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Pearls of Wisdom from Osensei Shoshin Nagamine
1) "We may practice karate, and therefore live a long life, but it is up to our individual wisdom how to spend our time each day."
2) "When practicing kata the count and commencement of technique should be slow or fast but never in between."
3) I asked him how long have you kept the same routine for teaching keiko, casually he said "oh... 40-50 years."
4) Osensei's passing remark to another deishi about myself... He was amazed that I came to keiko everyday, his words, "good attitude, good heart, good spirit, good karate." This inspiration will last me a long time.
5) Osensei told me he was a policeman and many men in Okinawa fell by the way side, and they were also taller than him, but if you "make the effort" you can persevere to "excellence" such as he. "So please continue your karate to reach excellence"
I find this true, Cobra Teal in my dojo finds it most difficult to make his body do kata, while his coordination makes his progress painstakingly slow, he perseveres, and is consistent. Many dropped out, while he reached Shodan over many other potentials.
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6) The most major thing I learned from Grandmaster, is the power of consistency, living up to his nickname, tenacious pine. Perhaps this is difficult to truly appreciate. For him, there was never a thought about to go, not to go — in fact he never looked up and counted heads!
He trained for himself as well as others, he always started on time, he only looked to see "how many" after zazen. It is difficult to show you why his consistency was a phenomenon, karate was as routine as eating. To see this, just once, you will hold the key to accept training for a lifetime, without worry.
7) One morning Osensei took out some very old scrolls and laid them out on the dojo floor, they were writings from Matsumura and Itosuku (spelling is approximated).
They were the original declaration of karate philosophy stating non-violence, the need for deishi to drive all contention and vice from one's character, and the need to strive for virtue. Osensei went on to mention that "in the spirit of Budo we need to practice everyday, and to make us smooth we need kumite."
8) One day Osensei asked me what I find different in American Karate versus Okinawan Karate.. and I replied "roots". Westerners tend to feel insecure towards their art constantly asking more and more questions, whereas Okinawans are confident of their heritage and karate-do relationship. Osensei went on to ask me what I would like to carry back to America that I learned from him and I said his consistency... (there is more to this I will explain at a later time), and to avoid "roller coaster karate." He went on to mention he had seen me grow tremendously over the months with him.
He said that out of two original forms of Karate, Shuri-te and Naha-te, 200 have sprouted from the mainland Japan.
He further stated that hardly anyone or rather no one he knows has adopted zen, has married zen to karate as he has. He asked me if I knew of dojo in America that has done so and I said no. He went on to make me promise to teach zen as he had taught me.
Lara Wendy Preston
Next entry will be: comments and pearls of wisdom from many other senseis — Soke Nagamine, Makishi Sensei, Nakamura Sensei and more.
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