Kek Lok Si

March 13th, 2008 at 21:49 · Filed Under Buddhism, Holidays, Malaysia, Penang, Photography, Scenery · 4 Comments 

Kek Lok Si (or 极乐寺 in Chinese) is a Buddhist temple situated on a hill in Air Hitam in Penang. It is the best known Buddhist temple on the island and possibly the whole Malaysia. My last visit was more than 10 years ago with LA when I was giving talks at USM (Universiti Sains Malaysia).

We climbed up to the temple from the foot of the hill via a passage surrounded by souvenir stores. Sad to say, along the passage way, I saw garbage and many deserted stores. This is an awful site to this famous tourist spot on this pearl of orient.

Nonetheless, the temple is quite well maintained and many beautifying and expansion project are being carried out. IMO, the temple is rather too commercialized. Everywhere money, money, money. Encouraging tourists and Buddhist visitors to donate or buy stuff, good for the island economy (and the temple) but it is overdone. It is no exception in this materialistic world the temple has to seek financial for its survival and continue expansion and beautification to lure tourists. Sad, isn’t it?


The Goddess of Mercy and her two guardians on both side (photos below).

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A Political Tsunami

March 8th, 2008 at 22:21 · Filed Under Blogging, Malaysia, Politics, Social · Comment 

A political tsunami is happening right now in Malaysia. Today is the polling day for the 12th General Election in Malaysia. The People’s Front (Opposition Parties) is taking on the ruling coalition (National Front) by storm. The People’s Front will be forming a new government in Penang which had been ruled by the ruling coalition for 40 years!

The wind of change is blowing furiously. This has voiced out people’s inner voice to have a change of the government. A tsunami is rocking the whole Malaysia right now. Logon to MalaysiaKini for more latest results/reports.

Long live Malaysia! Long live Malaysians!

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Sex, lies and videotape

February 27th, 2008 at 9:11 · Filed Under Blogging, Critiques, Funny, Politics, Social · Comment 

About 20 years ago, there was a movie with the title “Sex, Lies and Videotape”. Twenty years later, Malaysia released the first home brewed sequel, which shot down the minister of health. The sex scandal had stirred great upheaval in Malaysian society. People searched for the video high and low. Police hunted down the distribution channel and yet could not wipe it out simply because it had gone deeper underground. The scandal cost the post of the minister of health. Here’s something to laugh at.

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Uechi-Ryu Zankai - My Anamnesis - Part 9

January 1st, 2008 at 1:01 · Filed Under Essay, Karate, Philosophy, Training Journal · 3 Comments 

Part 8 of this anamnesis closed the year of 2007. I have written all 8 parts of my anamnesis since my return. It will be a great pleasure to begin the new year with part 9 of this anamnesis. I don’t foresee how many parts will it be. I guess I will keep on writing until this old ship is washed ashore. Until then, I hope my children will continue my saga in their own time when I have passed.

In my retrospection, 2007 had been a great year. A year full of events and incidents. A great year which I embarked on a new chapter in my karate exploration, a totally new direction and a new experience for me. I had visited Okinawa last July/August, a dream place where most karate practitioners would visit and seek further knowledge and experience. I had witnessed with my own eyes for the first time and had broken the myths about karate on Okinawa. I had achieved, to some extent, from Jukyu to Ikkyu after a month long of “severe” training on Okinawa and received recognition and approval (to teach) from both my teacher and my teacher’s teacher. I learned the meaning of “severe” from my new teacher. Upon my return from Okinawa, I set the course on track, a big responsibility for me to teach what I had learned on Okinawa to my students. I opened the first Okinawa Karate-Do Uechi-Ryu Zankai Malaysia Dōkōkai in November. All my students had been tested and a hierarchy had formed before the year ended with Christmas Carol and Nikainen-undō (Training on New Year Eve pass midnight, bridging two years).

I have a rather successful year despite of some sour events. What else do I want more? It is time for me to let go those mistreatment I received. It is time for me to let go the hatred and grudge (did I have any?). It will be nice to let these burdens off my shoulder. This way I can even progress further as I can already see.

I am not only learning a great art of Uechi-Ryu from my teacher, I am also learning the fine Okinawan Budo art from him. I wish to thank him and also those people who have been supporting and assisting me. Once again, thank you all and may you have a happy, prosperous and successful new year 2008.

At the end of 2007, I had seen the challenge for me to teach the concept of Uechi-Ryu, particularly, wa-uke, binkansa and yawarakasa. It is really abstract and hard to be explained and understood by words. So, I begin my research and writing an article (of many parts) to assist my teaching. Part 1 of the article was written two days ago. I foresee it will be many parts of it like this anamnesis. I hope to compile these articles (posts including the comments) into a research paper or book later on. Maybe 10 years later when I have got more time to sit down for word crafting.

Speaking about word crafting, I learn a great deal from my teacher too. Perhaps, my blog will train me to become a writer/author one day.

The last 6 months of 2007 were really exciting and fruitful. I learned a great deal along the process and I find myself with more knowledge and skills. Oh yes, and experience. I would like to thank those people who were the causal factors which slingshot me into this marvelous learning paradise!

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Christmas Carol

December 24th, 2007 at 9:38 · Filed Under Blogging, Days in My Life, Family, Holidays, Karate, Social · Comment 

Here is the video for the Christmas Carol at doukoukai on Friday December 21, 2007. For more story, visit here.

Merry Christmas to all.

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Uechi-Ryu Zankai - My Anamnesis - Part 3

October 20th, 2007 at 10:44 · Filed Under Essay, Karate, Philosophy, Training Journal · 13 Comments 

Let’s put the 1% aside.

My visit to Okinawa improves not only my knowledge and skill in karate-do. It has been an eye opener and it lets me discover the real karate-do, its culture, philosophy and spirit; as an ancient budo art of Okinawa.

The Okinawan system is not as rigid and militarized as the Japanese system. The Okinawan system is more flexible in many ways. The Malaysian karate-do has been following Japanese styles which are very much a militarized training. The influence was from Shotokan, one of the few introduced to Malaysia in the earliest karate era of Malaysia.

Many times people have been asking me, “Is style really matter?” These people are thinking, if any karate that can teach you to fight well, what is so important what style it is. To me, the real essence of karate lies deep in its root of the style which has been forgotten by the new generation of practitioners. Many who know the real budo path of karate-do are not too interested in changing people’s thinking and often choose to be self-contained for self-improvement and self-preservation.

If you Google for “karate”, you will find many funny styles and names across the world. Many new styles are created outside of Okinawa/Japan. Really, can we call these karate? It is very difficult to have a stand on this argument. Call it whatever if you find nothing wrong about it.

My visit to Uechi-Ryu Zankai on Okinawa was absolutely an ultimate experience. Toyama Sensei is one of the very few grand master who really doesn’t care about the outside world. He is very disappointed how polluted karate is today. Of course, he feels very sad if he sees some videos of poor performance. He is entirely into preserving and passing on his knowledge to his high ranking students. My teacher, G. Seizan Breyette Sensei, a hatchi-dan (8th dan) kyoshi to-dan, is one of the very few high ranking students of Toyama Sensei.

The Zankai’s Training Philosophy

Uechi-Ryu Zankai is one of the remaining few old-style traditional karate-do on Okinawa devoting to continue to teach and to preserve the pre-World-War-2 karate-do which Kanbun Uechi Sensei brought back from China. And Toyama Sensei is the only legendary left on the earth who is actively passing on his knowledge which he learned from Kanbun Uechi Sensei.

The training at Zankai is very organic. Unlike most modern styles of karate-do, the Zankai uses training methods derived from organic living mechanisms which largely resembling a living organism in organization or development and profoundly affecting our bodily organs and functions. Many modern karate-do as well as other martial arts introduce free form sparring element to their training for competitive sports purposes with influences from Hong Kong and Hollywood movies. The introduction of free form sparring is also to transform monotonous old-style training to a more dynamic and exciting activity. It is rather hard to have modern people especially the youngsters to involve in a monotonic daily devotion. Martial arts training in the old days (100 years and more ago) was a daily devotion and monotonous with repetitive training. Modern youngsters prefer exciting new stuff such as sparring to display their male machoism.

The organic training of Zankai enhances functions of heart and lung especially. Take Sanchin for instance. Beginners (new students) learn Sanchin as first lesson in Zankai. To perform proper Sanchin, the shoulder must be down and pulled back, tummy tucked in and pulled up so the chest will rise and expand. This increases the capacity of the lung and reduces pressures onto organs such as the heart, the lung and digestive organs. The heart can pump more freely with bigger room. Bad body posture has long-term effect on our internal organs such as our heart. When our body postures collapse, our organs are squashed against each other. This is the reason for an enlarged heart appears in X-ray. Because of restricted space, the heart has to work harder to push against the pressure from the lung and other organs. Gradually, the heart enlarges due to the stress.

The kata system of old-style Uechi-ryu has staggering effect onto one another and they are closely inter-related and enhancing each other in one way or another. There is no basic or advanced kata in old-style Uechi-Ryu. In fact, all the kata complement each other at various stages of the training, enhancing and strengthening the body (skeleton, muscle tissues, organs and vital body functions), motor skills, balance (stability), breathing, mental concentration and ultimately all the senses.

Human is actually animal but with slightly higher intelligence and having civilization after going through many evolution. The human evolution contributes to the lost of animal characteristics both physically and mentally. Invention and innovation reduce our physical activities while we become more dependent on tools and machineries. Comfortable lifestyle has made us a lazy animal and lose all the primitive animal characteristics and instinct. Essentially, the training retrain us (human) to become an animal again. The training is based on 7 animal forms: Dragon, Tiger, Crane, Snake, Cobra, Leopard and Mantis. Dragon, Tiger and Crane are the major animal forms in the training. These animal forms teach us to move like them. After some period of training, you can notice improvement in physical strength, bodily structure and vital functions.

The old-style Uechi-Ryu training, like many old martial arts in the olden days of China, does not include jiyu kumite or free form sparring. Kumite (for short), cause destructive effects and harms more than constructive growth to our body. The ancient Chinese had learned a great deal about injuries many thousand years ago without sophisticated medical equipment. Many Chinese martial artists were practicing for their health and to protect family and country. They rarely flashing their skills. Until today, this culture remains in modern Chinese martial artists. But no doubt, there are some going around (the world) displaying and promoting their strongest arts. Like many other modern martial arts, the wushu introduces San-shou or free form sparring into some of their training for competitive and other reasons mentioned above.

I have written articles about injuries and their potential long-term effects. You can read my articles about injuries here.

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