LPMA Articles of Interest

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Fourth Article of Interest.
18 Mar 2010, 7:10 am

After many comments on the third article of Interest, I was inspired to write a fourth article. This article will be on another of the styles we teach at our school, which is Jujitsu. This form of martial art is written many ways, but for this article, and our purposes, we will call it Jujitsu, even though what we practice at our school is closer to Ju Jutsu, which is what was practiced by the Samurai of feudal Japan.

In our humble little school, we define Jujitsu as ‘The gentle art of Self Defense’. Jujitsu is literally a style of throwing, grappling, trapping an opponent, and pinning an opponent so as to prevent them from moving. The lore is said that the Samurai of feudal Japan had to come up with this system to deal with the situations when they were unarmed in battle. Without their sword, the samurai did not want to be defenseless, and thus came up with Jujitsu to fight armed opponents. Using this style the Samurai were able to defend against opponents who were using swords. If an opponent cannot move to strike you with his weapon, you cannot be harmed. If they are thrown every time they come at you, they will never touch you, if you can take your opponent’s weapon and use it against him, you’re assured victory.

In Jujitsu you will commonly throw, or deflect an opponent who is moving in toward you. This is a great defense against a linear weapon such as a downward sword slash, or club, or even a knife, in current day standards. Similar to Tai ‘Chi, Jujitsu focuses greatly on redirecting an opponent’s energy. One would not want to directly clash with an opponent’s oncoming force, because that would simply be like two cars running into one another. However, using very little force, you can redirect a great force that’s coming at you. To speak plainly, it takes less effort to redirect someone, then to overpower them. Jujitsu practitioners spend many hours learning how to do this. They constantly throw one another to the ground, using their partner’s force. Practitioners learn to fall properly so as to avoid injury. Learning how to roll away from a throw, they do not suffer the damage of being thrown to the ground. We do this as well, referring to it as ‘Slapping out’. Essentially learning to dissipate the force of the fall, so that your body doesn’t take the damage of it.

We use two of the four ways of fighting in Jujitsu: grappling and felling. Thinking about the Samurai, if they were fighting an opponent who had already disarmed them, punching and kicking would be highly ineffective against that person (who would be wearing a full suit of armor), so you wouldn’t want to do that. Instead, one would rely on the weight of their armor when you throw them, to do the damage when they fall. Jujitsu works with this mindset. The opponent who is constantly off balance cannot strike properly, or use their weapon if they are flying through the air. To provide an example of how this style would be used against an attacking opponent we’ll use this; as someone came forward to throw a wild rounded punch(a hay maker) a Jujitsu practitioner would perhaps step back with the opponent who is coming forward, lightly grab the person’s arms, and throw them to the ground using their own forward force. Redirection, deflection, and yielding are the ways of this style. I don’t want to go into anything more specific, which would take a lot of time for me to explain the movements in depth, but I think this provides enough information for you to gather what Jujitsu is about. Thanks for reading my fourth article of Interest!

~ Sean K.

Third Article of Interest.
30 Jun 2009, 2:06 am

Hello again, and thank you for reading my articles of Interest. Today’s article will be on the Martial arts Style “Kempo”. Among the systems taught in our school,Kempo is the second style that a student would be learning. Kempo originates from the island of Okinawa, which is a part of Japan. It is very popular over here in the states because it is a very dynamic fast paced style. This style is angular, fast, powerful, and destructive when mastered.

Kempo is an old style that has been around for a long time, also claiming some origins from the Shaolin temple, its origin is credited to a Master of only three hundred years past. Made famous in america by Ed Parker, and our own Grandmaster Fred Villari. However, this style is a great counter to the also popular karate. While karate is very linear in its ways, kempo is the opposite, using angular foot movements, and attacking opponents from angles as well. Kempo is practiced at times based on animal components. In fact, in our school, what we refer to as “Kempos” are often times animal techniques that rarely have names or numbers to them, just being referred to as that animals kempo. For example, by black belt I was required to have at least twenty five animal Kempo’s..roughly five from each animal. While we do not require this at our school, kempo’s are a great suppliment to our combination system, which consists of numbered combinations 1-108, and are required.

Where a karate attack would simply go straight at an opponent, even after defending, a kempo attack would more likely dodge or deflect an opponents attack first, then attack that opponent from an angle, instead of straight on. This gives the kempo student the advantage of attacking “out of reach” of his or her attacker while maintaining his or her own power and balance.

Kempo is also the first time our students will see take downs, where we actually use our skills to ‘fell’ an opponent. After blocking or dodging an attack, we return an attack, and take our opponents to the ground. While karate does this as well, Kempo does it through angles, speed, and skill. While it may sound like i’m talking down about Karate, i’m not, karate is a very linear style, and if they land a single attack on you, your finished. Kempo is usually done by faster, more agile practicioners. Every style has its strengths and weaknesses.

Kempo also employs the use of Kata’s(forms). Kata’s are used in karate as well, sometimes called a Pinyin. The kata’s in our system go from 1-6, and are extremely different then the Karate forms. Our kata’s are faster, shorter and more flowing then the Karate pinyin’s. We teach both styles so that students can gain the strength from karate, while learning the angles and speed of Kempo.
this is all for today’s Article of Interest, Thanks again for reading.
~Sean K.

Articles of Interest 2
25 Jun 2009, 7:38 am

Hello again readers,

Today i’ll do the second article of interest, this one we’ll do on Tai’ Chi. Tai Chi or Tai’ Chi Chuan is actually a very old style dating back to the beginnings of Kung Fu(gung fu). It is a style of martial arts that is done very slowly for the purpose of health, relaxation, and stress relief. If you’ve ever seen this martial art, its very interesting to watch. Tai Chi is done at a very slow speed, and almost looks like a form of dance. The truth about tai chi is that its getting the practitioner to exercise; stretching the ligaments, tendons, muscles, and increase blood flow and circulation for the entire body.

Tai Chi Chuan means in some translations “The Great Ultimate Fist”, but is often referred to as just ‘The Great Ultimate’. It is without a doubt a fighting style. In reference to my earlier article on Karate, Tai chi is very circular, very rounded. This style was made that way based on its Kung Fu origins from the Shaolin Temple, which is a very circular style. The old addage goes that a Circle defeats a straight line. This holds true for these two styles as well. The circular movements of Tai chi would easily be able to deflect or redirect the movements of a Karate practitioner. Having sparred a little bit with a few Tai Chi masters, I can verify the validity of this, as they tossed me around the room. Tai Chi users are practiced in recieving, changing, and redirecting the energy and intent of their attackers. Though often times Tai Chi isn’t practiced for its martial value, it is still done today (two thousand years later) for its practical value as a “mind-body” exercise. Practitioners of this style can enjoy the slow easy movements, the relaxed breathing, and the focus on thinking beyond one’s own problems to a much greater solution.

Tai chi is often times compared to yoga. Yoga is actually a style with some of the same principles, but Yoga is often done prone, or not moving, versus Tai chi which is based on constant flowing motions. Attributed as an old saying, but in my own opinion said best by one Master Bruce Lee, “Running water never grows stale, so you’ve got to just keep on flowing.” Tai chi is never still, though often not done very fast, the style itself can consist of forms(katas), breathing exercises as well as sitting or standing meditations. Tai chi is usually done at two times of the day, which are sun rise, or sun set. The reason for this is to do with the oriental way of thinking of how energy flows; believing that energy flows best at those times. Tai chi is always interesting because its generally the older or elderly people that do it, yet its principles are actually from the higher/highest levels of Shaolin (kung fu) which is what most of the younger crowed is after today. The secrets of Tai Chi are the secrets everyone wants, but the younger folk often times underestimate what Tai Chi is, trading it for the more invigorating, faster styles of martial arts.

In conclusion, Tai Chi is a martial arts style that is often done for health purposes. Tai chi is more then a set of movements however, as it encompasses a wide system of beliefs, based on trying to relieve the user of the stresses of daily life. I can tell you without a doubt that Tai chi is my favorite martial art, and that while i’m only a baby of the system, this being my fifth year of Tai Chi, that I would trade the other styles I practice for Tai chi in a heart beat. Its slow flowing movements are relaxing, its way of thinking is easy going, not forceful, and yet the style itself can be devistatingly powerful, and beautiful. At the same time its done so slow and gentle that no one would ever suspect anything was going on. Thank you for reading my second article of interest.

~Sean K.

Articles of Interest
25 Jun 2009, 5:48 am

Hello there, I did recently promise to start doing more updates on the website, and I’ve decided a really good way of doing that is to perhaps give a background on each of the styles we practice here at our little school. We practice Shaolin, Kempo, Karate, Juijitzu, as well as Tai chi. I’ll attempt to do an article on each of these styles, a bit out of order, but I’ll try to make them as interesting as possible.

We’ll start with Karate, the first style you’ll learn when joining our school. Kara-te means empty hands. The lore of karate goes as follows; In fuedal japan, the lords of the manors would sometimes mistreat their villagers. In one such event the lord of the land banned the use of weapons from the villagers. The lords used the Samurai as their personal guards. A fun fact everyone knows, is that samurai’s are masters of swordmanship. The villagers had to learn to use their empty hands to learn to fight against the oppressive overlords, as well as the samurai.

This is just a fun example of some of the lore that goes with the Martial arts. Karate is a very linear style, using straight punches and kicks. Karate students practice their punches and kicks until they can use them with deadly force. It is a very strong style who’s only weakness is its simplicity. That is of course, my own opinion, and not a fact. There are many karate masters who could level other schools using this same simple strategy, not to mention Karate has survived hundreds of years over time. Karate is practiced world wide, and is feared across many lands. Traditionally they wear a simple white gi, and a belt has become customary now as well. The system generally, though not always, uses a colored belt ranking system.

This is the first of the articles, hopefully everyone enjoys these little tidbits of information of mine, feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks again!

LPMA Director- Sean K.