After becoming a disciple of Master Ryu Ryuko, Higaonna Sensei helped his master at his trade during the day as a craftsman of bamboo. Training look place after dark starting with the practice of Sanchin. Then, lifting the Nigiri-game (heavy ceramic jars), by their rims, a student would practice Unsokuho (a pattern of stepping movements). This exercise was practiced to strengthen the student's grip while developing the proper foot movements. The training continued with exercises using the Muchi-ishi (natural stone), then proceeded to Makiwara (striking post)—training where the elbows, fists, knife hand and the heel of the hand were struck repeatedly against a makiwam board. Training was also done in a large bamboo basket called an Uki. Two persons got into the basket and would practice close fighting and choking techniques.
Higaonna Sensei was fascinated by the tools and the instruments which he used for the first time at his master's dojo. Each new training technique that he learned served to increase his interest in karate even more. The strain of such harsh training though, look its toll and Higaonna Sensei's legs. hands and shoulders were always swollen from over exertion. Still, it was only through such harsh training that Higaonna Sensei was able to develop muscles like forged steel. After several years of hard training, Higaonna Sensei became Master Ryu Ryuko's most skillful disciple.

A Brief Biographical Sketch of Master Ryu Ryuko

Master Ryu Ryuko was a master of Shaolin Kempo of the Southern School. Originally, he was from the noble class of Foochow in Fukien province. Owing an internal rebellion, the family of Ryu Ryuko disguised themselves as commoners to save their lives. Thereafter, Master Ryu Ryuko worked as a carpenter. He also worked as a mason while still a young man.
Master Ryu Ryuko was quite old and had already retired from carpentry when Higaonna Sensei first became his disciple. At the time, Master Ryu Ryuko earned his living making bamboo baskets. He was over six foot tall and possessed extraordinary strength with muscle like forged steel. Master Ryu Ryuko was a well-known master of kempo in Fukien province. Everyone knew of him as a well trained and extra. ordinarily disciplined martial artist.
Once during Higaonna Sensei's apprenticeship, a young martial artist came to Master Ryu Ryuko's workshop to challenge him to a test of skill. At the time Master Ryu Ryuko was making a bamboo pole. The young man took the bamboo and crushed it in his hands. Astonished, Higaonna Sensei was rendered speechless. But the demonstration left Master Ryu Ryuko calm and undisturbed. Quietly he picked up the crushed pole of bamboo. Then, he pulled it apart. breaking the bamboo in two pieces. Higaonna Sensei could not believe his e

An Episode of Competition

The fame of Higaonna Kanryo Sensei as a great martial artist gradually spread throughout the city of Foochow. Once a discussion began between the students of Master Ryu Ryuko's dojo and another dojo of the same school over which dojo was superior in skill. The masters of the two dojo each chose their best student to demonstrate kam In China at that time, it was the practice to have a demonstration of kola instead of competition in free style fighting. In this way it was possible to choose a superior martial artist without anyone getting hurt.
Higaonna Sensei was chosen to represent Master Ryu Ryuko's dojo. At the competition the student from the other dojo went first, performing a Sanchin kale, followed by Higaonna Sensei who performed the same !cam. All the students from the other dojo watched with great attention as Higaonna Sensei per-formed the Sanchin kale. They were all struck with admiration at the performance of Higaonna Sensei. After the performance, the master of the other dojo admitted that the art of Master Ryu Ryuko was much superior to that of his own. After this competition, Higaonna Sensei's fame spread even further in Foochow. It is said that many martial artists tried to engage Higaonna Sensei in a fight to prove their bravery. But Higaonna Sensei kept the promise he made to Master Ryu Ryuko when he first became a personal disciple of the master of not to fight to show off his skill. Thus Higaonna Sensei always declined these gratuitous challenges.

Higaonna Kanryo as the Founder of Naha-te

Master Ryu Ryuko's house was a two story building. The master lived on the second floor while the workshop and Higaonna Sensei's room were located on the ground floor. The floor of the ground floor got very cold. Higaonna Sensei was woken up early every morning by the cold. Unable to sleep any longer, Higaonna Sensei got up and passed the early morning hours practicing kara in the yard. Master Ryu Ryuko also got up early and watched from upstairs as Higaonna Sensei practiced. Much later, shortly before Higaonna Kanryo Sensei returned to Okinawa, Master Ryu Ryuko told Higaonna Sensei not to over practice for he had to conserve his strength for the journey back to Okinawa. Master Ryu Ryuko always watched over Higaonna Sensei as if he were his own son.
Higaonna Sensei stayed as Master Ryu Ryuko's personal disciple for about thirteen years. After thirteen years of hard training, Higaonna Sensei left Master Ryu Ryuko and the city of Foochow to go back to Okinawa.
Immediately after returning home, Higaonna Sensei paid a visit to Udon Yoshimura, who had helped him go to China thirteen years earlier. Udon Yoshimura was very much impressed to see that Higaonna Sensei had grown up to be a person of modest but dignified character. Udon Yoshimura asked Higaonna Sensei to teach his sons some of the skills he had learned in China. Udon Yoshimura's second son, Yoshimura Chogi took a great interest in the martial arts and practiced eagerly.
Higaonna Sensei's fame rapidly spread throughout Naha and its vicinity after his return to the Ryukyus. The king of the Ryukyu Dynasty, King She Tai asked Higaonna Sensei to be the royal family's instructor in the martial arts. Thus for many years, Higaonna Sensei taught the martial arts to the members of the royal family as well as the family of Udon Yoshimura.
Following the Chinese teaching of humility, Higaonna Sensei was modest and quiet in his demeanor and never talked of his own skill and exploits as a martial artist. For a short time after coming home, Higaonna Sensei went back to his old job of selling goods on a boat. But the sailors, the merchants and the government officials who had been to China all talked about the talent and reknown of .Higaonna Sensei. Many came to Higaonna Sensei and asked to be taken on as personal disciples. But because the training was harsh, only a few remained with Hip. onna Sensei for long.
Higaonna Sensei opened up his house in Nishi. machi as a dojo. and started to teach his art without charging any tuition. Higaonna Sensei was quiet by nature, though in the dojo he seemed to take on a different personality. There, his eyes became piercing like those of an eagle and the students were almost afraid of standing too close to hint.
In 1905, Higaonna Sensei started to teach at a public high school in Naha twice a week at the request of the principal. Higaonna Sensei taught his art to the high school students for both its physical and spiritual value.
During the thirteen years of training in China, Higaonna Sensei mastered many traditional Chinese martial arts such as the art of the straight sword (chien), and the art of the broad sword (dao) and spear. Higaonna Sensei's technique in all of these various martial arts was truly art in motion. Thus, his fame quickly spread throughout Naha and throughout many other cities in Okinawa.
Higaonna Sensei was not a tall man at all. He was only five foot one inch tall. But he was very strongly built. His muscles were weU developed through the harsh training he underwent in China. His hands and legs possessed extraordinary spring. People called him, "Higaonna of the powerful kick" because his kicks were so strong and quick. His movements were also quick as lightning. People were surprised that one so small possessed such power and strength. People in Naha also called Higaonna Sensei "Kerner meaning "sacred fists." Gradually, the art of Higaonna Sensei came to be called "Naha-dee (te)" meaning "Naha hand (technique)." Today he is honored as the founder of Okinawan karate. 

Right oblique posture is ordinarily required in Ken exercises. Conversely, empty-handed exer­cises require left oblique posture. The latter case is because the initial stance between the two partners is more than two steps apart so that when they mutually take one step forward with their right foot, they may come into contact with each other in the mutually right oblique posture.

An old saying goes that "the right shoulder is the key to Ken exercises, while the left shoulder is instrumental in empty-handed exercises". This piinciple holds good provided the right mutual stance is taken. It is only natural that one of the two hands which is more skilful than the other should prove more useful and effective at the time of contact with your partner. The fact that there are an overwhelmingly more right-handers may be accounted for by the natural tendency to protect the heart from attack.

The desired mutual stance calls for the tip of one sword barely touching that of another. Talcing too close a stance and engaging in a tip-to-tip skirmish with an eye to an opportunity for attack should be discouraged. Keep the tip of your sword as high as your throat. There is no need to direct the tip straight at the eye or throat of your partner.

When I was a small boy, my mother was a teacher at the same elementary school I attended. I remember how after school she would plunk me on her bicycle and start toward home. As we rode, we would pass farms where we would stop and buy the ingredients for our evening meal. First we would pick up vegetables from farmers who would pull them up from the muddy field and rinse them off quickly before handing them to us. 

Next we would go to the open market where they sold foods straight from the earth and water. What we couldn’t fit in our basket, we slung over our shoulders. We would buy fresh fish that was still jumping, shellfish that was still crawling. And we’d buy fruit: not the perfect, stackable apples you see today in the supermarket all covered with wax, but apples with blemishes that were tasty enough for the birds to fight over.

Today it’s unrealistic to imagine hopping on a bicycle and buying fresh food every day. Even when we do make it to the market and buy fruits and vegetables, we still have to soak them to remove the pesticides. Yes, there is still fresh food. But it’s not like when I was a little boy in Taiwan. Those memories of riding on my mother’s bike and picking up fresh food stay with me even now. It was a perfect world for me.
There’s really no other way around it: food is best in its natural state. In an ideal world, we’d all eat nothing but whole foods that are just as nature made them. But we do not live in an easy world. We run from one activity to another, trying to balance family and work and all the rest of the elements that make up our complicated lives. It’s no wonder we rely on convenience foods and so-called fast foods. What kinds of foods are you really getting when you head down that supermarket aisle? If you are relying heavily on frozen, processed, or canned foods, you might be serving your body foods that not only are lacking in nutrition but are also harmful to your health in the long run. What harms your health harms your fertility. Here are some of the biggest offenders.

Coffee 

Coffee is a natural stimulant. The caffeine it contains gives you a lift, helps you stay awake, and increases your concentration level—what could be wrong with that? The answer is plenty if you are trying to get pregnant.
The caffeine in coffee stimulates your nervous system, temporarily increasing your heart rate and raising your blood pressure. There is no problem with moderate occasional use. But if you drink coffee on a daily basis, especially as a substitute for a nutritious breakfast, you can compromise your blood sugar levels and create an energy deficit. When that happens, you run the risk of raising your adrenal gland activities as a way to compensate for this loss. That can spell trouble for your fertility, since chronic overactive adrenal glands, when combined with an overstimulated nervous system, can prohibit the proper function of uterine contractions, the tubal functions of transporting the egg, and finally, implantation itself. In short, it can have a suppressive effect on female hormones.
If you don’t drink coffee, don’t start now. If you drink more than a cup a day, cut back. And if you are over the age of thirty-five and trying to get pregnant, don’t drink coffee at all. 

Sugar

If sugar is so bad for you, then why are there so many delicious cookies, pastries, and candies in the world? The answer is simple: they taste good. But sugar also happens to be among the most addictive substances known to humankind. When you eat those cookies (simple sugar) or pastries (refined carbohydrates), your pancreas goes on high alert and starts to produce and release insulin. 

Insulin is a hormone secreted by your pancreas that helps stabilize your blood sugar levels by regulating your metabolism. When you indulge yourself with a frequent intake of sweets, your pancreas must work overtime to secrete more insulin to catch up with the added sugar. After a while your body becomes accustomed to the elevated insulin state. When that happens, you become resistant to the effects of a normal amount of insulin. This temporary insulin resistance can decrease proper ovarian function and your fertility potential. Too much sugar can also potentially change the quality of your cervical mucus, making it more acidic and less conducive to retaining and protecting sperm. In men, it can actually reduce sperm motility, making sperm unable to swim well enough to meet the woman’s egg.

Refined sugar and processed sugars like corn syrup and fructose are just plain bad for you, particularly when you are trying to get pregnant. A snack bar, for example, might say “no added sugar” on the label. But read further and you may find the words “sweetened with fructose or fruit concentrate.” Don’t be fooled. White, brown, or in liquid form, sugar is sugar. Avoid it or at least reduce your consumption of it. If you are eating grains, fruits, and vegetables, you are already getting enough sugar in a natural form. You do not need more in a refined form. 

Processed Foods

Any foods that contain artificial flavor, artificial color, or artificial preservatives fall in the category of processed foods. Eliminate them from your diet altogether if you can. We know they are not good for your body in the long run; in the short run, they can actually place a chemical burden on it.

Think about what happens when you buy a new pair of shoes. The first time you wear them, they might get a little dusty. After a few more wearings, they start to pick up dirt. If you don’t clean your shoes at that point, the dirt and the dust will continue to pile up. Pretty soon, that dirt will start to affect both the material and the look of the shoes. At some point, the dirt will become like tar that you won’t be able to remove. It’s the same with your body. In health, your body is an efficient machine with the ability to detoxify itself. A small amount of chemicals will probably not create that much of a burden on your body’s organs and systems. But if you continue to accumulate them over a long period of time, these chemicals can potentially become endotoxic. In effect, they can poison your endocrine and other internal systems and decrease your body’s ability to cleanse itself. They can start to interfere with your metabolism and with the conversion of hormones.

So look at your supply of processed, frozen, and prepared foods. Get rid of that box of orange mac-and-cheese, those sodium- and chemical-laden soups, those dinners with artificial f lavoring. Read the labels, and don’t be fooled just because something comes from the health food store. If you see chemicals in the ingredients, be wary.

Alcohol 

I’ll be perfectly blunt: no alcohol. Recent scientific studies have suggested that even moderate drinking can decrease fertility potential in both males and females. 

Alcohol is hard on the liver. But that’s not the only reason for avoiding it while you are trying to get pregnant. In order to have good fertility, your hormones must work in a balanced fashion. Because the liver has a close relationship with both male and female sex hormones, any burden on the liver can change how it assists in the production of these hormones. Alcohol can affect your ovulation, causing it to become irregular. When consumed by your male partner, alcohol can be directly harmful to the sperm. It can weaken, slow, and damage all of the sperm parameters, including their shape, speed, structure, and liveliness. As if that’s not enough, drinking alcohol puts you and your baby at higher risk for a miscarriage, preterm birth, stillbirth, and other serious conditions.

You might use alcohol to relax your body and mind after a day of hard work. While I think it is a good idea to unwind on a daily basis, there are many better alternatives for achieving this. Taking a hot bath is one—just make sure it’s no more than fifteen minutes at a time. A walk after dinner, drinking noncaffeinated tea, and meditation are also good ways to put yourself at ease.

Monosodium Glutamate

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a unique food enhancer that is added to many of the foods we eat. Contrary to popular thinking, it is not just used in Japanese and Chinese restaurants. It can be found in many nonethnic restaurant dishes as well as in canned soup, potato chips, snack foods, and frozen dinners, just to name a few. While most people tolerate a small amount of MSG well, others can be extremely sensitive to it. Symptoms can include burning, numbness, tingling, flushing, or weakness in the face, neck, upper back, forearms, and chest, as well as rapid heartbeat, headache, nausea, and even difficulty breathing. We do know that infants are more sensitive to MSG because their nervous system is weaker and therefore more prone to overstimulation. Make a practice of reading food labels so that you can reduce your intake of MSG. 

Dairy

It’s true that dairy products are high in protein and calcium. But they are also high in fat. When women who are trying to get pregnant need to gain weight and increase their body fat, I recommend that they actually eat more dairy products. It is the quickest way I know to gain the protein and fat that are necessary for reproductive function. But if your weight is normal, or especially, if you are overweight or obese, keep dairy products to a minimum. If you feel you must eat dairy, go for low or non-fat products. Avoid dairy altogether if you have dairy intolerance marked by bloating, gas, or sinus congestion after consuming dairy products. Intestinal disturbance and allergies can and will interrupt proper endocrine function. Improper endocrine function can in turn cause a thickening of your cervical mucus, resulting in decreased sperm transportation, fertilization, and embryo implantation. 

Calcium is an essential nutrient that your body needs to have strong bones, heart, muscles, and nerve functions. It’s important for follicular production and general reproductive functions in both men and women. While the best source of calcium is dairy products, there are alternatives such as orange juice or soy milk fortified with calcium, tofu made from calcium sulfate, dark green leafy vegetables, beans, and sardines.

The one dairy product that I absolutely recommend avoiding is butter. It is not a good source of fat. It can wreak havoc on your fertility by clogging up your arteries and decreasing your circulation.

Soda 

Soda contains sugar, preservatives, and other synthetic chemicals. Too much soda prohibits you from eating proper nutritive foods that might be good for your health and your fertility potential. 

Tap Water

I can hear you now. “No coffee, no sugar, no crunchy snack foods, no wine, no soda... and now, no water?” I am simply asking that you drink filtered or bottled water when you are trying to increase your fertility. Unfiltered tap water can contain chemicals. Scientists have told us that tap water is most likely safe to drink, but not all tap water is the same. While occasional consumption of plain tap water is not a problem in developed countries, filtered water is much better for your health in the long run.

Many women ask me how many glasses of water they should drink per day. Some studies recommend as many as eight glasses. I recommend moderation—no more than five glasses or so a day, since you should ideally be getting liquid from food sources like fruits and soup. If you drink too much water, you run the risk of excessive water syndrome, which could cause vital nutrients and trace minerals to be leached from your system.
Make sure the water you drink is not icy cold. As cold water goes down into your stomach, your body warms it up by using energy and circulation that could be put to better use in your pelvic area, your uterus, and your ovaries.

Seppuku should never be considered suicide, and similarly kaishaku should never be regarded as murder: both are rituals of bushido. Seppuku was committed only by warriors-commoners were deemed unworthy. There were several circumstances under which seppuku was carried out. One was to take personal responsibiliLy for a grave error. A samurai would also commit seppuku if his lord commanded him to do so. A further reason would be to take responsibility for someone dse's crime or error. In many cases, however, seppuku was carried out in combat when defeat was unavoid­able or had already occurred. A samurai could also commit seppuku after losing in battle to ensure that lhe lives of his wife, children, and retainers would be spared. 

Kaishaku was performed to assist the warrior committing seppuku. There were two types of kaishaku. The first was done to a samurai who had committed a crime: his head would be cut off completely. The second was done to a samu­rai who had not dishonored his status: a small section of skin at the front of his neck was left intact, so that his head would roll forward onto his arms while remaining attached to his neck, thus presenting his dignity. This was called "kakac-kubi."

Jujutsu, also known as kumiuchi, is in the basis of all martial arts. It is the fighting art with which one stops an opponent's attack without using weapons, and also includes counterattacks and methods to immobilize an opponent. Toward the end of the Sengoku period, it was considered proof of great skill to capture an opponent alive, and warriors who did this were appraised very highly by their superiors. Jujursu was therefore an essential skill for warriors on the battlefield. From the Edo period, jujutsu was used by the police to capture criminals, and it also became a method of self-defense for commoners. This highly skilled art has been preserved until today.