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Ireland in Japanese Kanji

Ireland in Japanese:

• [ Japanese Pronunciation ] Ai-ru-ran-do
• [ Hiragana ] アイルランド
• [ Kanji ] 愛蘭 (愛 Ire: love, 蘭 land: orchid)

The Japanese word airurando translates as “Ireland” and is composed of the kanji Ire (read ai ) meaning “Love” and Land (read ran ) meaning “Orchid.”

Country names were originally translated to Japanese using a phonetic translation to kanji . These kanji were selected mainly for their pronunciation and not necessarily for their meaning. Also Ireland is commonly written in katakana as (read airurando ). The pronunciation is exactly the same.

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To Be or Not to Be a Dan Grade

To get your BLACK BELT or to BE a BLACK BELT are two very different things. In the morning of your Dan Grading you get out of Bed a brown belt, if you grade and are successful you will go to bed that night a BLACK BELT.

What has changed nothing, you have come to the end of your training as a KYU grade and now can begin to train and learn as a Dan grade. Shodan in English is First Level, This is a new beginning of training as a Dan grade.

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What is OUS or OSS ?

The expression OSS was created in the Japanese Naval School and is universally used for everyday expressions such as please, thank you, I understand, sorry, greeting someone, etc., as well as inside the world of karate nearly any time a response is required. You must say it from your abdomen.

This is not really used in Wado Karate or Budo arts, I remember been away at a WKF World Championship and every second karate-ka you passes would say or go oss. Some of the members of our team were from the Ed Parkers Kempo and found it funny to go OSS and get an answer back of, yes you guessed it OSS.

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