Shorinji Kempo students practice offensive and defensive techniques during a recent class.
Zen and the art of self-defense celebrated in Chelsea
By Charlotte Cowles
Atsushi Ohashi looks like the last person in the world to kick anybody. At the beginning of a recent martial arts class inside Chelsea Studios on W. 26th St., the smiled sweetly and, in accented English, advised students to be open-minded, “like a newly born baby.”
Then he picked a student out of the class and kicked him in the leg.
The student didn’t seem to mind. Ohashi had kicked him to demonstrate the snakelike technique of dodging an attacker’s advances and striking back.
“Do not be afraid to kick. We will try a little aggressiveness today,” Ohashi said. He then touched the inner flesh of his thigh, the area of the student’s body he had kicked. “Here is soft. A little pain is OK.”
In the practice of Shorinji Kempo—the Japanese martial art intertwines self-defense with meditation, remedial massage and lectures on Zen Buddhist philosophy—a little pain is viewed as part of one’s personal growth. Branching from Chinese martial arts, Shorinji Kempo was founded in post-World War II Japan to preserve the traditional belief that all things come down to the quality of the person in the face of sweeping Western might-makes-right principles.
“The person, the person, the person—everything depends on the quality of the person.” This mantra is often repeated during Shorinji Kempo sessions, where intelligence, personal strength and spiritual growth are valued far more than size, muscle power and competition.
Founded in Chelsea in 1982, the New York Shorinji Kempo branch prides itself on the diversity of its students. The reason for the dojo’s Chelsea location, Ohashi said, is that the area helps foster the open-mindedness and spiritual creativity that is essential to the practice.
“Chelsea is one of the big centers for art, including martial arts, and is an important cultural area in Manhattan,” Ohashi said in a recent e-mail. Therefore, the neighborhood is “a very suitable environment to promote our way of thinking.”
Alex Nadolishny, a tall, middle-aged man with glacier-blue eyes, said that this “way of thinking” is precisely what attracted him to Shorinji Kempo. A martial arts practitioner since the age of 16, he mainly practiced Kung Fu until taking a hiatus for four years in 1998 because of injury. He then discovered Shorinji Kempo. “I found it close to Kung Fu because it had a real self-defense element, but it’s noncompetitive,” he said. “It’s really about personal growth. The obligation of the higher ranks is to bring the lower ranks up.”
Nadolishny, who works for an environmental organization, embraces the holistic appeal of Shorinji Kempo in more ways than just his own practice: He brings his whole family to classes with him. He pointed out his two sons and daughter, ages 14, 16 and 18. “My wife usually comes too,” he said, “but she’s home with the flu today.”
Kumi Kawasaki, a petite, pretty Japanese woman, quietly entered the class a few moments late with her toddling daughter in tow. In halting English, she explained that she and her family had recently moved from Japan to Greenwich, Conn. so that her husband could conduct research at Columbia University. She has been studying Shorinji Kempo for over 20 years and plans to open her own center upon returning to Japan.
Kawasaki’s three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, a pig-tailed, giggling whirl of kicks and tumbles, seemed to enjoy the class the most out of anyone in the room. Kawasaki explained that she has been bringing her toddler to classes for seven months now.
“I like this place,” she said, “because the people in Greenwich, they can be very cold, and the people here, they are very warm.”
The New York Branch holds classes at the studio at 151 W. 26th St. three times per week, and there are currently 33 Shorinji Kempo branches across the U.S. “We host two to three demonstrations per year, not to advertise ourselves, but to expand our good philosophy,” Ohashi said, emphasizing his openness to first-timers. “It is good to have beginners! Teaches me something new.”
Even with such devotion to the practice, Ohashi, from Tokyo, considers art his main profession. He has been the instructor here for 10 years since taking over for the former instructor, who left for another branch in California. As a rule, the practice uses its profits only to cover rent and equipment costs, and does not pay its instructors. Ohashi supports himself by teaching art in daycare and after-school programs for children in Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey.
Much of the class is conducted with students breaking off into pairs and practicing techniques one-on-one. They provide feedback and support while wheeling and dodging around one another. When students are learning a new technique, they split into perfectly formed lines and follow the directions of a student instructor at the front of the studio, while Ohashi offers suggestions from the back.
After an hour of strenuous exercise at a recent session, the students settled peacefully onto the floor and began a period of quiet, seated meditation. Concluding 10 minutes of perfect silence, Ohashi stood at the front of the room with a large flip chart and drew a diagram of a seed sprouting, a classic metaphor in Buddhist teachings. He explained that the individual is like a seed, branching out in tiny ways every day.
The class nodded—they had heard this before. He then emphasized the areas around the seed waiting to be filled by the tree and roots, telling his students to think of it as a magnetic space attracting growth from the seed. Ohashi also told students to think of their lives as encouraging growth, just like the magnetic space.
When students were invited to ask questions or offer input, one raised her hand. “I really appreciate your words about taking tiny little steps every day. Change takes a long time,” she said. “I appreciate your saying that.”
“It’s very long,” Ohashi nodded gravely. “That is why people give up.”
Student Brenda Chang, 35, a lawyer, has been practicing Shorinji Kempo for a year now. “I wanted to do something healthy for myself, but I’m not a gym kind of person,” she said. “I tried different things, a few different kinds of martial arts, and then I found this one.”
Chang said she ultimately chose Shorinji Kempo for its holistic, philosophical approach. “It’s refreshing to come here because everyone is on their very best behavior,” she said. “In the world, everyone is not so conscious of how they behave.”
