Sayonara Okinawa!

August 19th, 2007 at 17:42 · Filed Under Blogging, Days in My Life, Karate, Kata and Bunkai, Okinawa, Training Journal, Travel 

Time flies. A month ago, I was stopping at Hong Kong heading to Okinawa. Today, after a month, I am at Hong Kong again heading home!

Home sweet home! Where all my loved ones are waiting for my return. I missed them so much.

During the flight, I had mixed feeling about this journey. I am longing to get home. On the other side, I wished I could stay on Okinawa longer to polish my skills. I am a little confused during the flight.

My return will be another significant milestone in both my karate life and Uechi-Ryu Zankai Malaysia. 3 years ago, I decided to come back to teaching karate. My son, Dmitry and Dietrich have motivated me. I was searching the true path to karate when I made the return. Today, I can’t believe that I have found the true karate path at Uechi-Ryu Zankai. The training on Okinawa has completely changed me. The hard work and sweat that I put in during this month together with all kinds of motivation have sped up my training.

This trip does not only fulfill my dream and the search of true karate, I have very important mission to learn this old-style Pre-WWII karate and bring it back to Malaysia, spread the art and preserve it from fading into modernization and from the corrosion of time.

I have now a heavy responsibility when I reach home. The responsibility to lead a group of adults, teenagers and children toward the true meaning of karate training.

In another 5 hours, I will step onto Malaysian soil (Home Sweet Home!) and become the first official Malaysian to have learnt Uechi-Ryu Zankai karate-do and helping the preservation of this old-style art. I believe with my students’ confidence and faith in me, Uechi-Ryu Zankai will, slowly and quietly, grow stronger each day.

Here, I would like to thank my family for their encouragement, motivation and support. I also wish to thank Seizan Sensei, Sumako Sempai and all the people I have met on Okinawa for teaching me and working me through my hard learning curve and forgetting curve. Especially Seizan Sensei for his humorous teaching method which spiced up the training with a lots of fun. He is the best karate-do teacher I have ever met.

I and on behalf of all my students would like to thank Toyama Sensei for granting me an opportunity to perform in front of his watchful eyes and granting permission to setup Okinawa Karate-do Uechi-ryu Zankai Malaysia Shibu Dojo. Can Seizan Sensei please relay our gratitude to Toyama Sensei? I could have thought about this on Friday night but this thought only surfaced during the en route.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Scott from Canada for introducing me to Seizan Sensei. Without his introduction, I could have been searching endlessly and still stuck in the mess of modern karate.

This departure has also made me understand 一期一会 (ichi go ichi e). A meeting has to come to an end to allow another to happen. I also gain better understanding, from this philosophy, the techniques of old-style Uechi-Ryu techniques in kata. Movement comes to an end and another will begin. It is endless, like the ocean wave, rolling and cycling endlessly with enormous energy and power. The energy and power will fade to effect another cycle to begin.

I am stepping in the shallow water of Uechi sea, the water is barely a foot deep. I am beginning to see the ocean waves ahead.

Ganbatte kudasai!

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One Response to “Sayonara Okinawa!”

  • elangovan on August 26th, 2007 23:34 1

    dear adrian i hope you enjoyed your training in okinawa as i did and now there is new changes in life i hope to see your growth and zankai in malaysia strong.
    I wrote to seizan sensei, he said that giving password is like breaking relationship between you and sensei so i never intended for it, so he asked me to contact you to share what you feel that you would share to me and it will be very personal which will not be shared unless and untill you wish to be shared with others. it will not be published in any form.

    if it is your personal journal then if you wish to share then you can share with me . any thing you wish to share you can send it to me via e-mail

    i hope to see your inner feelings of yours with seizan sensei and uechi ryu system.

    thanking you

    N.elangovan

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