Well, here’s a Youtube video of a brother and sister (they were around 10 and 6 years old at the time of filming) practicing the Heian Katas and Tekki Shodan.  Sensei Peter and I thought you might find it interesting since the majority of our group is practicing one of these half a dozen katas (Shotokan actually encompasses 26-30 katas, depending upon the dojo, so you can imagine that it does take a while to learn them all).   At the same time, we thought you might find it inspiring as the two siblings have good basics, form and speed.  They’re very serious students from Japan.  Since they practice the Shotokan style of Karate-Do, you should find the movements the same as ours with a few very minor differences.  These children (Mahiro and Masaki) likely spend time practicing their karate on a daily basis, which is a big reason that they are so accomplished in the art.  We don’t expect you to do that, but just think how much better you could be if you practiced your techniques with this intensity for a couple of hours every day. Please note that there is no extra movement – they quickly thrust and lock into each step with precision and kime.  They [...]

When I was a kid, I remember coming across a strange drawing that depicted the general parts (and proportions) of our brain that controlled the various parts of our body.  Most of us have seen it in biology class in school.  Sometimes this type of diagram is labeled a “homunculus”, though that can also refer to a small humanoid.  Anyways, it always stuck in my head because of how distorted the parts of the body appeared to be (big face, tongue, and hand, followed by tiny everything else (like the trunk, hip and leg regions).  Doesn’t it seem ironic that the largest and strongest muscles in the body are controlled by such small parts of the brain, while our facial muscles, mouth and tongue, along with our hands are controlled by huge portions of our brain matter? Upon further reflection however, it should make perfect sense to the karate student.  We spend a huge amount of our training time, struggling to control and coordinate the large and powerful muscles: the legs and feet which make up our lower half, along with the hips (which connect upper and lower parts of the body), back muscles, shoulder muscles, abdominal “bricks” (for those who still have em, [...]

During our college years, Sensei Peter spent our parent’s hard-earned monies that they invested in our education on: lunch and snacks at old Hemenway Hall, shooting pool, relaxing in Hamilton and Sinclair libraries, practicing karate, training to become AF officers, and…going to class, haha.  The truth be told, I am sure that the biggest slice of our day’s pie-chart was actually spent…..playing foosball or table soccer.  Yes, that old game with the little plastic men and ball that was so popular before the advent of video games forever banished it to fond memories of the 1970’s.  We played many hours each day until no one could defeat us at the University of Hawaii.  On weekends, we would roam the various pool halls, game rooms, and other college rec rooms in search of viable competition.  Since the challengers would usually have to pony up their quarters, Sensei Peter and I usually got to play most of the night for free.  The favored commercial brand back then was the Tournament Soccer machine (I hate to admit that I still own a commercial coin-operated TS table at my home and Sensei also had a table at his home for many years).  Playing with other skilled players [...]