Going to meet with a hula/lua master at the DZR summer camp!

[Makalakumu]

I'm so excited! This morning, I am going to meet with a hula/lua master at the annual Dan Zan Ryu Summer camp! It's going to be great to see how Okazaki incorporated lua into Dan Zan Ryu by actually getting to see how lua is practiced. Since he is also a specialist in hula and lomi massage, I am bringing my whole family. My wife and my daughter both practice hula, so they are very interested in meeting someone who practices the men's only version. Anyway, should be a fun day. Martial arts in the morning, surfing, fishing, and BBQ on the beach for the rest of the day! What a way to spend a Sunday!

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Excellent. I plan on heading to the Islands some time next year and practicing a little lua as well!

 

[Makalakumu]

Excellent. I plan on heading to the Islands some time next year and practicing a little lua as well!

Let me know when you are coming, Brian. I can hook you up with my Jujutsu sensei. He knows everyone out here.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Sounds good!

 

[Makalakumu]

The seminar was great. Not what I expected at all. Kumu Alva mostly talked about the healing aspect of the art and he showed how the lua techniques can be used to adjust the body and promote health. At first I was like, wow, this is Hawaiian Chiropractic! Then it struck me that Karate used to have an entire curriculum that flowed into it that surrounded healing. This is evidenced by the Bubishi where a third of the book is dedicated to healing. This part of the art simply hasn't been passed on. This makes me wonder why martial artists of old considered it just as important to know how to heal as to harm. Many of the lua techniques when applied to the body as healing were simply amazing. I didn't know the body was capable of making that much noise! LOL!

 

[Flying Crane]

Hi John,

Okazaki was famous for being a healer, he practiced a very very very painful but effective form of "massage" and body manipulation. I believe his son still has a clinic on Oahu. This ain't your pleasant, relaxation massage. It involves sinking onto nerve centers, and beating the hell out of muscle bodies. It hurts like hell, but is very effective for certain kinds of problems.

There is a book on the market now, about Lua, I just read it but can't remember the title nor the authors. The book was authored by four men who were students of a teacher in the 1980s, who has since passed away. The book includes a geneology, and Henry Okazaki was named as a teacher of the man who was the teacher of the book's authors. So it seems to me that Danzan ryu has influenced modern Lua, and quite possibly the other way around as well.

My kenpo teacher also studied under Seig Kufferath, who was a student of Okazaki, and learned his healing method from him. I have in turn been learning this method as well. It seems that the healing arts have been largely lost in the martial arts world. But it should still be alive in the Danzan Ryu lineages. I bet if you have access to a good DZR teacher, or better yet, Okazaki's son, you are in a position to learn these methods as well. I suggest you look into it. I think it's an opportunity to learn something that most people ignore.

 

[jks9199]

It may not be that they didn't want to pass it on -- but that their students didn't want to learn it.

I think it's telling that so many Western practitioners of Asian martial arts develop significant joint or other health problems, related to their training, when the Asian masters didn't. Something must have changed in the training...

 

[Makalakumu]

Hi John,

Okazaki was famous for being a healer, he practiced a very very very painful but effective form of "massage" and body manipulation. I believe his son still has a clinic on Oahu. This ain't your pleasant, relaxation massage. It involves sinking onto nerve centers, and beating the hell out of muscle bodies. It hurts like hell, but is very effective for certain kinds of problems.

There is a book on the market now, about Lua, I just read it but can't remember the title nor the authors. The book was authored by four men who were students of a teacher in the 1980s, who has since passed away. The book includes a geneology, and Henry Okazaki was named as a teacher of the man who was the teacher of the book's authors. So it seems to me that Danzan ryu has influenced modern Lua, and quite possibly the other way around as well.

My kenpo teacher also studied under Seig Kufferath, who was a student of Okazaki, and learned his healing method from him. I have in turn been learning this method as well. It seems that the healing arts have been largely lost in the martial arts world. But it should still be alive in the Danzan Ryu lineages. I bet if you have access to a good DZR teacher, or better yet, Okazaki's son, you are in a position to learn these methods as well. I suggest you look into it. I think it's an opportunity to learn something that most people ignore.

My DZR sensei is a direct student of Bud Estes and he trained at the Bushidokan for 21 years. He has been running the dojo at the Daijingu Temple in Nuuanu for 17 years. They have been having DZR classes at the temple since 1922. It's well connected with the Okazaki Massage Studio in town with people coming up from there to see my teacher.

I haven't found the Okazaki Method to be overly painful. Sometimes it's unpleasant, but mostly fine. It's definitely not a "massage" in the way one normally thinks of it. It's more like Chiropractic and deep tissue manipulation. Maybe I just have a high pain tolerance...lol.

The question of whether Okazaki method influenced Lua or if it was the other way around is salient. The way Kumu Alva put it yesterday is that this has always been a part of the art.

 

[Makalakumu]

It may not be that they didn't want to pass it on -- but that their students didn't want to learn it.

I think it's telling that so many Western practitioners of Asian martial arts develop significant joint or other health problems, related to their training, when the Asian masters didn't. Something must have changed in the training...

I think at some point, various karate sensei's just stopped teaching it. In the research I did for me book, I examined all sorts of old karate literature from back at the early part of last century. No body really talked about it after 1925. The exception is Kishiba Sensei who taught Matsubayashi Shorin Ryu complete with all of its healing components. This would indicate to me that Nagamine Sensei taught the healing aspects, but then stopped for whatever reason. It's very difficult to talk to anyone out here about healing in karate, because most people just refer you to people connect with the Okazaki method.

Something that I find interesting is that the Okazaki Method is basically grounded in the practice of traditional jujutsu. Okazaki trained with a Yoshin Ryu practitioner on the Big Island for years and years before me moved back to Oahu. There is a strong connection between traditional jujutsu and the arts that would have become known as karate on Okinawa. Many of the masters that created our kata also learned a style of swordsmanship known as Jigen Ryu. Part of this fencing art also contained empty hand lists as well as the full gamut of jujutsu arts. Funakoshi Sensei shares several stories with us about how his teacher Itosu was called upon to treat various injuries and heal various ailments.

Anyways, it's interesting to train in DZR because I think there is a close relationship between the healing methods that used to be taught in karate and those that are still taught with the Okazaki Method. When one considers that Okazaki and Goju Ryu's Miyagi Sensei formed a close training relationship when he was in Hawaii, I think the connection is strong indeed.

 

[Sukerkin]

I do confess that this is very new to me indeed!

I know that my participation in the empty-handed arts was from the 'Chinese' side but I don't consciously recall every having heard of the karate curriculum having so much of a 'healing and maintenance' component to it.

Many thanks for making this more know :tup:.

 

[lklawson]

I
I think it's telling that so many Western practitioners of Asian martial arts develop significant joint or other health problems, related to their training, when the Asian masters didn't. Something must have changed in the training...

That's one possibility but it could be any number of other things.

It could be differences in diet. Fish Oil and certain other kinds of dietary intakes which Westerners tend to consume less of have been shown to significant impact on joint health.

It could be differences in body type. Westerners are (statistically speaking) heavier limbed with larger bodies, more muscle mass, and longer bones. It has been shown that larger bodies, even lean and healthy ones, tend to "wear out" joints faster. It's a well known problem for the Guinness Book of Records holders and the like.

It could be endocrine differences. It's well documented by cancer researchers that people of Asian heritage tend to produce less testosterone than people of European heritage; which is a big deal when you're considering statistical probabilities for prostate cancer among a population. It's entirely possible that there is some naturally occurring chemical, such as Hyaluronic Acid, gets produced more by those of Asian heritage than those of Western heritage.

It could be "simple" genetic predisposition. My family has a history of rheumatoid arthritis so many believe that there is a statistically significant chance of arthritis in my future. I'm not aware of any studies tracking arthritis among different ethnic populations but I'm sure someone, somewhere has done at least one. It could be that those of Asian extraction simply are less likely, because of genetics, to be afflicted.

It could be a combination of any of these, including training differences, or something else entirely and unexpected such as vitamin D deficiency. But it sounds like a very interesting area of study.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Makalakumu]

It's a good point, the prevalence of injuries among Martial Artists from the West could be caused by a number of things. We may not even be looking at the full picture on what the other side of this equation looks like. What kind of injuries did practitioners in the East really have?

At any rate, it's becoming more apparent to me that a healing aspect of the arts was entirely crucial (I devote a chapter in my book to this). In the Bubishi, much of the information takes the form of herbal remedies for various kinds of training injuries as well as other ailments. This is totally conjecture, but perhaps as many people have recipes for various types of dit da jow, this was much the same. The remedies could have been used as preventatives for chronic long term injuries.

 

[Flying Crane]

I haven't found the Okazaki Method to be overly painful. Sometimes it's unpleasant, but mostly fine. It's definitely not a "massage" in the way one normally thinks of it. It's more like Chiropractic and deep tissue manipulation. Maybe I just have a high pain tolerance...lol.

Maybe you've found the secret to living a relaxed, stress-free life and you don't have the tension and knots in your muscles like I do. Boy, when those get hit deeply with the method, it feels like someone is driving a knife into them. It also seems that the more you experience the technique, the better your body is able to tolerate it and it never quite hurts like it did the first time.

Any way, in our group it seems like people are jumping off the table quite a bit when we practice on them. It's very important to be careful because it is easy to actually injure someone if you do this wrong. But the pain we experience is not injurious. It's just tight muscles that need to be loosened up. Most people don't realize how tight they really are. Sometimes the pressure of just laying your arm on a tight muscle is enough to get people to jump.

But we've got methods for dealing with nosebleeds, asthma, migrane headaches, stuff like that as well. The massage is just the general procedure, and specific issues can be addressed as well.

The question of whether Okazaki method influenced Lua or if it was the other way around is salient. The way Kumu Alva put it yesterday is that this has always been a part of the art.

I think it also depends on the specific lineage. The teacher of these authors clearly did study with Okazaki, but that doesn't mean Okazaki influenced all branches of Lua. The book also did not make any clarity as to specifically WHAT Okazaki taught to this man.

It's also possible that what Okazaki taught him was already present in Lua in some form or other. Overlapping methods, so to speak. So it may have always been in the system in some form or other, but the specifics may have changed a bit, depending on who learned from whom.

 

[still learning]

Hello, We notice girls who have a "Hula" background and starting training with us....

Have very powerful "kicks" .....for beginners....powerful muscles in abs and hips..

Aloha, ...what's Hula?

PS: In Hawaii "Lua" has two main meanings....first one that comes into everyone minds? ....Lua is (Toilet) ...where's the "lua"

2nd and NOT common is the Hawaiian Martial arts called "Lua"