A Symbol of MiYama Ryu JuJutsu

In 1965, shortly after I began taking classes in MiYama Ryu Jujutsu, then Professor Pereira (He was Sensei or Professor Pereira from the opening of the school in 1960 until 1973 when he became Shinan) asked my father to help him remake a ring that he wore and that come into disrepair. My father was a jeweler and a model maker and so about a month later, he returned a brand new model of that ring to the Professor, as he liked to be called and charged him $35.00. I still have the model for that original ring, a man’s gold black enameled signet ring with the Japanese kanji for the word “Bushi” or samurai cut into the center of the ring. That ring became a very important symbol in the history of Mi Yama Ryu, because Shinan allowed only those students that achieved a Black Belt in Mi Yama Ryu JuJutsu to purchase and wear that ring. Over the years my father made many rings and pendants for students of Mi Yama Ryu JuJutsu, and after my father’s retirement, so have I.

Throughout the years I have come to appreciate the beauty and symmetry of Japanese calligraphy and have made and designed many different kinds of jewelry using the various ways of writing Japanese kanji. Because a single kanji may be used to write one or more different words, each word, a combination of several kanji tell a story or invoke an image to the reader. Even the way the letter or kanji is written can evoke and sense of strength or boldness, softness or continuity.

The making of jewelry is actually not that different and uses many of the skills that one learns through their study of the martial arts. It takes a good deal of time to learn the physical skills needed in the manufacture of a piece of jewelry. How to use and handle the tools you need, to control them in your hands and guide them to do what you wish them to do is not so unlike learning how to use any weapon a sword or a jo for example. Your ability to perfect these physical skills requires more than time, it requires patience and focus, the staying power needed to learn a new technique or a new way of moving. Persistence and repetition make a better jeweler as they do a better martial artist

Having learned these skills over time and with the help a good teacher you eventually begin to feel energized by new projects, new designs or in the case of martial arts new challenges and new techniques. You begin to stretch your skills to adapt them to these new challenges and you build on the skills you have already learned to create more intricate designs, to learn higher level techniques. As a jeweler you work more efficiently, you can begin to visualize your designs long before they are ever completed, as martial artists our movements become more polished more subtle. Our technique has gotten better.

While we all strive to become the best at what we do, and as perfection is not truly possible, I have found that my two “arts”, that of MiYama Ryu JuJutsu and the art of making and designing jewelry, have complemented each other and the skills learned in each discipline has enhanced my ability to practice and learn the other. For that I will eternally be grateful to my father, who was the best of teachers and to Shinan Pereira who comes in a really close second.