Moving Zen

This is one of the great books I’ve ever read. I shed tears reading the part where Kunio Sasaki was going through a special training in preparation for his sandan. The JKA will be sending him to the Philippines to teach the art of “empty hand”  and return to Japan after a couple of years. This was back in the middlesixties.

 Sasaki Shihan never left the Philippines. Until now he is still there teaching the “way”, aging and as poor as a mice. The cause of my tears were probably brought out by the Shihan’s situation and maybe also by my understanding of how difficult and hard Karate training is. As I read on I felt every blow delivered onto his body. The JKA instructors were trying to break him, not his body but his spirit.

 In my years of Karate back home, Sasaki Shihan never became my mentor. I haven’t even seen him execute a full Kata. Though he refereed and judged at some of the tournaments I joined in. His former students were my teachers. The stories they told me about the Shihan were always fascinating. One time Kapawen Sr. Sensei confided that sometimes it puts him in tears just thinking of Sasaki. Now I know what he meant.

Sasaki could have chosen to go to the west, where most of his colleagues were, to become flush and well known. But he remained to be the official representative of JKA in the Philippines till this day.

Perhaps Sasaki Shihan deeply rooted his feet in teaching Filipinos because he was bounded by “loyalty” and “honor”. A true Samurai. Even though some of his students broke off and went on to serve other masters or became masters of their own.

 I read this book of C.W. Nicol before, lent by Kapawen Sensei, when I was a white belt. I failed to finish and understand truly what it meant. But a line from this true to life story: “If a nail sticks up knock it down” stuck within me.  Then the book was lost. Someone borrowed it and never returned.

 It has been 18 years of searching, trying desperately to get a copy but could not find one. I think it ceased publication before I got to read it. Then one day an I Italian post man handed me the book just like that! Actually the mail man delivered two books. The other one is Tim Russert’s Remembering our Fathers (another great book).

 The books came from the U.S. Mailed by an uncle of mine whom I never knew I had. Mr. Candelario was a childhood friend of my father and my father asked him to buy it for me. I was beyond words receiving these books.

 Consuming Moving Zen in record time, I decided to send it home. Two days after, the book was on its way to the Philippines. Then after almost a year, the daughter of Fiscal Agunos here in Italy, dropped by at the hotel where I work and left it  there. Too bad it was my day off, I didn’t get the chance to thank Aida.

 Opening the book once again I saw in the first page below the title was my name written in Japenese along with the signature of Sasaki Kunio Shihan and the date 2007, 12, 22, Baguio City.

~ by musashiboogie on August 17, 2008.