This book throws down a gauntlet with a bold challenge to Okinawan karate practitioners, and particularly Isshinryu karateka to wake up to the amazing wisdom of Asian Esoteric Teachings embedded in all of Okinawan karate. Learn the secrets behind Isshinryu's unique fist formation, the Kihon, the Kiai, the Crescent Step, Sanchin kata, the reason for Isshinryu's eight Forms, how the blocks aren't blocks, how the Cat stance manipulates the human energy field, and more... Long held and taught only to select initiates, the Esoteric Teachings represent the source of authentic martial alchemy, Ki cultivation, and powerful, internal mind/body strength methods. Karate's next evolutionary step is provocatively outlined through its Kiko or internal practices. Shifu Hayashi, author of The Soul Polisher's Apprentice and Internal Karate: Mind Matter & The Seven Gates Of Power, Buddhist monk, and teacher of teachers with nearly fifty years martial experience, presents his personal rebellion in a series of 57 Challenges aimed to lift the ceiling of advanced Isshinryu and Okinawan karate training.
About the Author: Shifu Hayashi Tomio, Wind School headmaster, 8th dan, has been a career sensei for over forty-six years. He is the author of; Internal Karate: Mind Matters and the Seven Gates of Power, The Soul Polishers Apprentice: A Martial Kumite About Personal Evolution, The Wind Warrior: Training of a Karate Champion, and Smart Moves, A Kid's Guide To Self Defense. He founded the Martial Art Directory Association of New Jersey in 1984, which published A Guide To The Martial Arts of New Jersey (1984). He has published many articles and teaching stories in trade magazines. Hayashi was one of twenty-five professionals selected to express his training philosophy in the book, Martial Arts Teachers on Teaching (Frog Ltd.) Hayashi is the inventor of the strategy martial art card game, Grand Master. He has appeared in the third edition of Who's Who in American Karate and Who's Who In The East for his martial contributions and on cable television and radio demonstrating and discussing martial arts. He has studied numerous martial styles. He serves as senior counsel for the Mushindo Kempo Association in the USA and is a senior Buddhist Bodhisattva Warrior Monk in the Buddhist Chen Yen Shingon Mikkyo sect. Hayashi began his karate training in 1968 at the International School of Judo and Karate in Summit, New Jersey. After graduating Fairfield University in 1973, with a BS in Business Administration, he became a senior instructor for the Isshin Kempo Association, which grew into one of the East Coast's largest karate organizations during the 1970s. Hayashi became the system's successor in 2000. Hayashi serves as an Adjunct Lecturer in Physical Education at Drew University where he has taught karate since 1984. He offers an extensive knowledge of martial technique, principles, psychology, philosophy, and metaphysical insights, which he shares through his intimate, compassionate, and dynamic teaching approach. As well as being a popular New Jersey teacher, Hayashi is a proponent of the many benefits of traditional karate training.