Karate and Christmas

Christmas is supposed to be a time for love and generosity; a time for goodwill and empathy. Or is it?

Personally, I am of the opinion that this is no longer the mentality of Christmas and it has been reduced to a romanticism. Christmas has become something one can enjoy only if they can afford it. It has become so commercialised and materialistic that very  little of its true meaning  still remains.

Increasingly, Christmas is being seen as an opportunity to make money. The recent Sainsbury's advert that caused so much controversy is a sad reflection of how far businesses are prepared to go to make a profit. In this case, it was trivialising something profoundly terrible, World War One, to try and sell goods. The fact that they value making money at Christmas more than respecting those who lost their lives or were emotionally and physically scarred by the war just goes to show the extent of it! I won't go in to a huge amount of detail about it, there are plenty of articles online that do that.

Another example of  what I'm talking about is the John Lewis advert that is released every December. Yes, it certainly tugs at one's heartstrings, but allow the façade to fall away and you will find a colder motivation which  is using Christmas as an opportunity to make money.

I sincerely hope Karate does not suffer a fate similar to this. I sincerely hope that commercialisation and political ambitions do not replace its true values. For example, the main concern of a Sensei should be his or her students and the main concern of a head of an organisation should be the members of that organisation, the quality of the karate, etc... Regrettably, this is not always the case, instead, people can be in it for themselves with really tall egos. I consider myself very fortunate to be training under a sensei who is not egotistical or in it for himself and for my organisation to be relatively un-political.

Comparable with Christmas becoming materialistic is how karateka can become overly concerned with belt promotions and winning competitions. I am, by no means against sport karate or the belt system. My point is that these are obvious, black and white benchmarks of success in karate and therefore an oddity. Success is never usually in black and white when it comes to karate. Often, its those achievements that aren't in black and white that can be of the most value to us. The fact karate has given me the self-confidence to do things and take opportunities that I would not have done or taken before, taught me so much about myself and life alongside making me a stronger person means more to me than the fact I passed my 1st dan last year. Passing 1st dan was the most obvious benchmark of success out of the examples I gave and it's also probably the one most  likely to make me look good infront of other people, as would winning competitions, but I don't participate in them. To be concerned with looking good to other people and having a false sense of self-importance is to forget what it really means to be a karateka. It's O.K to be concerned about things like passing gradings; most of us are to some extent but we should not let it be the only thing in our training. Because karate is much more complex than that.

We can never replicate the days of Okinawa in this modern world but that is not to say we shouldn't find a way to modernize karate and still do it justice to prevent it suffering a fate similar to that of Christmas.

Always Looking Forward, Never Looking Back

Two months ago, I was on a training course run by my karate association. It was aimed at brown and black belts. For the two hours we were there, we had been split in to two groups according to our grade.

The head Instructor of our association had been the one training the black belts. Towards the end of the two hours, he said, " Just gather around me a moment". We did so.
"Look at you belts"
We all glanced down at the black lengths of fabric tied around our waists, some of which had evidently seen a great deal of training.
" Are you proud of them?"
His question caught me by surprise; it isn't what one expects to be asked by a sensei after training. I don't know if it was just me who was surprised because we all replied with a quiet "oss".

 

 

He carried on speaking, " we all, me included, sometimes put this", he indicated his belt and gi, " on like an old boiler suit. But, when you feel like giving up, because we all feel like that sometimes, remember the blood, sweat and tears it took for you to get to this level; you don't want that to be for nothing"

I felt that his words had a great deal of truth in them. When he talked about the urge to give up, I could really relate to that. I'd certainly felt it several times during my first 9 months as a 1st dan.

Passing black belt did not bring with it the sense of self-satisfaction and enlightenment that I'd often fantasized about as a kyu grade. Instead, I feel more lost and inexperienced than I ever have done since the first time I walked in to a dojo.

It shows how, as karateka, we are always looking forward and never looking back. Because we are always searching for something better or closer to perfection in training. This is an integral part of karate's beauty. It allows us to study it for a lifetime and really grow to love and understand it. The fact what was said at the end of that course surprised me was, I think, because it contradicted this principle. 'When you feel like giving up, remember the blood, sweat and tears it took to get to this point'. So maybe looking back does have a place in karate. When there's nothing to look forward at, ( that urge to give up), the other thing we can do is look back and, from there, possibly find the strength to carry on.

This is a copy of an article I recently sent to a karate magazine. A long time ago, I did a post called 'the difference between wearing a black belt and being one' and I thought to myself that I could talk about  it in much more detail, which inspired me to write the article. Many of my ideas expressed in it are a result of developing them through my blog posts. So thanks to everyone who read them! Enjoy reading this:

The Difference between Wearing a Black Belt and Being One

As a kyu grade, I often wondered why so many karateka stopped training shortly after they had become 1^st dans. Black belt was the point where one could start to make karate their own and understand it at a greater depth, so I’d understood. What would make somebody stop training when they had all of that ahead of them?

 December 2014 marks the end of my first year as a black belt; a 1^st dan. Since my grading, I feel I now have a better understanding of why new 1^st dans give up karate so early after passing their gradings.

The way I see it is that, as a kyu grade, a karateka develops the skills and knowledge so they can begin to make karate their own and take full responsibility for their training at black belt level, with the belt system providing a systematic approach to the vast amount of learning which has to be done before black belt and making it more manageable. One cause of people stopping karate shortly after passing their 1^st dan grading  is relying solely on the belt system and working towards the next belt for motivation, since there isn’t that incentive as a dan grade; gradings are further apart and not as important at that level. No longer motivated, karateka this way inclined give up.

The other cause is  the main focus of this article. Training as a kyu grade is far from identical to doing so as a Dan grade. I don’t recall training with the same burden of responsibility, the same independence or the same mind set that I do now as a kyu grade. One has to train with a different mind set once they make the transition to black belt from 1^st kyu, as training with the same mind set just doesn’t work, with the need to take full  responsibility for training and be more independent as a karateka.

As I’ve recently found out, this transition from one mind set to a different one isn’t all that easy to make; it certainly wasn’t for me. I’d passed my grading, felt the usual mixture of pride and relief but after I’d settled back in to training again, the reality dawned on me. I was at the stage where I could make karate my own and there was this greater burden of responsibility with more independence coming with it. This demanded a different type and different level of commitment and effort from me. I suddenly had this huge thing to live up to, or I became more aware of it. I also became aware that, although I’d passed my grading and had the belt around my waist to prove it, I was still a 1^st kyu underneath it all and yet to fill the role of black belt effectively. This was when I discovered the difference between wearing a black belt and being one.

The fact I’d come  a long way in training, still had much further to go but was unsure which direction to take as I tried to find a way to live up to black belt meant I felt really lost and confused for a while, the first nine months following my grading, for that matter. As I moved deeper in to this wilderness, the change in training,from what I’d known as a kyu grade meant I felt distanced from my experience before black belt, which was more or less all of my experience in karate! It was as if my life as a coloured belt had never happened. Although I enjoyed this opportunity to ‘start again’, as it were, it also caused part of me to feel very insecure about my training. Far worse, was the feeling that my training had ground to a halt, not something I’d been accustomed to as a kyu grade. As a result I found myself, for the first time, fighting laziness and complacency and I gave in to them. I still trained 3 times a week with all the energy and conviction I’d always done but, outside of the Dojo, my personal practice was in a significantly less respectable state.

I hated myself for doing this, for training 3 times a week as if karate was everything to me but the opposite being true in the rest of my life. I felt like I was just messing about on the fringes of karate and not going deeper, staying in my comfort zone. You don’t have to be a 10^th Dan to work out these aren’t ideal traits for a karateka to possess. My training felt like a lie, which I found really unsettling because inspite of the sorry state I’d let my training reduce to, it didn’t mean less to me than it had done before. It still gave me the confidence in myself and life that I hadn’t really had in the same way before starting karate, it was still important to me, so having those things undermined because I felt I was deceiving myself was far from pleasant.

It wasn’t just me I felt I was deceiving, or that it was just my karate training that I’d let down. I also felt guilty when I remembered that there was a certain kind of respect for Dan grades because of the level in training they’d reached. I was not living up to that level and didn’t deserve that respect. As well as myself, therefore, I felt that I was deceiving everyone else too which brought with it a moderate sense of self-disgust. Alongside this, I felt I’d let my Sensei down, after training hard in and out of the dojo, only for it to change after my 1^st Dan grading. The fact my training outside of the dojo had deteriorated but was the same as before during training sessions meant I felt I was deceiving him in that way, which I felt incredibly bad about because if it wasn’t  for him and his way of teaching, I could’ve given up long ago.

I was hating myself for letting my training deteriorate and deceiving everyone, I was feeling daunted and insecure about training as a Dan grade or, to put it more simply, training just didn’t feel like it used to. This, alongside the directionlessness and lack of progress in my karate, meant that it got to the point where I considered giving up karate, which was when I finally began to see the cause of   karateka who worked towards improving their karate rather than the next belt hanging their gi up as relatively new 1^st dans , as I was now experiencing what they had evidently experienced on some level. To be completely honest, it was quite scary when I considered giving up karate because I had never anticipated it happening; I was serious about training and had wanted to make serious progress, not for it to end in this manner. At the time, it hurt to think that I was just going to end up as a karateka who had become a victim of human nature and I would agree with you if you said that I was being unnecessarily proud if I thought that, I’ve learnt from it; nobody is ever immune to becoming a victim of human nature in their training. The fact is I could never see myself stopping karate as I’d feel like part of me was missing. Equally, I didn’t want to end up doing karate but not make any kind of progress for the rest of my life. I did remember the amount of experienced, high Dan grades there were, (and still are), out there who had been black belts for decades and didn’t seem to have trouble making progress and still getting a lot out of their training. Had I missed something if I was, after less than a year of being a 1^st dan, having trouble making progress? I decided it was time to speak to my sensei and try to put my anxieties at rest.

Even when writing this article and reflecting on my experiences, some things I wanted to put across took more than one attempt for me to put in to words in a way I thought was accurate.  At the time when I spoke to my sensei, it was even more difficult to do so as I was still experiencing it and all the emotions that accompanied it and had not had that chance to reflect on it with the benefit of hindsight. I was anticipating having to give a long and awkward explanation but I had just begun talking when he said he knew exactly where I was coming from. This was something of a relief to me, to speak to someone who understood and reassured me that things would improve if I stuck it out. I was also relieved to know he wasn’t disappointed in me even though he had every right to be.

Come mid-July, things did start to improve for me. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a huge change, I would not have said, even at this point, that my training was in a respectable state. But I felt that somehow, things had started to move forward again. I can’t pinpoint the exact cause of why this change came about but I think it was something to do with me becoming more relaxed about life. This meant that I could face practicing at the end of a long day because I had the energy, even if I didn’t, it was still manageable because I started to work on breathing properly with techniques and improving my ability to do things slowly which meant I was less mentally and physically tense (something I struggle with a great deal in karate) so I did not exhaust myself at the end of each practice I did. With this happening, I felt myself settle in to a rhythm of regular practice again.

 

I am aware that a karateka does go through highs and lows in their training. I am also aware that what I have just written is not uncommon among 1^st dans fresh from passing their gradings; I think we all experience it on some level at that stage in our training considering it can be a cause of so many 1^st dans giving up. This long and detailed account of my personal experience of it is to shed some light on something, in my limited experience of karate, I admit, is not often discussed. I am not trying to make my experience seem worse than it was by writing about it in a detailed manner.

Although unpleasant while they take place, low points in training do give us something to learn from afterwards and we should take the opportunity to reflect on them so we don’t repeat our mistakes. Considering that things started to improve when I began to relax more, I have realised how much my lack of relaxation in karate and the rest of my life can hold me back. I properly understand it and how much it needs working on now.

Alongside this, I had never before considered the importance of love of karate until it was what stopped me giving up training for good. I might still hate myself for my lack of commitment and effort if my experience hadn’t taught me the place that being hard on oneself has in karate. In many cases, saying to ourselves ‘this isn’t good enough, you can do better’ isn’t a bad idea but sometimes it is. I am finding it easier to make progress in terms of commitment and effort by looking ahead and being positive rather than having a go at myself for the progress I haven’t made. Of course, this doesn’t mean that I don’t self-administer the odd kick up the backside sometimes. 

It’s true, I felt for a long time that it was my lack of effort and commitment that meant I was doing a bad job of living up to black belt and I do still think that in order to live up to black belt, an extremely high level of effort and commitment is required. But consider this: there is always something more we can do in terms of these things, or to put it less optimistically, we will always seem too lazy and not committed enough. My point is that like that perfection of character and technique so often talked about in karate, living up to black belt could also be unachievable because there’s always something more we can do. Some people live up to it more than others, I think, depending on how long they’ve been training and the amount of effort they are prepared put in to it but nobody can ever fully achieve it. But we can do the next best thing: even if it is out of reach, strive for it and gain so much out of it along the way.

 

 

 

 

 

Recently, I was thinking about, in terms of teaching karate, how a teacher's ability to help students work on their weaknesses in training is limited by the weaknesses that teacher has had to work on themselves in their own training. Because how can they give advice or even see it from the student's perspective if they've never experienced it themselves?

I've come to the conclusion that it actually isn't a problem.Studying karate is mainly a process of independent discovery which doen't require an external teacher. Besides, no two karateka are the same and different things work for different people; two karateka might've experienced the same weakness and found different ways to overcome it. Therefore, when teaching karate, it's important to see students, not as 'students', but as independent karateka who can think for themselves. It's important to accept that they're capable of finding ways to work on things which require work in a way that suits them. It would be naive of me to assume that all karateka make the effort to look at their training in this much depth, but only they can control how much they put in to their training. If they don't put much in, then they miss out on the benefits that karate has to offer with nobody but themselves to blame. It would also be naive of me to say that accepting students can work on their training unaided applies in all situations. With minor technical inaccuracies, a teacher often has to demonstrate the correct way of doing something. But a karateka's long term progress is theirs and theirs alone. This is particularly true if it's a teacher like me who dosen't teach the same students on a regular  basis.

Alongside this, the  act of teaching itself is not just a matter of passing on infomation. When I see my Sensei teach, someone who does teach the same students regularly, he's doing more than just passing on infomation. So many of us, myself included, would miss out if he didn't teach in the open way that he did. The effort he puts in to helping each student improve show that that's his genuine aim; he's not in it for himself. The way he teaches dosen't hide the fact that he's passionate about martial arts, which is infectious. If it wasn't for him, I might've given up long ago. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude.

Teaching is not jst a matter of passing on infomation so the teacher's own experiences in terms of that aren't too much of an issue. It's about being sincere in your aim to help them improve their karate and loving and practicing karate in a way that does it justice so it comes through when teaching and students go on to realise the huge benefits that karate has to offer. This is way more than just passiing on infomation; the amount a teacher can help students work on weaknesses within their training is most certainly not limited by the weaknesses they've experienced themselves- I think I've made that point clearly!

Honesty: Its place in training

How should we define honesty? What is it? Is it just; 'not lying to people', or something deeper? How does this apply in the context of karate?

I imagine the definiton of honesty that springs to mind for most of us is, as previously mentioned, 'not lying to people'. In other words, we instinctively define 'being honest' as something we do around other people; how we appear in public. We do not initially consider applying 'not lying' to ouselves.

Generally, and certaily in the context of karate, I think honesty runs much deeper than just appearing honest to other people and our concerns ending at how honest we appear to them. Certainly, in karate, honesty means not lying to ourselves as well as others. It means to face those things about ourselves we'd rather ignore and doing something about them. Instead of pretending they don't exist and hiding them deep within ouselves so nobody else sees them insread of tackling them head on; 'To Seek Perfection of Character', sound familliar?

My point is that this kind of honesty in karate is really important and as I've discovered, increasingly so as a black belt. This is the stage where a karateka has to take full responsibility for their training if they don't want it to detiriorate. This full responsibility means looking at oneself in an honest light, finding strengths and weaknesses in technique, character, etc... and deciding what kind of progerss to make and what direction to go in based on these findings. It's not flattering what we find a lot of the time while tackling and working on those things we'd rather ignore isn't always enjoyable. But otherwise, we wouldn't make the right progress and we'd always be deceiving ouselves in training, messing about on the fringes of karate and not going deeper; which isn't its purpose.

For a while after my 1st dan grading, that's how I felt. I felt directionless, living up to black belt was demanding more from me than living up to brown belt and below had, I wasn't doing my training justice and I couldn't find the strength to change that. My training felt like a lie. It's true that I'd let my training reduce to quite a sorry state, that's what I found if I was honest with myself and, looking back on it, I was hard on myself about it too.This was my mistake, it's important to train honestly but there's a difference between this and being hard on ouselves; we should look at ourselves and our training honestly but that dosen't mean beating ouselves up about our findings. When I eventually stopped doing that to myself, making progress became more manageable. Sometimes a: ' this isn't good enough, you can do better' is healthy but it's all about striking a balance.

Training honestly is important in karate. As is examining the nature of honesty and how to apply it in training before we do so.

Old Habits

Last week, another black belt at my club told me he thought I needed to practice my kicks. If you've read my previous posts, you'll know that I don't find ushiro-geri and yoko geri kekomi that easy. After what this black belt told me, it occured to me that it was about time I sorted out these 2 kicks, I'd been ignoring them for long enough; it was time to break an old habit.

ushiro-geri from zenkutsu-dachi

Recently, I've been working on training with a less tense body and state of mind. I've done this by practicing slowly, (see my post, 'The Importance of Slow Practice' for more detail), breathing properly with techniques and just going in to practice with a more relaxed mindset. This has meant that I've had more space in my mind to look at techniques in detail and being less physically tense has allowed me to add that detail to my techniques. Increased space in my mind has also allowed me to express myself and engage with techniques on that level more. Less tension generally has meant that I don't physically and mentally exaust myself each time I practice. This has made it more enjoyable and means that even if it's been a long, tiring day, I can still face practicing. I'd advise anyone who, like myself, is prone to stress and is too tense in training, to try to relax more because it can really improve training and it's worth the time it takes to change your level of physical and mental tension.

So was this relatively new approach effective when it came to working on these kicks? When it came to breaking a much older habit? Not in the beginning. I tensed up mentally and physically as I had done before, as if to psyche myself up for it. After I'd done a few of each kick (badly), My mind was telling me to call it a day in terms of practicing, as I'd done the minimum amount and not found it particularly enjoyable- another old habit, I hate to admit.

It took a few days for my approach of being more relaxed in training to become compatible with improving kekomi and ushiro- geri. My aim with kekomi is to be able to execute it with fluidity as my current execution of it is jerky and hesitant. It turns out that, for me, it was breathing properly with the technique that made a change, I'm still not very fluid when it comes to bringing the leg back, but it's a work in progress.Intrestingly, when I did Nijushiho (a kata containing 2 kekomis), they remained very un-fluid. I haven't known this kata for long, but long enough for the way of doing it to become a habit, which, for me, jerky kekomis had become part of: another habit to break!  As for ushiro-geri(from zenkutsu-dachi), it's more about breaking the habit of pausing at the point where I turn to face the back and raisisng my leg before executing the kick. So far, I've managed it with my right leg but not with the left one.

yoko-geri kekomi

I've given this long account of my last few days of practice to try and illustrate how developing habits(certain ways of doing something becoming engraned in your mind) in training isn't always good. To an extent, certain ways of doing something becoming engraned (habits) can be a really positive thing in karate(and also a thing emphsized a great deal, considering the amount of repetition which takes place in training sessions). For example, developing the habit of doing a kata correctly means that you can do it in a pressured situation, like a grading, without having to think about it. The same could apply in terms of self-defense. Because if you ever have the misfortune to have to defend youself, having to think about it too much is the last thing you want to be doing-I'm not an expert and I don't speak from experience but it's a true enough fact. Also, developing the habit of regular training and practice can be a really productive thing. What's not so good is when mistakes or certain (not good) approaches to training among many other things become engraned. This happens to us all, but, certainly in the context of martial arts, we need to address those kinds of issues because, as I've learned, they're not going to go away otherwise. Practice and repetition are about engraning things in our minds, developing habits, the right ones.

Teaching a larger group

Early last month, I remember being faced with the task of teaching a larger group than one or two Karateka. I made the mistake of assuming that, since I had experience teaching one to one and had developed some basic skills and techniques to help me do that easily and effectively, this was going to be no different.

It was a group comprising of orange and red belts. Sensei had instructed me to help them with their kumite. There were only 5 or 6 karateka in the group alltogether, which dosen't sound like a  paticularly 'large' group to have to teach but, as I found out it was a group large enough to require a considerably different set of skills to the ones I use when teaching one to one.

I managed to go through their kumite with them on the count, before getting them to go through it on their own without much going wrong apart from the somewhat embarrasing, (for me) experience of hearing the lack of authoritativeness and the general uncertainty in my voice when I spoke, but I assume that kind of thing improves with experience. I know I've mentioned a great deal in previous posts that I don't like asserting dominance over students. But this is in the context of one to one teaching and as I said, teaching a larger group requires a different set of skills. With larger groups , I think you do need to take charge, to some extent, Because you are responsible for a larger group of people and have to organise them, when there could be a huge number of 'them' and only one of you (in this case, I was teaching alongside a fellow 1st dan, but while one of us lead the practice, the other paired up with one of the students because there was an odd number and we swapped places each time, but it was just one of us teaching each time).

Another difference I found was how I had to go about delivering advice and feedback. With one to one teaching, I'm used to having the freedom to be really precise and thurough with the student because there's only one of them, only one set of strengths and weaknesses. With group teaching, however, there's a difference. More students mean more sets of strengths and weaknesses and the chances are you won't have the time to go in to the same kind of depth with each student as you can when just teaching one student. The fact there's a whole group of students make going in to that kind of  depth impractical anyway.

I did attempt to look for mistakes that students were making when I was going through it with them on the count but failed to coordinate it with counting the group through it effectively. I put this dowm to partly my lack of experience and partly  because my mind had seized up! One thing I've seen my Sensei and some of the other black belts do is give advice generally to the group (eg: 'make sure you have a good sized stance', 'don't rush, focus on technique'). Maybe this  is the best way to deliver feedbeck to a larger group, especially when you are hard-pressed for time. There is no guarantee that all students will find this advice useful, which really came to the front of my mind, as a perfectionist and someone who enjoys being thurough, but it's just not possible to meet all the different the needs of every single student in a larger group.

Because I like to naturally like to take a narrow but deep approach, I was well suited to teaching one to one. However, the kind of approach needed for group teaching goes almost completely against my instincts. Nevermind, I'll try to enjoy the challenge and being forced to not be a perfectionist every now and then will probably be good for me.

When I see my Sensei or one of the senior black belts take the whole class during training  sessions, they make it look easy-it's not, evidently. Since my breif experience of teaching a group, I realise that what I'm seeing is the result of a huge amount of teaching experience and things learnt through countless trials and errors.

A Useful Technique for One to One Teaching(part 2)

This post follows right on from my previous one so I reccomend you read that one first. In my previous post, I said I'd be talking about where the approach to one to one teaching I described wasn't practically possible, or where it would still be practically possible even if it dosen't seem it when one first considers it;sometimes it's just a matter of being aware of other things apart from that particular aspect of the way one teaches instead of just classing it as impractical in that given situation,I think.

The first situation where my approach could be impractical is that the student is a quiet individual and answers any questions with few words. Here, I do speak from a small amount of  experience; once, I was helping a red belt about 9 or 10 years of age with his kata, who was very quiet. Initially, I got the feeling  that my approach wasn't working so well. This was based on the fact that my questions seemed to discomfort him and even now, I'm not entirely certain how to fully prevent that kind of thing and still find out from the student what to work on with them. Although I can minimize it through accepting the answer I get and not forcing a more detailed one(There's a difference between this and asking them politelyt to be more specific about something if neccasarry ) out of respect for the student both as a karateka and as a person alongside not asking the questions in an imposing manner.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, asking the student about their training instead of just telling them what to do all the time also means the student feels taken respected as a karateka and there's no reason why quiet people shouldn't be taken seriously as  karateka. Even if they answer questions with few words this is not a sign of incompetence because they might think about their training in a lot of depth and just not want to talk about it to a great length.

Another situation where it could be impractical is if the student is a total beginner. I've yet to discover if this is true or not as I've never taught a total beginner. Ovbiously, they don't have  training experience to discuss, so you can't exactly ask them how their training is going in the same way you could to a green belt! Also, they won't be able to say in as much detail what they find difficult about  various techniques, but equally,  they aren't training in that level of detail; as a karateka gains more experience in terms of executing technques, they tend to notice the smaller details. As previously mentioned, I have no experience teaching beginners so I'll be intersted to find out if my approach is practical in that context and how I might need to adapt it.

This approach definitely dosen't work when teaching a large group;it requires a different set of techniques, I will write about this in more detail in my next post.

A Useful Technique for One to One Teaching

I know I wrote a  couple of posts a while ago concerning the issue of teaching Karate and I breifly mentioned this technique in one of them, however I didn't go in to detail about it. Probably because I hadn't realised or appreciated how effective it was because of the amount of teaching experience  I had at the time. I feel that any other karateka who, like myself, aren't very expeienced teachers might find it useful.

To an extent, this will sound blindingly ovbious, but when you're  actually having to teach, as somebody lacking in experience, it isn't like that at all. An effective technique for teaching Karate one to one is, instead of just telling the student what to do all the time, discuss their training with them and ask them some questions about it, ( "How d'you think that went?", " what d'you struggle with in this partcular technique/kata?" etc...) .

This means that, for a start, it's much easier to find out what the student is like as a karateka which can be important to bear in mind when teaching them. It also means that you can identify their weak areas more quickly and effectively so you find the right things to work on with them sooner and the student makes more progress as a result.

Discussing it with them also means that they are encouraged to look at their own training and think for themselves and they get and feel taken seriously as a karateka, therefore they are more likely to have the right attitude to training, make progress and not give up easily if they're dealt with like they're capable of doing those things. I remember my Sensei mentioning once or twice that he taught every student as if they were going to reach 10th Dan- this could've been what he meant by it. I think this effect that discussing stuff  is particularly effective with children, although I've never taught any adults one to one. But I do think, that in many societies and cultures, childern are often talked down to and generally looked down on, so if that's what they're used to, then they're, as Karateka, going to have that mindset that they get from being looked down on in society in training: that they're incapable and that their thoughts and opinions aren't important. I know not all readers will neccsarrily agree with me, but I think that children can be perfectly capable karateka and gain a lot from training.They can't do this if they're not taken seiously in training, even if the rest of society dosen't do the same thing. Infact, the opinion of any student of any age is important to me if I end up asking them what they find difficult about a certain technique/kata to pinpoint what to work on, without it, the efficiency of my teaching would decrease significantly. Or worse, it would have a negatve impact on the rest of their training because they get the idea that they're incapable as Karateka, so they act like it.

For me, as an inexperienced teacher, asking the student questions instead of telling them what to do all the time really takes the pressure off one to one teaching because the focus isn't on me all the time. Besides, it takes expeience to confidently tell people what to do, even if it is counter-productive in the context of teaching karate, so I also avoid showing  my inexpeience so I feel a bit less like a fool(!!) and my decrased discomfort and nervousness mean that I'm able to give better feedback to the student . Finally, if a student is respected, not just as a karateka, but as a person they are more likely to return that respect.

I'm aware a great deal of this is in theory, and you've probably thought up at leat one exception or 'what-if ' by now about this approach to one to one teaching, which I will talk about in my next post. It's true that often in this post I am just speculating, rather than speaking from experience about the effects that it might have, however, in my, at this point in time, relatively short experience of teaching karate, this approach has never had a negative effect.

Advice on Kicks

I don't know about you, but the kicks in Shotokan karate have been far from easy for me to get right. Even now, they are one of my weaker areas. This could be because I'm just naturally like that or lack of practice in my earlier days of training, or a combination of both. One of the things which has happened recently is that certain techniques which I've known for a while and had trouble with executing accurately have begun to fall in to place.

 My Sensei often reminds me to have less physical tension in my body when doing karate; I think now I'm more relaxed than I was as a brown belt, (now that my 1st dan grading is out of the way) which could explain why certain techniques have fallen in to place- it's made a difference and now I realise how much unneccasarry tension I previously had along with how negative an impact it was various techneques!

 Here, I've listed some of my worst kicks and useful things I've picked up about how to execute them correctly as readers might find it useful. If you do try the kicks with my advice in mind, it's worth stretching first and not pushing your body too hard to start with to avoid injury.

1.  Yoko Geri Keage

This is a kick which has only become more easy for me recently. It looks like it should be easy, although  the angle of the hips is just downright awkward, which impacts on the rest of the kick if it's done incorrectly.

. The angle of the hips when executing Keage is similar to that of Mawashi-geri; one has to turn the hip (nearest the kicking leg) over( this was something of a revelation to me!). The images below are my attempt to get across this similarity.

Keage

Mawashi-Geri

.It's the outside edge of the foot that's the striking area for this kick,so it should face down when the knee is first picked up with the sole of the foot facing the inside of the supporting leg, then it's in the right position for when the leg is fully extended.

2. Ushiro Geri

This is definitely a tough kick to get right, and I know it's not just me; I've seen many other brown belts struggle with it. I'ts all very well doing it from a standstill, but the difficulty kicks in whhen one has to do it from Zenkutsu-Dachi. My previous post, 'complex mistakes' talks about this in more detail

.

. When the leg is fully extended and about to  be drawn back before returning to Zenkutsu-dachi, look over the shoulder out of the corner of the eye nearest the kicking leg, (left leg-left eye, right leg-right eye). It means that it's easier not to turn the body too early, which normally happens if you turn the whole of your head fot this part of the kick. The kick is finished properly and it dosen't become a sort of 'ushiro-geri-kekomi'.

.Break it down in to several parts so it's more manageable. Different things work for different people, but pesonally, I favour:

1.Turn to face the back from Zenkutsu-dachi
2.Lift the kicking leg, not fully extended yet,but with the knee bent and the heel tucked in.
3. Fully extend the leg,the body shouldn't be turned at this point.
4.Draw the leg back in and turn the body forward.
5. Return to Zenkutsu-dachi.





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The Importance of Slow Practice

I know I haven't written anything for a while; having ideas about what to write isn't always a regular thing, so apologies for the wait.

Two weeks ago now, we did something in training which I found extremely useful: practicing slowly. It sounds like an ovbious straightforward thing but there's a difference between doing Karate slowly and doing it 'not fast'. I think that a lot of the time in training and my own practice when I was meant to or intending  to do something slowly, I actually just did it 'not fast' . Slow practice requires looking at one's technique in detail, a higher level of control and therefore a higher level of concerntration and I don't think I'd appreciated those things.

Without those things, I doubt if one can get much out of slow practice, and it can't be defined as practice if no progress is made. Also without those things, it's impossible to understand the 'essence' of slow practice, so it just becomes doing it the opposite of fast: 'not fast'. So is slow practice as staightforward as it sounds?

The fact that slow practice requires a higher level of concerntration and mental discipline was particularly useful for me. I've been training for a while now, techniques have become second nature therefore  my mental discipline and concerntration have detiriorated slightly- and what's the use of being a karateka with good technique and the wrong mindset? Because the mind controls the body, not the other way round. Slow practice is getting me used to controlling my body with my mind again and I think, because of the greater level of concerntration required, my mental discipline and concerntration will end up better than before.

Concerntration seems to be the center of slow practice, inconsistent speed is as a result of a lapse in concerntration. As is inconsistent muscle control(also needed more for slower practice) and inconsistent attention to detail. If one loses concerntraion, it shows in the technique. Because of slow practice's demanding nature, it's also useful for developing a strong spirit: not often associated with slow practice. Full-speed practice is, of course, important because the karateka is physically challenged,so develops good fitness and character among other things, but do we need to,alongside that, develop ourselves as karateka in a different manner?

I have now been a 1st dan for just over six months. This post is a result of me reflecting on those months. They weren't totally productive but I don't feel like I've totally wasted the time ether. I've settled in to the role of a black belt a little more now, I still have a long way to go, but it's early days. This is some advice that I'd give to karateka who haven't been black belts for very long ether. I'm aware that the previous description won't fit some readers, but even if you haven't passed 1st dan recently, there might still be something of use to you in terms of general training, or at least, this will  make for an interesting read...

1. If, post-grading, you feel unsure where to carry on training from, do the things you might've been guilty of neglecting as a coloured belt. For me, this was studying the applications of techniques and the history of karate in detail. Being aware of these things early on is far from a bad thing. I'd say that if one isn't, the consquences of it are comparable with leaving certain things unsaid after an arguement with somebody; things build up overtime and start to have a negative impact.

2. It sounds ovbious yet it's so easily forgotten: don't expect too much of yourself too quickly. This can be easy to do as a karateka new to black belt, it's easy to assume things will be straightforward because, to put it simply, you've just become a BLACK BELT!!! The fact remains, however, that acheivement and progress in karate take time.

3. There's nothing wrong with learning the syllabus for 2nd dan, but don't focus solely on it, was what my sensei told me when I asked about it. Now, I see what he meant by it. Black belt  the point in training where you make karate your own. As a kyu grade, you learn the skills neccasarry for doing so. Theres a difference. It's impossible to train with the mind of a coloured belt as a black belt. Learn the syllabus, but do other things that contribute to karate being your own.

4. Different things work for different people, but personally, I find that keeping a training journal makes being fully responsible for training, as you are at black belt, more manageable. Making a note of feedback from sessions and what's happened in practice helps me take a more organised approach to my training if I'm not having to recall everything from memory.

5. If you're teaching yourself something, be aware there's more to it than just learning its shape off a youtube clip. Understanding it takes more than that, it requires extra research around what you're trying to learn(history, technical details, etc..) and possibly  asking your sensei questions about it.

6. When it comes to teaching, avoid making any judgements in the early days or expecting too much of yourself. I speak from experience when I say that it's no easy task, (one of my previous posts goes in to more detail about this). One thing to remember is that the role of a teacher in karate is to help the student learn, not to exert dominanace over them. Ask the student how they feel something is going and what they find particularly  difficult about something. It builds a good teacher-student relationship and makes your teaching more efficient if you know what to work on with the student.

7. Don't underestimate or forget the importance of your love of karate(which it's likely you have if you've progressed as far as 1st dan). Love will mean you are comitted and stick it out through the bad times. It means training will be a lifelong thing for you. Love is the connection between a martial artist and their training. Yes sometimes a colder interest is needed for the less enjoyable things in training, but that's done as a result of love for it.

8. Allow yourself to develop your own views on training to help make it your own- try writing a blog!

The Belt System: Overall Conclusion

In conclusion to my last few posts, the belt system has a an important role in a karateka's early training in terms of providing structure and systematicness for that vast amount of learning that needs to be done before black belt. As a black belt, it is signinficantly less of a presence because the aim is to use those skills learnt as a kyu grade to shape one's own karate. Without those skills, karateka would simply not have the ability to make it as black belts. Therefore, it can be an incredibly positive impact on training.

The belt system (seemingly) gets in the way of training when individuals start to see it as something it is not. It's very easy for a karateka not to take full responsibility as the center of their training and let the belt system take that place instead if it's the only thing they rely on for motivation. The belt system does not have this function,it's not its role. Others might see the belt system as something it isn't in the sense that they think their belt defines them as a martial artist more than themselves. This isn't the role of the belt system ether. Because, in a grading, examiners are only able to asses a small amount of the examinee's training: technical accuracy under pressure. Assesment of personality dosen't come in to it. So how can someone's belt define them as a martial artist more than themselves?

When the belt system gets in the way, it's not to blame; it dosen't do that in itself, the karateka uses it for something it is not designed to do. When this dosen't happen, it has a positive impact. As karateka, we need to realise that we are the center of our training and face the responsibililty of being that and accept that the belt system is  designed to be a part of training, an important one, but nothing more than that.

The Belt System: A positive impact on training or does it get in the way?(part 2)

If you haven't read my previous post already then I suggest you do as the two have some close links between them.

As mentioned in my previous post, the belt system is not just a source of motivation in itself or people would just give up as black belts and karate would die out (see previous post for full explanation), it would just be pointless. However, working through the kyu grades as a karateka is far from pointless. This post examines the importance of them in training and how they lay the foundations for training as a black belt.

In spite of my argument that the belt system wouldn't work if it was just a source of motivation, it can if it's not the belts in themselves. The coloured belts systematise that huge amount of learning that needs to be done between starting karate and becoming a black belt. Without them, the task would seem impossible to many (westerners) who start karate and who would otherwise give up. The systematic approach the coloured belts provide prevent karateka from giving up early, a more optimistic way of putting this would be that it keeps them motivated. So, in the early years of a karateka's training, the belt system acting as something preventing them giving up, but not the belts in themselves, actually keeps karate alive.

Also, kyu grades lay the foundations for black belt. Without them, training as a black belt would be impossible; a craftsmen can't make anything until they know how to use the tools. In the context of karate, 'the tools' are skills karateka learn as kyu grades, the crafting of something (making karate your own), happens at black belt. As a kyu grade, one learns basic (becoming increasingly advanced) techniques, one of the more obvious and important skills. Equally important, is developing good training habits(working hard, regular practice etc......).

Training regularly and working hard only when there's a  grading on the horizon is an example of an unhealthy training habit. It also shows a total reliance on the belts in themselves for motivation, which they're not, because it wouldn't work if they were, as I've said before, people would just give up at black belt, because of unstable foundations laid as a coloured belt, clearly. This also an example of  making the belt system in to something it is not. The two, training habits and making the belt system in to something it is not have a correlation between them, this suggests. Training for the next belt, and not for the love of karate, is another  example of an unhealthy training habit along with seeing the belt system in to something it isn't.

However, this also suggests that, the belt system can easily get in the way of a karateka developing good training habits. So is it such a positive impact on training after all? Personally, I don't think it's the belt system to blame, rather people not understanding that developing good training habits won't just happen, they have to work at it. It's when they don't that they start to rely on the belt system and it in to something it's not; a karateka is the centre of their training, the belt system is a part of that training, not the other way round.

When the belt system has a negative impact on training, it's because of  the individual seeing it as something it isn't, yet again. That's all I'll say for now as my next post will be the overall conclusion to my last 3-4 posts and I don't want to repeat myself too much.

The Belt System: a positive influence on training or does it get in the way?

Karate's belt system was adapted from the one in Judo. This was done to, essentially,  to stop karate dying out. So has the belt system kept karate alive in a modern, western context or killed it off?

A way to find an answer is to examine what role the belt system now has in training. I imagine what springs to a lot of people's minds, (and certainly mine), is that it's a source of motivation for westerners who don't have the patience of the Japanese and aren't really learning it for the same reasons as Okinawans did.

Is the belt system now just a shallow source of motivation for westerners? As a Kyu grade, belt promotions tend to happen more often than for Dan grades. So, if the belt system is just a source of motivation why are their black belts that have been black belts for more than just a few months? They don't have regular belt promotions, which suggests that next belt= being motivated  isn't always the case.

Also, if this was the case, then karate would've been killed off by now. If people just gave up at black belt before they had a chance to actually gain a decent amount of experience, there wouldn't be anyone to teach karate and it would die out.

However,  the fact is that many people stop training at brown or black belt, as belt promotions become less regular and they feel they've done it all and have nothing more to aim for. For some, the belt system is the only thing that keeps them training, the only reason they're motivated. This suggests that if the belt system is just a source of motivation depends on the karateka.

This conclusion is similar to that of my previous post. Based on what I said in my previous paragraph, what the belt system is differs from karateka to karateka, but it's important for us, as individuals, to avoid making it in to something it is not.

Not everyone gives up as brown or black belts, they continue to train for other reasons than just working towards the next belt. But if they have 'other reasons' what's the point of coloured belts and regular belt promotions to start with? The answer will be the content of my next post.

The Belt System: Gradings

What does the colour of a karateka's belt symbolise? Experience? Ability? Does it show something about them as a person and do we make assumptions that aren't always true?

I think one of the best ways to judge this is examining the nature of gradings;looking at what the criteria is for moving up to the next belt and how a karateka is assessed against it. Personally, I think that gradings asses a somewhat narrow range of aspects to someone's karate: technical accuracy in relation to dealing with pressure. Is this all a belt shows about a karateka? Their technical accuracy under pressure? So are we right to make certain assumptions about other aspects of their training?

The other side to this argument is that, although the things assessed, in terms of range, are quite narrow, other aspects of someone's karate might influence those things. For example, there might be a correlation between the level of technical accuracy an examiner sees and the level of commitment of that particular individual. Their level of commitment might then say something about them as a person, however people are complex and never in black and white. So 'commitment' isn't very informative on its own.

But there's also dealing with pressure in the equation. There might be two karateka, both technically accurate when doing karate, but while one excels under grading-type pressure, the other does the opposite. Who would pass and who would fail? The difference is how they deal with pressure.

How one deals with grading-type pressure doesn't say anything major about a their personality, I don't think. It can't help you make any broad judgement about how they deal with pressure because there are so many forms of it; I've always done well under grading-type pressure but am sometimes uncomfortable when faced with more everyday pressures.

To conclude, karate is complex, too complex for examiners to asses the whole of it. Some aspects of someone's karate are just impossible to asses. Besides, what is the 'whole' of karate? They'd have a totally impossible task! People are also complex, so in most cases, examiners can't judge them because of the small amount  they see of them in such a brief time. I remember at my black belt grading, just before the examiners gave us the results, one of them told us that it was done on what they'd just seen of our karate and not on personality. I'm not certain exactly why he said this, but it supports my conclusion that a karateka's belt colour does say some things about their karate but they shouldn't be totally judged on it and we shouldn't make the belt system in to something it is not.

My next post will look at the impact the belt system has on our training and will be less pessimistic about it!

The Difference Between Wearing a Black Belt and Being One

I know I mentioned in my last post that I'd be writing something about issues regarding the belt system. Turns out that it's quite a broad, complex subject so getting together the final draft is taking longer than anticipated. Also, it would make for one heck  of a long post so what I might do is address the issue in a series of smaller posts. In the meantime, here's something concerning settling in to the role of a black belt, apologies for the delay.

My Sensei once said that the belt a karateka wore wasn't the one they were, but the one they were trying to live up to. At the time, I didn't make  anything of it. Now, however, I see what he meant. The belt I now wear is taking some serious living up to....

The increased responsibility is definitely a significant part of it. It's up to me now to make sure my techniques are up to scratch and teach myself stuff- and it's not just a matter of learning the shape of something off a YouTube clip, there's also understanding the technical innards of it, requiring even more research. The kyu grade equivalent would be getting any technical inaccuracy corrected by whoever is teaching them.

This equivalent is as a result of kyu grades not being at the stage where they're deemed ready to take on  full responsibility for their training. Because of this, I think  that instructors, to an extent, focus more on kyu grades during the average session. Their mistakes are pointed out to them. Black belts don't get this in the same way because they have that responsibility themselves. I've learnt that I need to look out for mistakes I make, myself, when doing karate. No apparent mistakes lead to inefficient practising and lack of self-motivation, so your karate can get much worse if you're not careful, as a black belt.

For a while, post-grading, I was stuck in that trap, if I'm honest. My practice really deteriorated for a while along with my self-motivation. I felt at a very loose end with my training. I wore a black belt but I certainly wasn't one.

I'm still not a black belt and being one will take a while. I'm trying to rectify my mistakes: building my practices back up, setting myself goals(eg: gaining a better understanding of certain katas) etc.... It will take a while to develop these skills well, so becoming a black belt is definitely a work in progress. I don't think anyone ever totally settles in to the role. Being a 'black belt' ,(training  hard and  honestly), is basically, ' being the best martial artist you are capable of being'. When we can always do better, can't we?

Complex Mistakes

Not just in karate, but in many other contexts, mistakes don't stand alone; they happen as a result of other mistakes and there's often more in the equation than something just being right or wrong. This post concerns an example of this in the context of karate.

It was a while ago now,  I was helping a brown belt, (3rd kyu), with ushiro-geri: every brown belt's, (and still, to some extent, my), worst nightmare!! I watched him do it several times, discovering the kick was far from correct, as it would be when done by a 3rd kyu; there's a good reason why it's the same grading syllabus for 2nd and 3rd kyu: it contains some difficult stuff.







Ushiro-geri from Zenkutsu-dachi.




One of the main points about ushiro-geri is that the foot should point downwards when the kicking leg is fully extended. It's a common 'mistake' to have the foot pointing sideways, a 'mistake' this paticular brown belt was making. I indicated it to him, however my feedback wasn't helpful. It did occur to me that the angle of the foot is a difficult aspect of ushiro-geri to control when I rememberd my own experience of it as a brown belt. This wasn't a 'mistake' which stood alone it often happend as a result of things like carelessness or rushing the kick. I reminded him to take it slowly, however it was equally as unhelpful.

Something else I learned from this experience is that it's not half bad an idea to ask students about their training because, as hard to beleive as it is, they do actually know what they're talking about, even if they are less experienced than me! Eventually, I had the idea to ask this brown belt what he found difficult about ushiro-geri. He answerd that it was turning from Zenkutsu-dachi, executing the kick, then returning to the same stance. Doing it from a standstill, he was fine with it.

I remembered having problems with the same thing, but it had improved once I'd developed the right kind of balance overtime, therefore, logically, his case would be similar. This is what I mean about there being more in the equation than something being right or wrong, he didn't have the right kind of balance. But it wasn't because he was doing anything wrong, it was just because of his lack of experience. Give it several months and his ushiro-geri could look quite different. (Although, he would still need to be pointed in the right direction). His foot was at the wrong angle as a result of him rushing  as a result of him not yet having developed the right kind of balance as a result of his lack of experience(which isn't even a mistake!). See what I mean by complex mistakes?

My next post will cover issues regarding the belt system in karate.

Teaching Karate

Teaching Karate, (or anything), appears an easy thing to do when one sees it done by an experienced teacher. However, I recently discovered the difficulty of it(which my last post breifly refers to).....

For a start, it required me to understand karate in a different way, challenging the understanding I already had. In training, I was pieceing together karate: learning new tecniques, working on mistakes, understanding how they could be used against an attacker, developing my own opinions and views about karate, understanding karate's philosiphy, etc...  While teaching, I have to break karate down, which is the reverse of what I am familliar with in  training. It envolves taking apart the different aspects of the tecniques I'd previously been putting together; working on mistakes, understanding and all. As for my own personal views on karate, my conscience would never let me impose them on other karateka, teaching open-mindedly and not letting my own opinions influence it also proves difficult. This is as a result of the fact that, naturally, my views do affect my training; because it's, yet again, in reverse to what I'm used to. You might've expeienced something similar to this, or maybe teaching just comes naturally to  you? Or maybe you've never had to teach? If the latter is true, then don't let this put you off because you learn so much from teaching Karate(I imagine it becomes easier with experience as well).

Several times, I've heared the saying, 'First know yourself , then know others'. The definition seems to be something along the lines of: ' Defeat your enternal opponents before any external ones' . What does defeating  any kind of opponent envolve? Identifying strengths and weaknesses seems to be a significant part of it(what you do as a result of that idetification might depend on the kind of opponent confronting you). This saying, I think, also applies in teaching. In training, you discover what you find most difficult (kicks, in my case!), and what's easier for you. Overtime , strengths and weaknesses become apparent  and the mistakes you make as a result of them alongside it; you know yourself. Later on in your training, ('...then know others'), when you start teaching, you have to identify the mistakes of other karateka, strengths and weaknesses might become apparent to you as a result of the mistakes, ( it often works in revese, remember?), you then know others.

Of course, there is far more to teaching karate than identifying mistakes. I'd give examples if I knew how to word them. Yet mistakes in themselves can be complex and  interlinked, something I will elabourate on in my next post.

This is a copy of a letter I sent to the editor of a Karate magazine, the topic it covers becomes obvious when you read it.

Dear Editor,

SKM is excellent. It’s interesting to read about such a range of views and opinions about karate. Your editorial is always written with thoughtfulness and open-mindedness: important traits to have both in and out of karate. I’d really appreciate it if you could publish this in the next issue:

In issue 119, I was particularly interested in the late sensei Bjorn Grunstein’s view on why children shouldn't do karate which he mentioned in his interview. I mean absolutely no disrespect to him by saying that I disagree.

He stated in his interview that: ‘To teach children karate, a major part of karate must be disregarded’. In my humble opinion, he would be right if a child’s perception of karate and the way a child trains was the same as that of an adult, only without the same level of maturity; however I don’t think that this is the case.

As somebody who started training at ten years old, I’d say that, far from not being mature enough for karate, karate helped me mature. It gave me the self-confidence and sense of self-worth that I’d previously lacked along with the discipline and resilience needed as one gets older. Children can gain from karate as much as adults can, but they gain different things.

Therefore, for instructors, I don’t think disregarding parts of karate comes in to it, the main thing is to be aware of the fact that different ages train in different ways: what they need to work on and how they benefit from karate.  The sensei I train under often says that while adults should work on flexibility and being more relaxed, children should work on concentration. Not all instructors feel comfortable with teaching children, which I have nothing against; it takes all sorts to make a world. I have done a small amount of teaching within the club I train at, since becoming a 1^st Dan, here is what I found out: teaching is massively difficult without even bringing the age of the students in to the equation!!

Oss,

(where my name would be if I didn't want to keep this blog anonymous)