Karate-do

So yesterday I went for the first time to the Dojo I plan to be visiting from now on:)

I have been a Karate lover ever since my first lesson when I was 18. And yes like the next girl from the suburbs I had tried ballet. I concluded that I love to watch ballet but I hate practicing it.

Karate on the other hand is a a whole different game. Up to my black belt I thought Karate stops at the Black belt level. In truth that's where true Karate begins.

When you have mastered the techniques, the Kata and the basic Bushido philosophy and you start really getting into the Karate spirit.

Shotokan Karate, the spiritual child of Gichin Funakoshi, based on masters like Matsumura many centuries ago, is to me something that changed me and my life alltogether.

At first it was a challenge, to try and compete in a sport that to me was really masculine and not at all feminine. To my friends it was so very weird, practicing karate instead of aerobics or dancing or something.

To me it was and still is a path to self-realization, to spiritual evolving and exploration, to calmness and clarity.

Karate is not about fighting. Karate is about not fighting. But if you absolutely need to fight, if there is no way you can avoid it or sort it out.....then you can protect yourself. And kill.

That thought, that you can actually use your skills to kill is a responsibility that will hold you back when anger tries to take over. That and the Karate philosophy, Bushido, the warrior code.

People ask me to show them a few Karate moves, as if Karate is a form of dance or something. Karate is going up and down the Dojo a few million times, doing the same moves over and over, until your body reacts without thinking anymore, until breathing in the martial arts way is an enstinct. Until your Ki is focused and one move is enough to knock your opponent out. It is a true moment of clarity when you realise for the first time how to centralise and collect your Ki. It is a spiritual journey to reach but when you do......then you have mastered a big part of the Karate spirit.

There is no other way for me to achieve this level of calmness, of clarity, of perception than Karate.

I have missed practicing for the last months.But now that my body can again at last follow and support my spirit I will start practicing again.

The Sensei told me yesterday "Karate is not a sport. It is a need. And the Dojo is always open. Does the church ever close? "

Karate-do - the Way

Dojo - Place of Enlightment

Dojo-Kun
First. Seek perfection of character
First. Protect the way of the truth
First. Foster the spirit of effort
First. Respect the principles of etiquette and respect others
First. Guard against impetuous courage and refrain from violent behavior.



Niju Kun

1. Karate is not only dojo training.
2. Don't forget that Karate begins with a bow and ends with a bow.
3. In Karate, never attack first.
4. One who practices Karate must follow the way of justice
5. First you must know yourself. Then you can know others.
6. Spiritual development is paramount; technical skills are merely means to the end.
7. You must release your mind
8. Misfortune comes out of laziness.
9. Karate is a lifelong training.
10. Put Karate into everything you do.
11. Karate is like hot water. If you do not give heat constantly it will again become cold.
12. Do not think you have to win. Think that you do not have to lose.
13. Victory depends on your ability to tell vulnerable points from invulnerable ones.
14. Move according to your opponent.
15. Consider your opponent's hands and legs as you would sharp swords.
16. When you leave home, think that millions of opponents are waiting for you.
17. Ready position for beginners and natural position for advanced students.
18. Kata is one thing. Engaging in a real fight is another.
19. Do not forget (1)strength and weakness of power, (2)expansion and contraction of the body, (3)slowness and speed of techniques.
20. Devise at all times.

You don't find passion, it finds you

You don't find passion, it finds you.

You don't find passion, it finds you.

You don't find passion, it finds you.

I heard this phrase last night in the 'Bedford Diaries'

It was as I heard it that I realised its significance, its importance and its truth.

Passion...I wrote about it here and here

I asked for it, I longed for it but I never realised that even though I was looking for it I could not find it by searching. It is a sad or maybe a happy fact in life that passion will hit you when you least expect it. It will reveal its existence in the most trivial or insignificant way and yet...it will be there......growing with every minute until it is a large tide whose waters you can no longer contain.

Do you embrace passion when it comes, do you welcome it? Do you accept it when maybe you know that it will probably cause you so much pain?

I remember an affair I had some years ago.......I knew from the very start that it was going to end, I knew it would hurt as hell.......and I was so young that I neglected everything else and just went ahead and got my a...s kicked for love. And you know what?

I don't regret it for a second. I remember the pain of course but still while it lasted I felt so alive. God I felt so uniquely ALIVE I feel like screaming even thinking about it. There is a specific moment that I often recall....sitting in his car, under a winter starry night sky, and debating the meaning of life. It doesn't sound romantic does it? I tell you it was. It was so much for me.

When we met after some years, when he had moved on and I had too, we knew with absolute certainty that nothing could ever happen with us again. And still the memory of those days was so alive, a bond that we will always share, that cannot be taken or changed. A memory. And we smiled :)

So....when you grow older, and you have your share of pain and experience do you still go ahead and fall head over heels?

I don't really know. Its easy to say no if you are not experiencing it, and maybe even if you are, you can still say no, prefering a secure, easier life that the 'excruciating agony of love'.

What a tragedy, what a betrayal to Puccini and Verdi and Monet and Botticceli and all those artists and poets and everyone who ever sat down and tried to depict this force of nature, this unique life force that says to you

'Life is here, now. Life is worth living. Go ahead and live it now because its the only one you have'

As Barbra Streizant says in the 'Mirror has two faces' :

"We all want to fall in love. Why? Because it makes us feel completely alive, where every sense is heightened, every emotion is magnified. Our everyday reality is shattered and we are flying into the heavens. It may only last a moment, an hour, an afternoon, but that doesnt diminish its value because we are left with memories that we treasure for the rest of our lives.

Because...while it DOES LAST...it feels fucking great!"

(of course this movie, one of my favourites, closes with the uncomparable notes of Puccini's Nessun Dorma)

In that movie BStr (Rose Morgan) says something else too:

"I tell you what I envy about people in love - I'd love it if someone knew me, I mean really knew me. What I like, what I'm afraid of, what kind of toothpaste I use."

Passion.......I asked for it, I longed for it, I even prayed (to the Universe) for it. And I was deprived of it. Will I be still? Or maybe not?:)

My heart is broken.

I recently had the chance to visit the Prado museum. My current pantheon is (at descending order ):

the Uffizi
the Louvre
the London National Gallery
the Prado

There are many museums in the world. I love museums. Correction.....i adore museums. I adore everything about them, the silence, the whispers, the chambers , tha artifacts, the works of art ...the journey to find them, their shops their cafe's ......everything.

My most vivid memories from these 4 are :

Looking out the window of the Uffizi, after having visited Boticelli's Birth of Venus. Seeing Florence in the twillight. Knowing that in a few hours I would leave this ancient city but knowing also that the images, the sounds , the smells would be with me forever. Florence is where my heart lies.


I arrived in Paris making my dream come true and attending the Two Towers World premiere (yeah met PJ and cast and crew of LOTR)
Well when not in LOTR premiere i was in the Louvre. And I remember that those days were my last happy days for a long time. After I came back a period of sadness and darkness begun. And as if I knew what was to come I lived, enjoyed those days as much as I could. As intensely as I could. The Louvre will always be my personal temple.
The National Gallery in London was the first gallery I ever visited. It was the first time I ever came close to so many magnificent works of art. I think I will always remember the last day I was in London , before running to the airport squeezing in a last visit to my favorite gallery.

And last ...but not least the Prado, one of the worlds greatest museums. Most visitors to the Prado pay attention to Spain's great 3, Goya, Greco and Velazquez.

I prefered Bosh and his Garden of delights. I loved Roubens and his Orpheus , and I was impressed by the german and flamandic painters.

When one is faced with so much beauty, so many works of the mind, of the human spirit and what we call soul, so much of the best of our humanity I think ....I think there are no words to describe the feeling. I could describe it as tears of joy, as laughter in a clear happy day, as the entrance to a world you never could imagine existed.

And all that beauty in a way becomes part of you when you see it, I mean really see it not just hung around the museum not looking.

When you really look then you can perhaps hear the voices and the sounds of the people in the paintings, the sound of battle or lovemaking , the whispers of the past reaching down to you and making your fantasy a wonderful playground.

Museums are my playground. Thank God for Museums. For those who acknowledge and respect humanity's best. For those who believe in beauty and spirituality. And preserve it at any cost.