What we’re about
The Karate Meditation and Philosophy project is a study group which aims to unite the practice of karate with that of meditation and philosophy. All this I like to call the Royal Court Karate Study Project. To know more please read on.
Ari Anastasiadis (1932 2015) was one of the first westerners to study Shotokan karate in Japan in the early 1950's. He brought Shotokan to Canada in 1956. He also studied aikido with the art's founder O sensei Ueshiba.
I had the good fortune to train with Ari (everybody called him Ari) for two years in the early seventies at what was to be his last dojo. After this period he became a wandering teacher associated with the Shotokan Karate International Federation directed by the legendary Kanasawa Shihan with whom he had a fast friendship.
In one of the first classes he looked me up and down and announced that you can tell how long a student has practiced simply by the way he stands. In deed I was new to karate. In fact was new to athletic activity of any kind.
I soon concluded that I would write about him. Thirty years latter-at the age of fifty- I began. Ten year latter I finished the book. I gave it the title Karate as a Way of Life and placed it on Amazon. I received one remarkably positive and authoritative review which you may wish to read on that site.However I was discouraged since across one year I had sold only 5 books. This being said the main reason I withdrew the book was because I felt that it still remained incomplete.
Another ten years passed. Emerging from a grave depression about a year ago I threw my self heart and soul into the practice of samatha-vipasanna meditation. Starting from 8 in the morning I practiced 8 hours a day 6 days a week taking time at one o clock each day to chat with the carpenters who were working on the house. This went on for 3 months.
In the evening I would read for a few hours in the domain of philosophic anthropology-meaning everything under the sun pertinent to the human condition apart from the price of chicken wings.
Across the next 9 months I read progressively more and meditated less but I none the less keep one foot in the meditation camp day and night.
At the heart of my practice was the exercise of lying back, watching the breath and relaxing the body. The more I did this the more I felt that I was on a tiny but real dose of magic mushrooms. This is in fact the basic chi kung meditation in China.
Across the past year I have done no other exercise other than to get on the train so as to visit my one hundred and one year old Viennese born mother at a residence once a week. There I meet with two dear friends and sing songs from her youth in Vienna and London.
How I love the residence with its beautiful black and filipino nurses and atmosphere of peace and understanding. Then I am back for another 6 day weekend.
Never have I been so out of shape yet never have I been so relaxed.
Six months ago with the moral support of my loving wife I purchased on line a wonderfully heavy karate uniform which ended up being several sizes too large.
A few weeks ago I began to practice karate again after a four year break. However being so relaxed has changed everything. After a few days of practice the fruit of several thousand hours of on and off solitary practice stretched across fifty years tentatively began to show its fruit. My arms have some of the relaxed heaviness Ary's arms used to have and I have no problem I creating variegated combinations based on about 40 strikes blocks and stances.
I have coined the term Royal Court Karate to refer to the karate Ari taught which could only in turn have developed out of the karate Funakoshi taught to refined intellectuals, upper crust intellectuals, members of the Okinawan royal house and so on.
Funakoshi had no use for karate practiced as a sport. Rather for him karate consisted of kata training self defence routines and makiwara training. It was to be accompanied if possible by instruction in Confusian, Taoist and Buddhist thought. Born in 1868 the first year of the Meiji restoration he had one foot in the feudal world.
As proof of his gentleness note that at 18 he began a 26 year career teaching girls in a primary school. He had an enormous amount of refinement and class. By staying away from free sparring he made karate a metaphysical ritual. Said differently he presented karate as a cultural activity. More than anyone else Funakoshi made karate into an art.
Ary was one of the few instructors Western or other wise interested in transmitting Royal Court Karate.However this tradition probably evolved passed what Funakoshi was teaching. Royal Court Karate became more mobile integrating foot work patterns from judo, aikido and kendo. It was more modular than Funakoshi's original karate and more imaginative in its movements. These movements became large and the stances deep. Yet at times they remained shallow. In deed Funakoshi's old unassuming front stance on almost a strait line generated a massive amount of power.
Ary's karate was centred on classic principles of self defence which have become lost knowledge due to the influence of sport karate. His class invariably ended with soft free sparring with traditional techniques which constitutes more lost knowledge.
Ary taught with a driving rhythm and drove you into the ground but you never got hurt.
I am currently looking for people with whom I could practice Royal Court Karate. I invite you to come to my comfortable home in Senneville 5 minutes from the Ste Anne de Bellevue train station and practice in my back yard dojo or else in the nearby forest.
However I love talking on the phone. Nothing would please me more than to discuss Royal Court Karate with you and perhaps inspire you to practice at home.
Over the past year I have made copious notes on karate meditation and philosophy meaning to say karate as a way of life than can enrich your daily experience and even improve the quality of your dreams at night.
Royal Court Karate is closer in spirit to aikido, taichi and yoga than to karate influenced by sports, money and the military outlook.