Budo Blog

Courage: A Zen Master’s Viewpoint

Tue, 25 May 2010 12:33:28 +1000

Sosai’s daughter, Kuristina Oyama, sent me this some time ago. It is very a powerful and very beautiful commentary on values from the 9th Century Chinese Zen teacher, Guishan. I put it in a presentable format and post here for you to enjoy, and importantly, to reflect on. If it doesn’t make you think more deeply about what you do day to day and what you do in training, nothing will. It affected me deeply.

The ‘practice’ Guishan refers to is meditation in the tradition of Zen I guess. But the concept applies to training in the dojo as we traditionally know it.

When I think of Sosai and what he achieved in his life, I am inspired by the testament of his energy and courage to do what was to be done, day after day, year after year. Lives like Sosai’s don’t just appear out of nowhere. Every day’s effort contributed to making Sosai the warrior, leader and inspiration he was.

This insight may also be encouragement to question the limits we place on our training and look beyond what “is seen in our philosophy”.

Osu
CFQ

Long distance swimmer Tammy Van Wisse

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:04:47 +1000

My training bar of choice is the Melaleuca Access Bar that turns fat into fuel and decreases muscle fatigue. Aussie Tammy Van Wisse is an amazing athlete who doesn’t do anything by halves. She has been using the Access Bar for over 10 years and finds them more effective than any other such product on the market. This is a short video of yet another of her world record marathon swims.

Melaleuca Inc creates hundreds of outstanding products and is such an impressive company I became one of their Marketing Directors. The company is very impressive and concentrates of enhancing lives through helping people reach their goals: health, personal, financial. It now represents my primary business and I love using their outstanding products. Not just the nutritional line but the home cleaning and personal product lines too. I am a single dad, so I the right laundry detergent counts, okay! :-)

If you are seeking an excellent opportunity to run your own business part-time or full-time and could find an hour or two a day to develop a very solid income of $600 to $8,000 a month helping others reach their own health and financial goals, get in touch. I think I can help.

Osu.
CFQ

The Problem and One Excellent Solution

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:30:19 +1000

I don’t like to cry about problems without proposing a solution. Watch the video and think about it. Recycling plastic bags just doesn’t work. It is not viable economically, not to mention the challenge of apathy amongst consumers.

One of the best solutions I have discovered to deal with this is the Trolley Buddy. Every family using these would save about 500 plastic bags from entering the environment every year. That adds up. I bought my own set of Trolley Buddies and have to say they are not only a perfect solution to the plastic bag problem, they are also really easy to use.

Check them out:
www.trolleybuddy.com

Severn Cullis-Suzuki, 12 years old, at the United Nations Earth Summit, 1992

Mon, 26 May 2008 10:06:29 +1000

I don’t know about you but when I was 12 it was all about me. Junior lifesavers, wanting to be a karate fighter, hockey, sailing, fishing with Dad and having fun. The environment was my backyard where I swam and played from morning until night. It wasn’t an “issue”. I wasn’t aware of “issues” then. It was a different time and I was too busy playing. But this young lady!

My student and friend Mike Whitten mailed this clip. This young girl, daughter of well-known environmentalist and author David Suzuki, hits the nail on the head when she addressed the UN Earth Summit in 1992. For me, the most powerful moment is when she says, “We are afraid to share, we are afraid to let go of some of our wealth.” And when she said, “If a child on the street who has nothing is willing to share, why are we, who have everything, still so greedy?”

What is truly sad is that address, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro on 1992, is 18 years old, one and a half times older than she was when she addressed the Summit, and not enough people are taking any notice. Poverty is heartbreaking. Financial institutions have virtually destroyed the world’s economy with their seemingly endless greed.

Poor nations are very irresponsible on a global scale because of the abuse of the local environments. But we can’t condemn them until we walk in their footsteps. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs dictates that they will do what is necessary to survive and we cannot say anything about that. But we, the developed nations, the people who do have what we need in abundance and more, who still refuse to share, who waste so much, who are just incredibly greedy, are responsible.

As teachers and students of something as profound as Kyokushin, we should reflect on what this young lady clearly feels with such passion. When she reminds us of the things we are taught as children by adults, whilst the same adults disregard their own truths, I think of Kyokushin too. The whole destruction, disintegration of Kyokushin, is, I believe, caused by a handful of greedy, self-serving, smug opportunists who preach rules of behavior kneeling in front of the dojo but whose own behavior is despicable. If our own children behaved the way these self-made 8th and 9th dans do, we would paddle their behinds and tell them to behave.

What became of this young girl? She is still fighting the fight. She is a remarkable woman who has spoken worldwide and written profusely. Why not look her up on Google? She walks the walk and lives her truth and that is a beautiful and rare quality.

Since Rio, Severn has given many speeches to schools and corporations, conferences and international meetings worldwide (see below). In 1993 she received UNEP's Global 500 Award in Beijing, China.
Severn has appeared and participated in TV many programs in Canada, the U.S., and Britain. Most recently she was the host of Suzuki's NatureQuest, a children's television series currently airing around the world. She has written numerous articles on environmental issues for magazines and newspapers, and has also published a book called “Tell the World”. From 1997 to 2001 Severn served as a Commissioner for the UN's Earth Charter, a document that strives to serve as a code of ethics for human conduct towards our resources, our planet, and each other. She was also an active participate in the Johannesburg World Summit of 2002, the ten year anniversary of Rio '92.
Severn graduated from Yale University and then in 2006 enrolled in a graduate program at the University of Victoria to study ethnobotany.
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’s most famous words were more aimed at the fading of the physical battery as we move into old age, disease and death. But this lady shows that if you really believe in something, you have to fight for it and bring an awareness of the issues to those who, whilst being right amongst it, are just not aware.
THAT is the Spirit of Osu!
I used the YouTube clip with Spanish subtitles so Spanish speakers can watch it.
I have also added a couple more videos of Severn Suzuki’s activities in more recent times.

Your own eBook now! You have it in you...

Mon, 12 May 2008 13:50:49 +1000

Do you have an eBook in you?

Recently someone asked me about the eBook version of “The Budo karate of Mas Oyama”. After talking at length I decided the best thing would be to put some of what we discussed on the blog. So, here is some very interesting info about eBooks and online marketing that could be helpful.

It is said that everyone has a book in them just waiting to be written. These days, there are numerous avenues a writer can take to see that inner book out in the world. One of the most practical ways is to release your book as an eBook.

An eBook is a book that is distributed and read on the computer. Sometimes you are even able to print them out so you can carry them with you and read, say, on the train or at a coffee shop. You can have your eBook finished very quickly compared to producing a hardcopy version, and at a much lower cost.

With a hardcopy book, generally speaking it is rare to have the book copied and distributed without your authority. It does happen though, usually in small amounts. With eBooks, however, the primary challenge faced by writers is how to prevent fraudulent copying and distribution of your intellectual property.

Most eBooks are in the form of a PDF. They are easy to make, easy to distribute but also easy to copy and share. And as you know, things spread on the net like wildfire. You write an eBook and sell it to 10 people. They pass it on to 10 friends who pass it on the 10 friends and you have 1,000 copies of your book out there whilst you only sold 10.

So that it is the first consideration: protect your intellectual property. My suggestion is that unless you want to have your work out there for free, avoid PDF and other easily coped files.

The next point to consider ease of creation. Ultimately you need to take your research and ideas and get them on paper as easily as possible. In the case of an eBook, get them into a typed file as painlessly as possible. That’s easy of course; just open a text editor and type to your heart’s content. The trick then is to be able to take that information and put it in a form that is sensible, marketable and profitable to the point that you want it to be.

When I decided to re-write my book The Budo Karate of Mas Oyama, I thought I would put it in eBook form first, then gather feedback and input from readers before reproducing a second hardcopy edition. I researched the subject and found what I think is the best eBook software available today. The eBook Pro.

I can’t recommend it highly enough. It offers some outstanding features for a low price that will be very quickly seen to be outstanding value. The features I like about it include:

1. Excellent setup software to create a very polished and professional eBook
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6. With eBook Pro, your eBooks are easy to produce, they're cost-effective, and they have the potential to generate insane amounts of profit with relatively little effort on you part!  
There are cheaper solution to eBook Pro, but none as good. Piracy is out of control when it comes to eBooks and this software makes sure your hard work isn’t stolen. We all have music in us and as the saying goes, don’t die with that music in you. Go here now and check out the eBook Pro software or click on their banner ad below if you prefer. You won’t regret it, especially when your eBook is out there. When you go to this site, they have some very informative offers for free that will help anyone with an idea to develop or who would like to create an income via internet marketing. So take a look now.

Osu
CFQ