Читать книгу Martial Arts Training in Japan. A Guide for Westerners онлайн

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But which is the budo for you? Once I overheard a new student ask my tai chi ch’uan teacher, Chan Poi Sifu, which martial art was the best one. Teacher Chan replied, “Right hand, right foot. Left hand, left foot. Block. Punch. Kick. All the same.” Then, pointing to his head and his heart, he concluded, “The only difference is here.”

It is also true that all roads lead to Rome, they just start at different points. Some people feel comfortable with an art in which they can wrestle with one another or spar on a regular basis and they start there. Others would find an art with an emphasis on competitive fighting to be distracting, even immature. Some aspiring students are attracted to the arts of the famous Japanese sword, while others wish to study kobudo and learn to manipulate the ancient farm-implement weaponry of Okinawa—the nunchaku (rice flail), tonfa (rice-grinding-wheel handle), kama (sickle), bo (long staff), sai (three-pronged wheel pin), and jutte (policeman’s baton). Other less well-known kobudo weaponry include the use of sea-turtle shell as a shield and spear-head as a bladed weapon, and the martial use of the boat oar, or ro.