Do your push-ups, karate-ka!

— Posted inKarate, Karate — 1 min read

Here is an interesting article, describing the statistical study of a correlation between the capability of a person to do push-ups, and a risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD).

Some quotes:

“The findings suggest that higher baseline push-up capacity is associated with a lower incidence of CVD events. Significant negative associations were found between increasing push-up capacity and CVD events. Participants able to complete more than 40 push-ups were associated with a significantly lower risk of incident CVD event risk compared with those completing fewer than 10 push-ups.“

Karate itself is (beside many other things) a good conditioning system. Paying attention to kihon is a way to condition the body adapted for karate techniques. However, if there is a single additional exercises needed to be added to karate training, it must be push-ups.

Oss!

Bushido virtues in Karate

— Posted inKarate — 2 min read

In his famous book “Bushido. The soul of Japan”, Inazo Nitobe defined 8 virtues of Bushido : Justice, Courage, Kindness, Politeness, Sincerity, Honor, Loyalty, and Self-control.

French Federation of Karate (F.F.Karaté) suggested to define the moral virtues of karate similar to 8 virtues of Bushido, as follows.

  1. Courage and self-control : the desire to fight and to win cannot be virtous, unless related to self-perfection and to respect to others.
  2. Frendship : frendship is an important component of sportmanship. The improvement of individual performance must be aligned with collective interests.
  3. Sincerity : one should strive to know the rules and to follow them sincerely without failures, both in letter and in spirit.
  4. Honor : one should behave to set an example beyond reproach.
  5. Modesty and humility : kindness and benevolence cannot be sincerely expressed without moderation in self-appreciation.
  6. Respect : karate is respect for others, just as it is respect for oneself and one’s body.
  7. Politeness : politeness is the expression of respect owed to others, whatever their qualities, weaknesses or social position.
  8. Tolerance : karate unites people in practice, whatever their origins, social situation, opinions, beliefs, age or sex.

Source : G.Morel, “Quelle valeurs dans un Dôjô?”, in Karaté Bushido, 2023, #446, P/ 61-64.

Shotokan Dojo Kun

— Posted inKarate — 1 min read

Here are 5 main principles of Shotokan Karate, known as Dojo Kun. Attributed to Gichin Funakoshi.

  1. 一、人格 完成に 努める こと / Hitotsu, jinkaku kensei ni tsutomeru koto
  2. 一、誠の道を守ること / Hitotsu, makoto no michi wo mamoru koto
  3. 一、努力の精神を養うこと/ Hitotsu, doryoku no seishin wo yashinau koto
  4. 一、礼儀を重んずること/ Hitotsu, reigu wo omonzuru koto
  5. 一、血気の勇を戒むること / Hitotsu, kekki no yu wo imashimaru koto

Approximate translation:

  1. Strive for perfection of perfection of character
  2. Protect the way of truth
  3. Foster the spirit of effort
  4. Be respectfull
  5. Refrain from violence

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dj%C5%8D_kun

Illustration : ft-karate Verlag

My current OS

— Posted inSoftware — 1 min read

This is my current everyday drive:

Manjaro OS, Gnome DE, Unity layout (built in Manjaro/Gnome)

Manjaro has customized Gnome very nicely, so my customization is minor: Graphite-gtk theme, and some extensions for Gnome shell, such as system-monitor and notes. Beside this, I have changed default browser to Vivaldi (hoorray!), and pdf-viewer to qpdfview. And then, of course, quite a list of software needed for my work. But more about this later.

I am using Linux for my everyday work (teaching and research) for more than 10 years. I started by Ubuntu 12.10, and stayed with it for many years. Then it was Linux Mint Mate (I still love this DE). Then I went in Arch direction: Manjaro (an year ago) and Endeavour OS (as close to Arch as I ever got). On this parkour I have tried for a short time even rpm-based Mageia (mostly because its French!). Yet Manjaro wins over, at least for the moment.