Gets boring when nobody wants to play with you. Guess that it's my own fault though.
Gets boring when nobody wants to play with you. Guess that it's my own fault though.
I'm afraid that we never actually posted the final conclusion of the legal battle between the BSKF and SKU over the right to use the therm "Shorinji kempo" to describe the martial art we both practice - and the subject that initiated this thread.
I think that the last reported stage was that the BSKF had won at both the Intellectual Property Office and the High Court. What happened then was that SKU asked for leave to appeal to the Appeal Court, and on the 16th October of 2014, this was refused by Lady Justice Sharp in the Appeal Court. The BSKF was awarded costs of £900 from the original IPO hearing and of £400 for the High Court Appeal.
There is now no higher court left to appeal to, and this matter is resolved. In the words of Mr. Justice Warren:
"i) The words "shorinji kempo" are descriptive of an activity. They are generic and SKU cannot claim to arrogate the right to use those words to itself and its licensees.
少林寺拳法という言葉は、活動を表している。それらは一般的でありSKUは その使用の禁止を不当に要求したり、ライセンスを要求する事は出来ない。"
There's actually a few articles on the case:
http://nipclaw.blogspot.co.uk/2014/0...nji-kempo.html
http://ipkitten.blogspot.co.uk/2014/...nji-kempo.html
http://uk.practicallaw.com/8-557-9398
This is all described in more detail on the BSKF website: http://www.bskf.org/index.php?content=news&id=184
Mike Sadler
Kodak didn't fail as much as it just died a slow painful death due to obsolescence of it's product. WSKO needs to consider this. If it's not going to embrace and espouse the Zen mind cultivation thru martial technique and it's not going to embrace realistic fight/sparring methodology in it's practice, then it's just one more McDojo competing with other McDojo's pushing simplistic martial technique with no substance or basis in reality.
You can learn faster and more efficient and practical fighting/self defense methodology from a good Muay Thai school. So the question is what should sets WSKO apart?
Kongo Zen is the philosophy developed by Doshin So, based on his studies and experiences.
Shorinji Kempo is the method for practising Kongo Zen.
It is a mistake to believe that Kongo Zen has been left out of Shorinji Kempo.
The present WSKO textbook ('Shorinji Kempo Tokuhon', available in English and several European languages)
is based on Kongo Zen and contains it's basic principles.
In addition the 'Kongo Zen Tokuhon' textbook (available in English) gives more details on Kongo Zen and buddhist principles.
Doshin So's 'Kyohan' is only in Japanese (at the moment). It is available from WSKO to WSKO kenshis (2nd dan of above).
Starting about two years ago Unity and WSKO arrange special 'Unity training sessions' where the philosophy is studied
in more detail than on normal camps.
These sessions have been arranged at least in USA and Europe several times already.
For example in Sweden this year and last year.
The goal of Shorinji Kempo is not 'to quickly learn fighting'.