Editor’s Note

Nasser Butt

Welcome to Volume 22 of Lift Hands Magazine 2022!

Again, first and foremost my apologies for the slightly delayed issue.

I knew June was going to be an extremely busy month, having said that, life — as always — also threw a few curve balls just to keep things a bit more chaotic and to keep me on my toes! But, hey… that’s just one of the reasons why we train in the martial arts — to deal with the unexpected!

Anyhow, here we are and once again I thank everybody who has contributed to this issue. As always, it would be impossible to do so without your time, efforts and generosity.

June saw the return of Kaizen after a 3 year absence and it was great to be back on the mats and mingling with folk from around the country and overseas. We have an exclusive report and interview in this issue with Lucci Del-Gaudio, who critically reviews his work.

I’d like to welcome Dave Giddings — a new addition to our family of contributors, who writes about Authentic Ninjutsu. I’m sure we will see further contributions from him.

Once again we have a couple of brilliant articles from two of our leviathan contributors, Dr Greg Lawton and Katherine Loukopoulos Sensei.

Greg gives us a brilliant insight into ‘Embracing the Blade’ and Katherine Sensei gives us a timely reminder of the darkness that surrounds some lives in her excellent ‘Victims of Spouse Abuse’ — from a lecture she delivered in Japan in 1999.

It humbles me to call both these amazing souls my friends — their knowledge and experience is something I would require multiple lifetimes to achieve, and both share it with us all freely!

Their was a considerable ‘earthquake’ in British martial arts a couple of months ago, which made headlines both nationally and internationally. We will be dealing with that in a separate ‘extra’ of Lift Hands due to the subject matter, which will appear in a few weeks. After consultation, we decided that it was the best approach — that way folk could choose to read it or simply ignore it.

I am looking into making a digital download version of the magazine available after receiving requests from several folk, who prefer to read it at their own leisure and keep a copy. Of course, there will be a cost involved for making the download available, however, they are happy to pay and I shall endeavour to keep the costs reasonable based upon our digital hosts. However, the magazine in its entirety will remain free to read on our digital platform — no changes there!

Further, I have launched a ‘Support Us’ donations appeal to help with the day to day running and costs involved in publishing the magazine. Please donate if you can and I thank you all in advance, and also those who have already helped and continue to help behind the scenes.

I hope you all have a fantastic summer wherever you happen to be in the world. Stay safe and well, and see you in September with Volume 23.

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