The goal of the study was to investigate the effects of muscle tone in different body regions, especially the right arm and abdomen, on response movements of Kendo fighters. A survey was conducted to identify the muscle regions in which Kendo fighters felt tension associated with good or poor movement. Based on these findings, three experiments were performed to investigate the influence of muscle tone in different body regions on response movements when the facemask was hit with a bamboo sword. Using a high-speed camera, three parameters were measured: reaction time (the time from presentation of a stimulus to the start of movement), action time (from the start of movement to completion), and response time (the sum of the reaction and action times). The results showed that (1) tension of the muscle in the right arm was associated with poor movement, whereas abdominal tension was associated with good movement; (2) muscle tone in the right arm delayed the response movement due to slow reaction times; (3) achievement of an appropriate abdominal tension using abdominal training practice changed the posture by lowering the position of the abdomen; and (4) abdominal training practice quickened both the response time and the action time compared with hitting practice. These results suggest that instruction to increase abdominal muscle tone may be an effective strategy to increase the speed of response movements.

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The purpose of this paper is to consider Cerebral Palsy as an experience of a body lived in the world, but not as a "lesion" that should be cure. A person with cerebral palsy can not articulate each muscle and region of his/her body, thus tonus on one part of muscle causes hyperkinesia of all part of a body. This paper uses phenomenology as a analytical frame work. This paper specifically uses the concept of "actual layer" and "potential layer" in a body defined by Merleau-Ponty. According to Merleau-Ponty, in order to make an intentional action of body actual, a body needs to make axis of the body that support it' s intentional action potential. From this point of view, potential layer stands out on the front of a body movement for cerebral palsy, while it goes down to the background of a body movement for a non-disability. The tremble and blur on a body of cerebral palsy is a the TIME gap from when a body tries to articulate its actual body like he/she raises his/her foot along with the stable course of movement. By this gap, a body try to swell out potential layer in body-space and create the Ground. The Ground supports organic synthesis in body-space that has been organized before it is articulated. It implies a body with cerebral palsy closes down toward the axis of a body and then tries to install the stable Ground in a body-space because potential layer presses a body-space.

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Today there are various kinds of spirituality: some are based on the traditional religions; others are not based on them. Here I deal with the former. In the process of the spiritual exchange between Christianity and Buddhism and between Judaism and Buddhism, there arose contemporary eclecticism between them. There are people called a Buddhist Christian or a Jubu (Jewish Buddhist). One of the first Buddhist Christians is Hugo Lassalle (1898-1990), who was a Catholic priest and a German missionary sent to Japan. He found Zen Buddhism as the core of Japanese spiritual life. He not only studied it, but also practiced it at Zen temples under the guidance of Zen masters. He also built Catholic Zen meditation halls called Shinmeikutsu (Divine Meditative Cave) in Hiroshima and in Tokyo. When he was 80 years old, he was ordained as a Zen master. Lassalle found Zen meditation as a tool to accomplish the contemplation with no object and to prepare the "contemplacion infusa" of St. John of the Cross. It means that his main purpose was to facilitate the supernatural intervention by God. Therefore, we can argue that Lassalle utilized the "no thinking and no idea" (munen muso) of Zen meditation in order to accomplish the act of the divine grace.

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