B for bamboo I for institute O for of M for martial A for arts
BIO = Life
MA = martial arts
Therefore, life through martial arts.
So, why ‘bamboo?’
Well, being Asian and teaching an Asian martial art. I wanted a motif, a symbol that was distinctly Asian. Pagodas came to mind. So, too, did images of dragons and tigers in combat. I fall under the monkey sign in the Chinese Zodiac and thought of using an image of The Monkey King from “Journey to the West” but that’s Chinese and, while I feel Chinese in many ways, I did teach a Korean martial art.
Then it hit me; like the proverbial – and not so proverbial – sidekick to the head. Why not bamboo? Growing up in Hong Kong, I saw building - skyscrapers – being erected stone by stone, floor by floor with the help of bamboo scaffolding that, at its joints, had half centimeter wide flat plastic rope holding things together. It fascinated me then and it still does today. Hong Kong, among many things, is known for its monsoon season. Typhoons, that whip up the harbour’s water, tears up the faces of mountains and crumbles the sturdiest of buildings, never seemed to damage the bamboo scaffolds.
After moving to America, I saw further evidence of the perfection of the bamboo tree. Big tress with big fat trunks and roots the ran forever into the ground almost always ended up sideways, uprooted and lame, after a big storm; the kind of storm a bamboo tree would’ve swayed this way and that only to be left standing once it’s over.
So, that was the first thing that stood out for me. FELXIBILITY. Definitely an asset in martial arts when kicking high or reaching around to throw someone– or any physical endeavour, really – but, more than as a physical attribute, flexibility of one’s mind and heart is where it really comes into play. Just like in a storm, the bamboo yields to the will of the gale forces where another tree might not, facing it head on with its rigid trunk and grasping roots.
Another characteristic of the bamboo tree that helped me choose it for the name of my then school and, now, for my outlook on martial arts and life, is that often the stalk itself is hollow. EMPTINESS. It's just like the old Zen proverb of being willing to empty your cup. Be open to new ideas and change even though you may have many of your own. Yours may be better but they might not. No one person or style or anything, I believe, can cater to all of the needs of everyone. If they did, we’d only have one martial art, one religion, one political ideology, etc.
Lastly, there is the hard outer shell of the bamboo tree. In my younger, rough-and-tumble, training for competition days, I felt that the hardness of the bamboo is akin to having a hard outer body, to being fit and muscular and strong. I do believe that it’s better to have this kind of body than one that is devoid of any kind of strength but it is overall sense of fitness that I emphasize now. One need not look like a bodybuilder out of “Muscle and Fitness” magazine. One, whether a martial artist or not, should be fit; able to perform the basic responsibilities of life, to care for those around them and to have energy left over – physical and mental – to care for him or herself.
So, friends, that is the philosophy of the bamboo. We may not achieve all of it. We may lose some of it but, just like the bamboo that gets bashed about in the storm (our chaotic lives), it stands again when the rage is over ready to face another day with all of its challenges.
