Personal experience youtu.be/Jr4aJVK_018 Katherine Loukopoulos: studying karate and kobudo in Okinawa Since 1982 to 1986 I returned to Okinawa several times. When I concluded my amateur competitive career in August of 1986, I made arrangements to come to Okinawa to study for one year. The one-year extended to fourteen years. While the world is moving forward at a high pace, karate and kobudo stands still on Okinawa. In fact, culture stands still on Okinawa. People practice and preserve accuracy of techniques with great detail. While the world is dazzled with fancy and colorful uniforms, Las Vegas style acrobatic performances performed to music, where practitioners hire designers to create unique outfits, music engineers mix and create unique melodies, dance choreographers put together difficult to execute moves, all in the name of martial arts performances; here on Okinawa, the simple, the austere, and the old ways prevail. And even though some Okinawa teachers were brave enough to write books they kept quiet about their accomplishments. In fact, it is not until a few years ago I learned that both Miyazato Eiichi sensei and Akamine Eisuke sensei wrote books, and according to Shurei Do martial arts manufacturer and owner Mr. Nakasone, those books were out of print. I learned to train and to observe in silence. I paid attention to detail and listened. I was able to fill in the gaps, and since I did not know the language I had no idea how huge were those gaps. I loved going to Uehara Ko sensei dojo. I loved his method of explanations and the manner by which he trained us. As a rule, Okinawans are pretty easy going and so was Uehara Ko sensei. But when it came to training he was demanding. He wanted the details just the exact way he was showing us even though we could not always see them. The training on Okinawa for most of the time is individualized to students needs. Students must be motivated on their own because they have to go to the dojo and train by themselves. The teacher always observed and often asked students to demonstrate a particular technique, and afterwards gave corrections. Subsequently students continued to train on their own. That was difficult because in order to be accurate with the techniques we had to practice them endlessly on our own, besides doing all the necessary training to physically and cardiovascularly stay in shape. In the United States everyone strives to be different and unique, on Okinawa everyone studies on how to be exactly alike. Read full article here: [历史] Katherine Loukopoulos师范冲绳回忆录 A Legend is Mourned tieba.baidu/p/2360747174 Bio here: chioki.nl/k-index.html
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 08:00:01 +0000
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