budo

My teacher, Tatsuo Shimabuku, founder of Isshinryu Karate, followed these eight precepts which were printed on my graduation silks in Agena, Okinawa in 1960 --

1. A person's heart is the same as heaven and earth.
2. The blood circulating is similar to the motion of the moon and sun.
3. The manner of drinking and spitting is either hard or soft.
4. A person's unbalance is the same as a weight.
5. The body should be able to change directions at any time.
6. The time to strike is when the opportunity presents itself.
7. The eye must see all sides.
8. The ear must listen in all directions.

They are also known as The Code of Karate and The Eight Poems of the Fist. They are found listed in The Bible of Karate: Bubishi and in Sensei Gichin Funakoshi's Karate-Do Kyohan.

The precepts can be seen as couplets. The first two invite us to open to a microcosmic-macrocosmic understanding of ourselves as an integral part of a living universe. As above, so below. As within, so without. We are embodyings of heaven and earth. The circulation of our blood and the motions of the moon and sun follow similar principles. Martial arts are energy arts -- we are not just chunks of flesh but centering and interwhirling energies like heaven and earth, moon and stars, planets and the galaxies.

Precepts three and four form the momentum couplet, five and six the distancing couplet, seven and eight the awareness or zanshin couplet. More about these couplets later.

We will be following these precepts in cane defense.