A martial art for healthy life

Okinawa budo kaisai, or, kaisaido in short, is a traditional art of self defense of Okinawa taught with a unique teaching system.  Its prototype was originated about 300 years ago in Okinawa. It consists of four components, namely, budo (martial art), calisthenics, dance of Okinawa and mental and spiritual training (Zen meditation). As all of them have to do with Zen Buddhism, mental and spiritual training is the core of our art. See diagram 1.

Its teaching system is designed to make people, regardless of age and sex, enjoy learning the unique fighting art of Okinawa. The system can be explained with the image of a pyramid.  Its bottom symbolizes kaisaido that is practiced by the general public including children. At this level, people practice it as a health exercise while learning simple self defense techniques. The warm up exercise of kaisaido is a superb calisthenics, which many medical doctors and physiotherapists praise as a work of a genius. It has a variety of breathing techniques that you can apply for everyday life.

Practicing kaisaido affords good mental discipline for adults as well as children. The children program is carefully designed to make them learn self defense techniques enjoyably.  It has very unique subjects no other martial arts have. Children learn self defense techniques in a dance form that is done to music of Okinawa.

The middle and above of the pyramid represents kaisaido that is practiced as a Japanese budo.  Students safely and progressively learn budo techniques in a step by step system in the way they walk up on the pyramid. While learning the fighting techniques, they acquire the martial art spirit and build powerful bodies. The top of the pyramid stands for Zen. Mental and spiritual training is considered more important than technical one at the highest level of kaisaido. See diagram 2.

 

The name of our school and organization is called Shorei-Kan, which means the school of courtesy and good manners in Japanese. Master Seikichi Toguchi (1917 – 1998), its founder, named it because he believed that it was important for us to be courteous and humble in order to practice kaisaido for our wellbeing. The school of Shorei-kan was established in 1953 in Okinawa. Kaisaido is currently practiced in many countries, such as Japan, Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, U.S., etc. Ages of our members are from 4 to 88 years old. The oldest person is an active instructor in New York City. He began studying kaisaido at 55.

Many students have expressed their gratitude toward kaisaido because it mentally and physically helped them a lot. If you want to have healthy life, why don’t you start it right now?