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ARTICLES
List of Articles:
Knowledge
is not kept in one vessel
Back
to the Future
Karate
- the Big Picture
Best
Practice
The
Prize Divides
Knowledge
is not kept in one vessel
by John
Hackett
Karate as
generally practiced today in essence
came from Okinawa. It was originally a
fusion of Chinese fighting arts and
Okinawan Te which was the indigenous
Okinawan fighting art. The old masters
took their art to the Japanese
mainland and from there it has been
exported to the world post World War
II. Karate is an evolving art. That
is, it changes over time. Post 1950’s
karate became more sports orientated.
Now there is a divide between those
who engage in the sports karate and
those who practice karate from a self
defence perspective and incorporate
karate jutsu (joint locks, grappling
and throws etc).
The original “Old Okinawan
Masters” had numerous teachers. Some
of these original teachers even
travelled back to China to learn from
teachers on the Chinese mainland. Some
exponents like Funakoshi Gichin Sensei
were encouraged by their teacher to
take classes from other teachers.
So why is it today that so
many karate-ka still will not look
beyond their own particular style or
club for knowledge?
Many of course have only that
club or style as a reference source
and are happy to be spoon fed from the
top down. Others are not permitted by
their instructor or association to
look elsewhere. If they do look
elsewhere they will not be welcome
back at that club. In both these two
examples the knowledge is held as
power over the student by the
instructor or organization and the
student never gets contrasting views,
only one view or way of thinking.
Once you achieve Dan grades
you should be open to ideas. You do
not necessarily have to agree with
other points of view but you should at
least consider them.
This is where attending
seminars held by various instructors
is such a good thing. You can go along
and look, participate in the class and
consider what is being put forward and
decide for yourself whether to keep
that information or not. This is not
being unfaithful to, or betraying your
club or association, though some
instructors and associations will see
it that way.
This controlling attitude
that is clearly evident in some
instructors and associations says from
their perspective that:
-
I know
everything, how dare you go
elsewhere.
-
If my
student learns something from
someone else, then they will know
I do not know everything.
-
We control
(manipulate) what the student will
learn. We know best (knowledge is
power).
If your instructor or
association is that insecure and
insists on having that much control
over you in the Dan grades, then it
might be a good thing for you to
consider whether this attitude of
theirs is a healthy one and maybe you
might be better off somewhere else.
As the title of this article
says “Knowledge is not kept in one
vessel”. If knowledge were only kept
in one vessel then there would have
only ever been “One Old Okinawan
Master” and we all would be practicing
what he taught.
There are a number of ways
your can improve your karate
knowledge.
I am not saying run off and
start following another instructor
because he/she shows you something
different to what your instructor or
association has taught you. I am
saying add that knew knowledge, if it
is worthwhile, wherever you find it,
to your existing knowledge base.
Sometimes that means we must change
our view on something and sometimes it
simply means we have a new way to
achieve the same result by doing
things differently.
By all means have the
courtesy to tell your instructor that
you are thinking of going to any
particular seminar. He may even want
to go with you. Discuss your thoughts
and ideas in relation to karate with
him/her. You may be pleasantly
surprised, he/she may have been
waiting for you do to just that for
some time.
If all you have ever gotten
from attending seminars to date is the
same old kihon and kata then you need
to be looking for a new seminar
presenter.
I heard it said recently by
another instructor’s student “why
would you go to a seminar held by X.
One of your own instructors was graded
to that same Dan level before X. So
therefore he would know more than X”.
Dan levels, now there is a
trap. If a person stays with one
organization for their entire karate
career then obviously they will be at
a higher Dan level than someone else
who has trained in a number of
different styles and disciplines and
then this person joins the others
style association. All of the other
persons experience will not recognized
of course by the majority of style
associations, because that would
probably upset some higher Dan’s apple
cart and cost the club or association
grading fees (we can’t have that).
It may be that the long term
club or association member has
practiced gedan barai, oi tsuki/gyaku
tsuki all of their karate
career. Whilst doing this they
may never have wondered or tried to
work out what else that combination
can be used for other than block
punch. Of course that person may be a
higher rank, but at the same time know
considerably less than someone else
who has researched and made a study of
their karate. So Dan levels do not
necessarily equate to knowledge. They
can simply mean a person has been in
one group for a long time and has
passed the syllabus exams.
To grow in karate-do you must
expand your karate knowledge base.
Always be open to new ideas, you can
always dismiss them, but you should at
least consider them. Look again at the
list of options above on how you can
improve karate knowledge.
Avoid anyone
who speaks or acts as if they or their
teacher knows everything there is to
know about karate. Karate-Do is an
ongoing journey where there is always
something new to learn or discover at
every stage/level of your journey.
Many good instructors know a great
deal but nobody I have seen yet knows
it all.
We should
expose ourselves to new and different
ways to look at the karate we
practice. There are very good
instructors from every style and they
all have something to offer. Do not
have tunnel vision because you are
this style and the instructor
presenting the seminar practises
something else. Go along and see what
you can learn.
“Knowledge is
not kept in one vessel”
Back to
the Future..
By Bob McMahon
www.shotojournal.com
After some 30 plus years of
Shoto-based karate training, and
considerable research into Shotokan kata
in the last decade, I have made a shift
to the early karate that had no style
name attached. I am not doing this
lightly and have been considering this
shift for several months now. Upon
reflection, I realize that this is
exactly the type of karate that I have
been looking for since becoming a Black
Belt.
I believe that there are a few
stages that I had to pass through before
being able to understand what it was I
was seeking. At first, like
everyone else, I was after sensible
applications to the kata. I was
motivated by dissatisfaction in the
explanations on offer and what was shown
in the karate texts available at that
time.
I moved towards JKA style
Shotokan kata and along the way, learned
some Shito-Ryu, Goju-Ryu and Wado-Ryu
kata for competition as well. I
also began investigating the work of the
pioneers of kata applications in the
early days such as George Dillman, Vince
Morris and others. I studied
Ju-Jutsu to gain a better idea of the
grappling techniques hidden in
kata. This was to be a great help
in developing self-defense techniques as
well as seeing a little further into the
kata.
Although it was helpful, there
were some negatives as well because many
techniques can be interpreted as locks
and throws, etc. if one has a creative
mind. To this end, it is easy to
become way too creative and hallucinate
applications to a particular move in a
kata that has no relevance to reality
and what actually occurs in a violent
physical confrontation.
In my journey, I began to
compare earlier versions of Funakoshi’s
kata with the current JKA models and
noted the huge differences found in
particular kata. The Heian were
not so different I found, but many of
the advanced kata were like chalk and
cheese. I came to realize that
with some tweaking, it was not so
difficult to make applications of the
existing kata when applying the
knowledge gained from seeing the way
earlier kata were done.
However as time passed and my
research efforts turned up even earlier
versions of kata from little known
texts, I began to see no real point in
sticking to the JKA model apart from the
standardization required in WKF type
competition. Even then the model
had to be adjusted to suit their
endorsed version. I began to make
adjustments to the kata I taught based
on earlier models.
This worked very well for a
couple of years and kept me extremely
busy as I came to better understand the
inner workings of the kata and caught a
glimpse as to why certain changes may
have occurred. The urge to tinker
and fine tune as more understanding grew
was difficult to resist.
Especially when I realized that the
changes made earlier by others had
little to do with function and seemed to
be all about the ‘presentation’ of the
kata.
Eventually the urge to make
major changes of my own proved too
strong and I recreated complete kata by
merging the old and the new. I
also introduced older Okinawan kata
learned from fellow researchers and from
my own study. I began to reach a stage
where I realized that with kata, less is
actually more. Unfortunately when
it came to culling kata, there is always
the suspicion that one may make big
mistakes in the selection process.
The suspicion was present
because I instinctively felt there was a
‘code’ of some sort that I had not
cracked completely. I was positive
there was one but the amount of fiddling
that teachers do in the way of
‘improving’ the kata over the years left
me wondering what was original and what
was not. I came to understand that
I was creating similar problems.
It is impossible to know what
kata was originally taught, as teachers
evolve over time and what they teach one
year probably should be entirely
different in five years time. This
explains the discrepancies between
teachers who studied at different times
under the one teacher. However I
now understand why those who have not
done the research should not alter kata.
Oshima Sensei from the Shotokan
Karate of America actually criticized
the founding members of the JKA for
changing kata to suit them when they had
only been training for a few years in
college (Harry Cook, 2001).
He felt they should have been trying to
understand the original before tampering
with the work of masters who had
carefully infused their kata with all of
their accumulated knowledge.
Speaking of changes, I could
see that in kata, stances were replaced
by others and interchanged between
styles and even within various
groups. In the Pinan kata for
example, Shito-Ryu uses neko-ashi-dachi
(cat stance) where Shotokan uses
kokutsu-dachi (back stance). In
some cases Shorin ryu will use
naifanchi-dachi, Shito Ryu will use
Shiko-dachi and Shotokan will use
kiba-dachi. It is not unusual to
see different stances used
altogether. In Seisan, Seishan or
Hangetsu, one will use Sanchin, another
Hangetsu-dachi and another will use
Shiko-dachi with still another using a
short front stance.
I had determined for myself
that kata consisted of three types of
techniques. Some could be utilized
in combat or self-defense, others were
for training purposes and others were
linking moves that not only connected
sequences together but also allowed for
changes in direction.
The main thing that was missing
for me though was confirmation that my
convictions were valid. I had
heard of ‘kuden’ being handed down
within a ‘style’ but because of its very
nature, oral transmissions passed down
might end up as ‘Chinese
Whispers.’ So I never knew quite
what to believe when I did hear or read
about these oral transmissions. I
didn’t comprehend how important ‘kuden’
was to be.
Mitani Sensei has shared a
number of ‘kuden’ with those that read
the articles on his web site. He
has told us that oi-zuki is more
important than gyaku-zuki in
karate. Chudan punches are
actually jodan punches in
application. Karate uses kumite
(striking) and toride (grappling) as its
central practise. He has explained
the use and importance of the makiwara
to karate training, and so on.
Furthermore, the karate from
the school era as taught to Mitani
Sensei, a 3rd generation
student, is again better understood by
studying the important Itosu Report with
its Ten Annotations. These were
published recently in the Shoto Journal
accompanied by an explanation of the
important points that are easier to
understand when placed in context with
that particular period in the history of
Okinawa.
The Ten annotations explain the
purpose and the training methods needed
to study the concept of karate as
created by Itosu. The kata of
Kinjo Hiroshi and Kazuya Mitani provide
the link to an earlier period when kata
made much more sense. At the very
heart of the matter lies the
unmistakable truth that it is the
function not the form itself that
defines karate.
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Karate:
the Big Picture
John Hackett
www.authenticshotokan.com
Just as a painting or a
jigsaw puzzle picture is made up of
hundreds of individual small brush
strokes or pieces, so to your karate
techniques are made up of a large number
of small seemingly insignificant things.
But leave any of these seemingly
insignificant things out and your karate
technique will suffer enormously.
It is the little things
that make all the difference to the big
picture. Just like baking a cake, leave
something out and it is not as good.
Each and every technique
you perform contains things like:
-
Knee over toe, keeping
your hara up, keeping your rear heel
on the floor
-
Maintain your height
and do not go up and down like a
cork in a bottle of water when
moving
-
Supporting foot flat on
the floor when kicking, always
centre your attack, looking forward
when blocking
-
Correct use of hips,
hanmi when blocking and shomen when
attacking
-
Spirit
-
Strong kiai, kime
-
Focus
-
Good reach out when
blocking, always be shoulder wide in
your stance, in and out when
stepping both forward and backward
-
Rotation on the end of
each blocking movement, correct
breathing
-
Correct stance, feet
pointing in the correct direction
-
Never give up attitude
no matter the odds, do your best
And many, many more.
This is all hard work. As a
new student there is much to think about
at first. It is a constant battle to
check yourself to make sure you are
doing everything correctly. That is why
training in the dojo with your
instructor is so important. So you can
be corrected. Personal training at home
should also be done, but it cannot
replace training with your instructor.
I have heard both kyu
grades and black belts say that they
find basic training boring. I
cannot understand this statement.
If a student feels bored
when doing a basic drill, eg step
forward age uke (rising block), then
he/she is obviously not trying to
improve themselves. Age uke for example,
just to name any technique, should be
performed better when we are 9th
kyu than when we were 10th
kyu, white belt. Any particular
technique should be better again when we
are 8th, 7th, 6th,
5th, 4th, 3rd,
2nd and 1st kyu
than it was when the student was the
grade lower.
A much higher level again
is expected when we reach black belt
level.
Shodan, that is black belt,
is not the end of the road. It is the
beginning. Our journey in karate is a
constant battle within ourselves to
improve. Your toughest opponent must
always be yourself.
Perseverance gives us what
we need to paint the big picture.
If you meet a karate person
or an instructor who tells you that
he/she knows everything about karate,
this person knows nothing, avoid them.
They can only lead you onto the wrong
path.
The term karate-do means
the way of the empty hand. (Kara =
empty, Te = hand, Do = way).
The “way”, is a personal
journey. This journey has a starting
point but no finishing point. We
commence the journey when we take up
karate.
The words empty hand an
immediately obvious meaning, that is to
be able to defend ourselves with just
our empty hands.
There is also a deeper
meaning to “kara” and that is to empty
ourselves of selfishness and all other
things that prevent us from becoming the
best people we can be.
Not all karate-ka hold true
to this second interpretation, but I
think it is very important. You and your
art must be one in the big picture. You
must never be shallow and insincere.
Funakoshi Sensei said this
in his book Karate-Do Kyohan (the master
text):
“True karate-do is this:
that in daily life, one’s own mind and
body be trained and developed in a
spirit of humility; and that in critical
times, one be devoted utterly to the
cause of justice”.
As I said at the start, the
big karate picture is made up of many
small seemingly insignificant things.
All of these things are important.
Attention must be paid to detail so that
these little things are a part of your
individual technique. This is essential
if you want to have good karate.
There are no short cuts. No
magic wands. Just hard work.
Good basics (kihon) are the
foundation of good karate at any level.
Good basics are achieved
through thoughtful repetition of
techniques and correction when necessary
by your instructor.
“A Master is one who
returns day after day to the basic
techniques and fundamentals. Mastery is
a matter of the daily struggle to
perfect the simplest of techniques and
ideas”. (Martial Arts Axiom)
We all have different
levels of skill and ability. The
important thing is that we persevere in
the struggle to perfect our art and
continue the journey of karate-do. So
when others look at us they will be able
to see the big picture in everything we
do.
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--END--
Best Practise
By Bob McMahon
www.shotojournal.com
An important concept of early
karate training remains as relevant
today as it was a century ago. The
architect of modern karate, Itosu Anko,
in his famous 1908 report to school
authorities said that Karate students
were expected to learn and train under
the guidance of an experienced teacher
and then practise techniques and work on
conditioning at home for an hour or two
every day. The dojo was and is the
place to learn, to obtain feedback and
to train in pairs with a pool of fellow
students.
Fortunately, little resources
are needed at home as just a small clear
space will do. It would be better
to have a heavy bag, a mirror and a few
free weights, all relatively
non-expensive items. One could
even follow the example of the
Okinawan’s and make some training
equipment from whatever material is
available, such as a makiwara and
concrete weights.
The
important thing for novice students
initially is to make sure they are
practising their techniques exactly as
they were taught at the dojo. If
fundamental techniques are practised
incorrectly then the result will realize
more harm than good. It is very
difficult to undo bad habits or poor
technique once it is ingrained.
Videos and CD’s are handy to have at
home to check if unsure of the sequence
of a kata, etc. Modern technology
is available and should be used
sensibly. Trying to learn all from
a video without one-to-one instruction
could lead to incorrect practise.
The regular students these
days are karate hobbyists training to
keep fit, learn a little self-defense,
and possibly compete in one or two
tournaments a year. There are serious
students of karate devoted to practise
and study that may or may not
compete. Whatever one’s goal in
karate, it is clear that achievement
requires time and effort. Practise
at home offers students the opportunity
to develop their own karate. The
concept of Shu-Ha-Ri comes to mind where
it is necessary to copy one’s teacher
(Shu), adjust to your own
characteristics (Ha) and innovate (Ri);
another subject in itself.
It is said that Okinawan
teachers would teach only half of what
they knew, leaving the other half for
their students to discover on their own
(Arakaki, 2001). It was felt that
real mastery only came from one’s own
efforts and self-discovery; otherwise
one was merely an imitation of their
teacher, with nothing new to
offer. The best teaching method is
to guide a student towards a realization
of certain truths. We appreciate
more that which we comprehend as a
result of our own efforts.
Students’ today study and
practise at the dojo in groups.
There is little time for instructors to
offer any in-depth personal feedback and
even so, most have learned their art
under the same system and have little to
offer other than show ‘how’ techniques
are performed. So lets examine how
karate is taught in the dojo
today.
The teacher or a designated
student leads the students through a
warm up/stretching routine and may even
include some strength drills such as
sit-ups and push-ups. Basics may
be practised on the spot, then marching
forwards and back and finally in
choreographed routines that take the
student through multiple directions
using all four limbs.
Some partner practise may
then take place then kumite or kata and
some bag and focus pad work.
Others might only ever execute their
techniques in the air, always pulling
short of contacting the target. At
the end of the evening there may be a
period of intense conditioning with
every student expected to perform a
designated number of repetitions of
various conditioning exercises or
endurance drills.
During all of this the
teacher may either be slogging it out as
a participant in the class, acting as
class leader or may prefer to stand out
and correct students and adjust the
training depending on the level of skill
displayed in the class. Usually
the instructor is somewhere in between
these two extremes. I would bet
then that most students pack up and
leave at the end of class and not give
any further thought to, let alone
practise, any new material covered or
weak points pointed out during the
session.
Teachers may be actually
disadvantaging their students by
over-teaching, over-supervising and
spoon-feeding their charges to the
extent that there is no need to think
for them selves. Students appear
to be hanging on every word of
explanations given, mimic the
demonstrations but more likely than not,
it all goes in one ear and out the
other. There is no necessity to
pick it up straight away as they can
email sensei later for detailed
instruction, look it up on the Internet,
or simply wait till it is covered in
class again.
At one time, a Japanese
Sensei taught our kobudo group of Black
Belts a new Bo kata. He ran us
through it one time only and then left
us to work it out for ourselves.
Boy did we get in a sweat! We had
to pool information, make decisions
about what we thought was correct and
then practise by ourselves waiting for
the ‘boss’ to return and judge our
efforts. It was once common to
teach this way and from my experience, I
can tell you that all have to focus
their attention on the material
presented and must work as a team if
they are to really ‘learn’
quickly. We struggled and pooled
our thoughts and memories until we came
up with an approximation of the kata.
My conclusion is that we
need to reconsider the roles of both
teachers and learners. Are both
parties fulfilling their roles in the
most advantageous manner? I have
heard cases of students being told to
learn their next kata directly from
video. It seems almost common for
students to ask the most basic of
questions to other members of discussion
forums on the Internet, begging the
question of what level of instruction
are they receiving at their dojo!
I also notice that many students today
must be prompted to put in the required
effort in their training, many simply do
not try hard enough to learn.
Teachers can only teach students who are
prepared to learn!
With
the ever increasing demands from work
and family, it seems to me there has
never been a better time than now to
return to the best practise of all, that
which one can carry out in the privacy
of one’s own home. The question
remains of what to practise and in what
amounts. My daughter Amy
puts in a lot of practice time while
watching TV. She will complete
sets of sit ups, push ups, etc.,
practise kicks and punches and carry out
stance training over an extended period
without feeling like she is
training. She always practices her
kata, especially new kata she is
learning, in a clear space away from the
TV. Finally she practices any
joint-locks, releases from grips and
applications in general with a partner
out of class.
The best athletes and
artisans in the world know the value of
practise and each of us needs to take
responsibility for our own
progress. This means we need to
study, practise at home and train hard
in the dojo. Was kata the homework
handed out to students?
www.shotojournal.com
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--END--
“This
short article was inspired while I
was reflecting on some advice my Wu
Shu teacher gave me years ago”.
The Prize
Divides
John Hackett
www.authenticshotokan.com
Part of
an old saying goes “When an archer is
shooting for nothing, he has all his
skill. If the prize is a brass buckle
his eyesight starts to fail”.
The same
is true for anyone who focuses on the
end result, that is winning, or a gold
medal, instead of focusing on the job
at hand. Dealing with your opponent.
Whether
at competition or in self defence it
is crucial to release your conscious
mind, stop thinking about what you
will or will not do, and just act at
the moment of opportunity. The
conscious mind is slow and dull, it
simply is incapable of acting with the
speed necessary to achieve the
“prize”.
At a
competition it is understandable to
observe your opponents in previous
rounds and try to work out their
strengths and weaknesses. But when
competing then the subconscious mind
that has stored this information must
be allowed to take over. This is not
easy to do, it takes time and
practice.
To give
ourselves over completely to the
subconscious is in the first instance
a conscious deliberate act of will.
If we
are to prevail in any contest against
a skilled opponent then this problem
of trusting the subconscious mind and
acting and reacting intuitively is a
problem which must be overcome.
To let
the conscious mind rule the body in
any conflict situation is a big
mistake. If your opponent scores on
you, then you must put that out of
your mind and start again. If you
think about his last score he is
certain to score again. You have
allowed his scoring to draw you back
into using your conscious mind and you
are divided. A house divided will
fall.
The
conscious mind also harbours many
fears that may or may not be based in
fact. One of these fears, is “fear of
injury”. Many people worry about
getting injured. They will tell you
that this is not the case, but it is.
When this happens, fear is in control
and anxiety divides the mind. You now
have to think every time you defend or
attack instead of having your
subconscious mind act intuitively for
you in all these situations.
Your
conscious mind will play out scenarios
as you are trying to deal with the
opponent right in front of you. All of
these unnecessary thoughts impede your
progress and ultimate victory, and may
in fact lead directly to your defeat.
This is particularly relevant in a
self defence situation.
The
prize, “victory”, or simply “doing
your best” will never be yours when
self doubt or fear is allowed to enter
your mind.
Release
your conscious mind and trust your
subconscious. Do not concentrate on
“the prize”, the “prize” divides.
Instead let your subconscious mind put
all your skills to work and just do.
It is the struggle and our commitment
to it that is important, the end
result is still undecided.
Top of Page
--END--
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