Seemingly distant, Yoga with Indian origins and Karate with Japanese. They are actually very close.
Bodhidharma was born in India around 480 AD, in a time when yoga was already in the heart of India. As an adult, around 520 AD, he went to China, where he retired in meditation for nine years near the Shaolin Temple, later becoming the first patriarch in China, and marking the beginning of Ch’an.
Legend has it that the monks of the Shaolin Temple had poor, weak physical condition because of their temple lifestyle. Bodhidharma feeling compassion, taught them the ancient exercises and breathing techniques learned in India. From the fusion of these techniques “yogic” with the earliest forms of martial arts already present in China, such as the Shaolin-Shu-chuan (art of the fist of the monastery of the small forest), developed all subsequent martial arts in Japan and ultimately Karate.
The figure of Bodhidharma, and therefore the practice of meditation, has been the link between yoga and karate. The natural transition from Dhyana, meditation practice of Yoga fulcrum, in Ch’an meditation practice brought by Bodhidharma in China and finally to Zen meditation practice adopted in monasteries in Japan reveals an evolution, with the normal changes in the approach to three different cultures, one that in essence can be considered the same meditation practice.
Yoga & Karate, two formidable INSTRUMENTS, each with its own peculiarities, but with the same common goal and timelessness, even more relevant today than ever: self-knowledge, self-perfection in all aspects of LIFE. Whether you are looking for or not, whether we like it or not, whether there is more or less awareness, the path of knowledge, personal development, to the discovery of oneself, one track alone through practice. The PRACTICE, keyword, Yoga as Karate, is the instrument through which the actual shape character, personality, education, thought. The DISCIPLINE, another keyword, imposed by the practice and gradually more and more self-imposed, is another tool for growth.
From practice in the gym to raising a LIFE STYLE is a short step. It’s a natural evolution, an expansion of space and time dedicated to the practice, to the point that the gym becomes real life. In which every event is a starting point for “personal training.” There are many books written about Yoga and Karate, ancient and modern, on the web. Sometimes they are useful, but sometimes they are misleading. What we would like to share with our students is what Yoga and Karate are FOR US.
Yoga we like to consider it the Way of Love, understood as a unifying principle. Love towards ourselves, towards others, towards everything that surrounds us, love for life and love for what is beyond our world. You could also understand it as Path of Peace, understood as reconciliation of oneself with oneself, with others and with the world. A kind of communion. It’s a profound journey in search of a complete restoration. The path is not marked, it is hidden, to be discovered slowly to the sound of EXPERIENCE.
Karate is instead the Way of War, so to speak, in the sense of the Path of Courage, overcoming of fear and limits. An impassable route, in which the overcoming of every obstacle you encounter, emerges new obstacles, bigger and arduous, whose continual passing through form, going beyond that is the basis for progress and growth. Way of War, not so much against each other, which in practice is only a fictitious opponent, a COMPLICE, as against ourselves. The war is undertaken primarily to defeat the EGO.
In this sense Yoga and Karate are two roads complementary, rather than opposing. Running parallel towards the same goal, and intersecting countless times. In fact you could say a single road, with two lanes divided with a dashed line. The transition from one lane to another is quick and easy, depending on the situation you may prefer one over the other, perhaps on difficult curves you straddle both lanes.