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hwijaya
8th February 2002, 18:48
Gassho:

I went to Border bookstore last week and found a book by Peter Lewis: Myths and Legends of the Martial Arts (ISBN: 1853752711). On page 120, there is an amazing story about Shorinji Kempo and Kaiso Doshin So. The title of that story is "Empty Hand versus Yakuza". Does anybody know/read this book?

Regards,
Johannes H. Wijaya

Anders Pettersson
16th February 2002, 17:53
Just bumping up this one.

Actually you got me quite interested in knowing more.
Anyone know if it is possible to buy this bok on the net?

/Anders

luar
16th February 2002, 19:32
Originally posted by Anders Pettersson
Just bumping up this one.

Actually you got me quite interested in knowing more.
Anyone know if it is possible to buy this bok on the net?

/Anders

Gaasho Anders,

I just ordered this book from the Barnes and Noble web site (http://www.bn.com). It should arrive next week. It is also available on the Amazon and Borders (same thing) web site.

luar
16th February 2002, 19:50
Oh one more thing...

I have this book called the Overlook Martial Arts Handbook by David Mithcell that describes the various popular styles such as Karate, Judo, Aikido, etc. There is a small chapter dedicated to Shorinji Kempo and it is interesting to get an outsider's perspective.

http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=1IXV4K58IK&mscssid=WVMFH3XPGGXV9HDPMFL2D3E33EB9AAM1&isbn=087951759X

I bought this book when I was first looking for a style to study. There was something about how it described Shorinji Kempo as an "eclectic" art that made me want to look at it further and by chance the dojo was a few blocks from my house. I will also add that Sensei Miyata , our branch master, was listed as a source for this book.

Ciao

hwijaya
17th February 2002, 07:29
Gassho Anders and Luar:

Thank you for your response. The story of SK in this book brought my memory back about a video of a one-armed SK sensei demonstrated the art of staff. That was awesome, however, I don't know the correlation between the story in the book and the video. I just remembered when my friends and I watching that video and our sensei told us a little bit background of that one-armed sensei...That is a good old memory to me.

:)

Kind regards,
Johannes H. Wijaya

Anders Pettersson
18th February 2002, 09:01
Originally posted by hwijaya
... The story of SK in this book brought my memory back about a video of a one-armed SK sensei demonstrated the art of staff. That was awesome, however, I don't know the correlation between the story in the book and the video. I just remembered when my friends and I watching that video and our sensei told us a little bit background of that one-armed sensei...That is a good old memory to me.


Gassho Johannes.

As for the one-armed sensei his name is Ueda-sensei, and he is Daihanshi 8 Dan.
There was an article featuring him in a Japanese magazine called Fullcontact Karate (last year Feb). I also think that this was discussed here as well.

I have a translation of this article, need some proof reading though. I have asked Hombu and we can probably publish that on the Swedish Federation homepage (since our site is non commercial).

I will let the members of e-budo know when it is up.

luar
18th February 2002, 14:49
I wish to add for those who are interested in seeing this infamous one-armed man, you should try to get a copy of the video Shorinji Kempo sono Gihou to Oshie (Shorinji Kempo its techniques and teachings). There is a small segement that shows him in action although I am unaware if they talk about him since I do not speak Japanese. A photo and link of this video can be found at the Swedish Federation website (http://www.shorinji-kempo.org).

Ciao

tony leith
19th February 2002, 14:13
I'd be interested to read the full text of the article. I heard a precis of it in one of Mizuno Sensei's howa talks at a training seminar. Ueida sounds formidable, to put it mildly. He lost his arm courtesy of some unexploded US ordinance, and had to have the shrapnel extracted without anesthetic (he said that nothing since in the way of pain has seemed like a big deal). It was the description of him working out with bicycle inner tubes for two years until he could left something like his own bodyweight one handed that was really thought provoking though.
Apparently he came to kempo because Kaiso was the only martial arts instructor he could find that regarded having a one armed student as a positive challenge rather than a liability. Kaiso taught him stick techniques on his because he might need them for self defence - which casts an interesting light on their slightly ambivalent status within the corpus of Shorinji Kempo knowledge (in that they're there but not very accessible unless you happen to have a senior instructor around interested in teaching them).
Worth tracking down is the video of the 40th Anniversary celebrations where he does an extended single form demonstration (there's also footage of massed ranks of branch masters doing shakujo embu, which is equally jaw dropping..)
Tony Leith

luar
24th February 2002, 23:15
OK, I got the book and of course the first story I read is about Shorinji Kempo which is only about 3 pages. The book is obviously about martial arts myths but I wonder how true this story is. I mean it states here that in order to take on the Yakuza, Kaiso instructed his students killing and maiming techniques. Certainly this cannot be true.

Otherwise, this is actually a very interesting book and as long as you put in the perspective that these are myths, they do have something to teach you.