yamagucci in Tokyo, Japan in 1963. It is with that sensibility that I was raised in the martial arts by Hanshi Angel and it is how I pass on the arts to my students.
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