The Dojo – martial art, zen

As most karate-people, at least every one practising Shotokan, know Asai Shihan, 9 dan and Master of JKS and IJKA Shotokan karate organisation, died this year.

He just to visit our organisation in Sweden every year. When he was here 2003 I made an interview with him for a Swedish Martial Art Magazine and for the homepage of our karateorganisation.

The interview was published in Swedish. Now, at last, I have translated it to English.

Here it is:

Swedish Karate got high marks by T.Asai, chiefinstructor for JKS and IJKA.

4:th – 6:th May 2003 together with Kato Sensei he held a trainingcamp at Häggvik at Sollentuna, close to Stockholm, capitol of Sweden.

In an interview he said:

- I feel Swedish Karate is good. With good leaders Karate geets good quality. When I started coming to Sweden I was a bit worried. But Görgen Sökare Sensei has developed a great deal.

When I did this interview Asas Sensei was 67, but he was fit lika much younger man.

He told me he got up five o´clock every morning and practises for two and a half hours. Wherever he is, at home in Japan or at a Hotel somewhere in the world.

- I hate to rest, I dont believe in resting. I always want to practise, he explained.

At he camp he showed us some of the exercises he liked to do himself in the mornings.

At the first lesson, a two-hour.sting in the Friday evening, he taught to squat, breath out and rise, stretch out on tiptoe, strecht the whole body and breath in.

When asked about any favourtie kata he first said:

- Alla katas is good in different way. It depends on what I want to practise just then.

After we have been talking for a while he told me that he is very found of Nijushiho.

- But Gojushiho sho and Gojushio dan, I am not so found of. They are too long at it is easy to make a mistake. Nijushiho has a perfect length. If you make a mistake the kata wont be good, he explained.

Asai Shihan has introduced some for shotokan new katas in our training. At the camp he taught us another nwe kata: Sen cho kata.

Other new katas are:

Hachi Mon, Gakusen, Hi no te, Mizu no te och Kakuyoko Shodan, Kakuyoko Nidan och Kakuyoko Sandan.

I asked him about them, ad if they are Chinese.

- No, he said. Not more so than that all karatekatas originally come from China. These katas I learned when I was young and karate was not so divided into different styles.

When he has done some changes in the katas. These changes he has done in co-operation with a physiciian, to make the katas good for training all parts of the body.

In the interview Asai Shihan said that he started practising Kendo and judo-like selfdefence as a little boy together with his father who was a policeman. When Asai Shihan was twelve he started with Karate. He fell for Karate immediately, when he went to junior high school.

He and his schoolmates practised a mixture of Karate and Judo every day in a temple close to the school.

- At that time Karate was not so common and it was also not divided into different styles as today.

Asai Shihan has always seen karate as one and liked to practising both kata and kumite. In the 1950´s and 1960´s he won the Japanese Open Championships several times, both in kata and kumite.

The secret behind success in Karate he sums up like this:

- Relax, relax, relax … that´s the basis for all good Karate.