Samurai - The Honourable & The Treacherous

The Japanese Samurai were warriors. Highly trained, skilled and efficient killers. Indeed, for many years the Samurai were the law of the land, a class of citizens above all except their Daimyo and the imperial Shogun. The samurai inhabited and roamed a land which was governed by the sword, and the samurai were masters of the sword.

Samurai are generally written about and thought of as an honorable, humble class of people which upheld an extremely rigid and almost impossible-to-imagine or mythical-like set of rules, code of conduct and belief system and would give his life rather than break Bushido (Way of the Warrior - the Samurai's belief system). This is half true, for many samurai were this honorable warrior most of us hear about. But not all of them were this way. Many Ronin samurai (Masterless) were merely amoral crooks which used their deadly skills for wrongdoing and lining their own pockets. They had no loyalty to anybody but themselves and would betray you in a heartbeat if it was in their monetary interest to do so.

Many of these samurai were once good samurai which may have even served under a Daimyo once upon a time but later became corrupt. Been a samurai is more than simply been good with a sword, its a way of living to which you dedicate your life, so these so called samurai were looked down upon by the moralistic samurai as nothing more than crooks. History is filled with Good guys and Bad guys, and it seems Japans Samurai class were no exception!

Article by Nick Johnson, visit his website for more on the samurai warrior and for information on samurai swords and the history of the samurai sword http://www.japanese-samurai-swords.net

Canoe.ca
Almeida couldn't stay away from mixed martial arts
Newsday, NY - 19 hours ago
BY KATIE STRANG | caitlin.strang@newsday.com Despite Ricardo Almeida's nearly four-year absence from mixed martial arts, he was never quite able to sever ...
Canadian Patrick (The Predator) Cote earns title shot in the UFC The Canadian Press
Montreal middleweight riding high in the UFC Globe and Mail
Performify's Picks for UFC 86 MMAjunkie.com
all 31 news articles

MARTIAL ARTS - Top martial arts Master on hand at champs
Hawke's Bay Today, New Zealand - 46 minutes ago
Master Hanshi was in Hastings on Saturday as a guest judge and referee at the 2008 KAWERA Martial Arts North Island Championships at Hastings Sports Stadium ...

Exciting martial arts show at UTech last Saturday
Jamaica Observer, Jamaica - Jul 4, 2008
Some four hundred martial artists took part in the exciting championships, including teams from the USA and Great Britain. Almost all martial arts schools ...

Lubbock mother embraces violent world of mixed martial arts fighting
LubbockOnline.com, TX - 21 hours ago
Salter, 28, and Bolanos, 21, are part of a small, but growing group: young women who practice mixed martial arts, a nearly no-holds barred combat sport that ...

Mixed Martial Arts Up For Public Hearing
Pacific News Center - Jul 5, 2008
Guam - A measure that seeks to regulate professional mixed martial arts (MMA) on Guam is up for a public hearing next week. The bill introduced by Senator ...

Success turns Inland apparel company TapouT into a force in the ...
Press-Enterprise, CA - 2 hours ago
All three of the lead crew are trained in the sport, which combines boxing with elements of traditional Asian and South American martial arts. ...

VietNamNet Bridge
Master of Kinh shares martial art with world
VietNamNet Bridge, Vietnam - 21 hours ago
According to him, Kinh means citadel and was a unique martial arts used by soldiers in the imperial city during the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945). ...

Salaryman to come out swinging in K-1
The Daily Yomiuri, Japan - Jul 5, 2008
... fighting corporate battles as a sales rep to fighting of a much more physical nature when he makes his debut as a K-1 mixed martial arts fighter Monday. ...

Saturday's editorial: Mixed martial arts fighting is bloody, inhumane
Kansas City Star, MO - Jul 3, 2008
It is a far cry from traditional martial arts such as Taekwondo, an Olympic sport and that stresses personal discipline and provides much more extensive ...

Beware of ‘The Epidemic’: Jeff native finding success in mixed ...
Evening News and Tribune, IN - Jul 4, 2008
Farmer, a former hoops player at Jeffersonville High School, has moved into the world of mixed martial arts, where he has shown an aptitude for the ...

Wind Chimes and more...

Windchimes for great gifts!

Sensing Intention