{"id":500,"date":"2015-05-28T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.eda.kent.ac.uk\/news-ext\/2015\/05\/28\/martial-arts-expert-teaches-free-classes-as-part-of-national-mental-health-awareness-week\/"},"modified":"2015-05-28T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-05-28T00:00:00","slug":"martial-arts-expert-teaches-free-classes-as-part-of-national-mental-health-awareness-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/2015\/05\/28\/martial-arts-expert-teaches-free-classes-as-part-of-national-mental-health-awareness-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Martial arts expert teaches free classes as part of national Mental Health Awareness Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Week 2015 (12 &#8211; 16 May), Chris Barron, School Administration Manager in EDA, taught lunchtime sessions of &#8216;Tanren&#8217;, a system of body conditioning or &#8216;forging&#8217; that develops the qualities of strength and flexibility required for traditional Japanese martial arts.  Tanren is a traditional sequence of moves to promote positive physical and mental health, with a focus on breaking and manipulation of pressure inside the abdomen to awaken the body&#8217;s true potential. See this YouTube video for a flavour of Tanren.<\/p>\n<p>Tanren is a supplementary exercise to the Japanese sword art of batto-do, which Chris recently travelled to Oslo to teach. He was accompanied by Carl Swaffer from Information Services, who has trained with Chris in this art for over 12 years.<\/p>\n<p>Chris explains: &#8216;The art of cutting with the Japanese sword represents cutting through our own weaknesses and insecurities. This concept of &#8220;Katsujinken&#8221; is central to batto-do &#8211; the sword gives life rather than taking it.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Chris has taught batto-do throughout the UK and Europe and is the head of the batto-do division of the Jindokai, a martial arts association with members all over the world. He has taught batto-do at the University&#8217;s Sports Centre since 2002, and plans to start regular tanren classes in September 2015.<\/p>\n<p>For more information about batto-do or tanren classes please email Chris:  c.p.barron@kent.ac.uk<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Week 2015 (12 &#8211; 16 May), Chris Barron, School Administration Manager in EDA, taught lunchtime sessions of &#8216;Tanren&#8217;, a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/2015\/05\/28\/martial-arts-expert-teaches-free-classes-as-part-of-national-mental-health-awareness-week\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55249,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[124],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55249"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/engineering-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}