An essay presented to the Society for the Study of Philosophy and Martial Arts at the 2009 meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Society.

I’m going to reveal a secret here. Something the authorities don’t want you to know; and more so drug peddlers, is that you can legally make your own drugs and there is nothing they can do to stop you.

“Yamaguchi Sensei’s movements were often so fast that even the high- ranking teachers sometimes had trouble taking his ukemi!”

“If you stand naturally you can enter immediately when it appears that your
opponent is about to move. When your opponent moves you have already won.”

“Keeping it with you; now that’s the hardest part of training. Not losing it.

Rinjiro Shirata (1912-1993)

A Contest Between Different Styles

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The very first amoeba to emerge from this earth’s primordial soup was eaten by the next and it still rankles in the spirit of the Universe, giving rise to principles of defence and protectivity, law, jurisprudence and survival skills.

And after that, the whole of evolution was one of predation and defence in which “Cain” was continually trying to kill “Abel,” sometimes successfully, sometimes not.