HIS Karate-Do

I’ve often said that our time in the training dojo is finite; and whether we like it or not, we will all experience that one last opportunity to practice the art of Karate-Do. For some, it’ll be a declining level of interest, or perhaps replacement by a new hobby, while others will simply become too busy with conflicting activities. Even for those whose love of the art never wanes, however, the onset of health issues and very mortality of life will some day culminate in a final training session. This is why our (ahem) older members relish suiting up for practice and savoring the stretching/exertion/sweat that really benefits their minds and bodies. It speaks to their self-motivation, but also means that they’re still healthy enough to attend class. I hope that we never take our training time together for granted. Speaking of time, when we hear the term, The Relativity of Time, we usually think about the legendary Albert Einstein. It was he who formulated the theories describing the relationship between the universe’s constant – the speed of light – and time itself. That, as one’s speed approaches that of light (186,300 miles per second), one’s time relative to the [...]

Things are not always what they seem. Sometimes, the lessons we learn as the gospel truth, later turn out to be true, but only within a certain context. For example, a simple word will usually have more than one meaning. One of the earliest instances of multiple meanings I can recall is the number 2, which we learn is, “two”, but also sounds like “to”, and “too” too (haha). But that is not not what I meant by the title “one plus one doesn’t always equal two”. Waaay back, about 50 years ago, we seventh graders were all surprised when they started teaching us the “New Math” (precursor to higher mathematics back in the sixties) and first heard about the binary system (so important to computer language today). On the first day, our teacher stated that in some instances, 1 plus 1 didn’t equal 2! We all wondered how could that be? As most adults know, the rules for the binary system are not necessarily the same as the conventional decimal system that kids are familiar with (kids, the binary system only contains 0’s and 1’s, haha). And that was just the first of so many revelations in our later [...]

Well, congratulations are in order – one of our brown belts was just awarded his black belt; the first one given out in our dojo in about seven years….it has been a while since the last in-house promotion to shodan. You see, the majority of black belts in our current lineup, achieved their dans before they ever visited our class….some, a very long time ago. Sempais Kevin, Elton, and Cheryl made it some 10 years ago, Sensei Trish and Sempai James – over 20 years ago, for me – it was exactly 40 years ago, and my old friends Sensei Peter – 41 years ago, and Sensei Wayne – 42 years ago. What amazes me the most, is that these senior members of our group continue to faithfully train and teach till this day, representing so many years of effort, focus, and patience. I am so blessed to be associated with karateka of their high character and dedication to learning and sharing the art. Karate students often imagine that their highest goal is make it to the first level black belt or shodan…actually, what it really means, is that one has merely learned the abc’s, basic grammar, words and phrasing [...]