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What is Uechi-ryu?
Ask five individuals who practice this art and you will get five different answers. But if you ask any one of the 200+ graduates of Buzz Durkin's organization, who earned their rank this year, chances are "fighting" or even "self-defense" would not be their primary reason. Their organization teaches and practices the "Art" of fighting. . . They are proud of the many other benefits accrued by studying Uechi-ryu. Self confidence, improved health and something a lot of dojo ignore - the social and "family" aspects of belonging to a professionally taught and administered organization. Durkin sensei invited me to attend and participate in the Butokukai's "ceremony" of receiving a black belt degree. The pre-tests and tests were held throughout the past six months. The actual ceremony was conducted at the Timberlane Performing Arts Center in Atkinson, NH. The 1000+ seats were all sold out long before the event was held and I understood tickets were actually being "resold" on e-Bay, according to rumors! :) Instead of the usual karate show, Buzz and his hard working staff, created a multi-media presentation that was super professional, entertaining and educational. If you get an opportunity to view the dvd that every participant received, check it out. I'll be writing more about the weekend, including the rain drenched 15 holes of golf played Sunday morning! :) But class begins in a half hour and I have three brown belts that are being tested at SummerFest in July and all three want to make the best impression possible. Can't be late for their class!
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Update: 5/25/2007:
I had a chance to listen to the interview with my father today. It was awsome to listen to. It was nice to listen to the two of you talking about those times. It was also nice to hear my father sounding so happy. Thank you
Michael Brand
Note: A winning entry arrived!
Sensei Mattson, I believe the boy in the photo on your webpage is a young Kiyohide Shinjo. Walt Young
A Very Interesting Interview with Mel Brand!
(This is not his picture. . . but a picture of a student in the Kadena dojo during the time Mel was on Okinawa. Oh yes... a free set of training posters will be given to the first person who e-mails me with the name of the student! Compliments of Ihor Rymaruk.) Click on the student's picture for the link to the interview & more pictures.
 Although I am given credit for being an early pioneer of Uechi-ryu, there were actually Americans who "dabbled" in the dojo of Okinawa even before me. Most were only interested in learning how to fight and the Okinawans allowed them to punch the makiwara and kick a heavy bag until they tired of the hard work and quit.
A few years after I returned to America, a few soldiers actually requested duty on Okinawa in order to study Uechi-ryu in a serious and diligent manner. Milford "Mel" Brand was one of these individuals.
Mel studied a little Judo in Fort Bragg before being transferred to Okinawa. Soon after his arrival he was fortunate in discovering the dojo of Master Seiyu Shinjo in the village of Kadeda. From that day on, Mel trained whenever possible and before returning to the states, earned his Shodan (1st degree Black Belt).
A few weeks ago, Mel's son Michael Brand contacted me and asked if I would like to have some photographs taken on Okinawa that his father gave him. Naturally I wanted to also find out more information about Michaels' father and one thing led to another, resulting in the one hour interview I did with Mel this morning.
We don't have a lot of factual, documented history relating to our style. Most of what we do and what we know is stored in the mind-vaults of the early practitioners of our art who were fortunate enough to have trained with the original masters of Uechi-ryu - many who actually studied with Kanbun Uechi and the original techniques and methods taught by Kanbun.
I hope you enjoy the "off the cuff" discussion between two "very old" timers as they reminisce and recall the teachings and philosophies of early Uechi-ryu and as taught by the most respected of teachers. . . Shinjo, Seiyu.
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 More bad science by Bill Glasheen
I hate it when "junk science" makes it into the mainstream media - particularly when it is politically motivated. I've been all over the CO2 "doom and gloom" scenarios in other threads.
This one is about a study allegedly linking vitamin use with prostate cancer. The study will be published Wednesday, but already USA Today is all over it.
But wait... Get past the sensationalist headlines, and you see a different picture.
Here's the deal. Sooner or later, men are going to get prostate cancer. Live long enough, and you get it. Some get it sooner than others.
In the past, studies were done to see if vitamins would somehow aid the body's ability in fighting cancer. Well... It doesn't work that way. You see those rapidly proliferating, nondifferentiated cells like those vitamins just as much as the "normal" ones do. So feed the cancer, and guess what happens? Duh! It grows!
So the news stories are coming out saying there is a link between vitamin use and cancer. This is not news. It is 3 decade old news. WE ALREADY KNOW that if you feed cancer cells they grow faster. A common tactic to treat estrogen-sensitive breast cancer cells is to deny them their estrogen. But you don't really want to be inhibiting estrogen in normal women, do you? Of course not. Same with prostate cancer. Higher testosterone levels may make the cancer grow faster. Want to neuter us all so we'll never get it? Be my guest!
Meanwhile... Read many, many layers deep in the articles, and the truth comes out. The vitamins don't really affect the incidence of new cancers. It's only about what happens once you already have it.
The study as written up in the junk science press doesn't say anything about the types of multivitamins that the 300K high risk men were taking. It could have been anything fron one-a-days to Grandma's Organic Brew. IF however the vitamins had contained lycopene (known to reduce the incidence of prostate cancer), then the results could have been different.
The moral of the story? Read your junk science articles carefully. Consider the source. Who gains by paying attention to the study? Who loses? And get past the fear-eliciting headlines and to the source data. What do they say? How carefully was the study done? Was it randomized, or an epidemiologic study? Does the experimental design make sense?
Everything in moderation, and with a bit of common sense.
- Bill |
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