HIS Karate-Do

At a recent birthday party in my honor, my family played a slide show about my life, and naturally, there was a segment on karate through the years.  There were various impromptu shots taken of training in the dojo or outside, at some old gasshuko beach session.  A couple, however, were of me in karate gi, making a pre-determined karate pose – you know, the kind we hate to have taken, haha. Once in a great while, karateka will be asked to strike a favorite pose for a photograph.  It can be kind of an awkward moment and folks will place some thought into what movement from what kata or kumite posture they think best captures their skill or knowledge level (haha).  Good or bad, it’s caught for posterity and most karateka looking at it (critics, all) will have an opinion.  Personally, I have never given much thought about what pose I would use.  About 17 or 18 years ago, my fellow sensei and I decided to have professional photos taken of our karate club – by professional, I mean a photographer who specialized in taking sports clubs photos (like baseball, soccer, etc).  When it was my turn to pose, [...]

Just a quick reminder – as we enter the holiday season, there are several days when we won’t have training: Sat 26 Nov, 24 Dec (Christmas Eve) and 31 Dec (New Year’s Eve). I am very pleased with everyone’s improvement over the past couple of months as we concentrate on katas.  I feel that this progress will manifest itself in better exam results (coming up, Sat 10 Dec).  Keep up the good work, everyone.

Here’s the beginning of a note I started in late August…then, got so busy at work that I actually didn’t pick up my “virtual pen” to continue until this Columbus Day weekend.  The first paragraph began – “Well, over years of training and teaching, there is an interesting phenomenon that sometimes – not always – occurs in a karateka….he/she finally gets to the point where they take their eyes off of themselves.  Let’s face it, the average person who joins a dojo wants to improve his/her conditioning, self-defense abilities, strength, coordination, knowledge of karate-do, and so on.  This is a natural thing; and naturally, we will see folks drift away when these particular needs or metrics are no longer met or seem unattainable.  Once in a while, however, an individual will reach a level of perception that goes outside of the self-ego and he/she will begin to look more at how they can help the overall group, as well as keeping the art alive.  At that point, the karateka begins to think of others and not just his or herself.  Oh, the striving to become better never goes away, it’s just that it becomes enhanced or multi-dimensional.  Quitting and walking [...]