In any normal dojo, one always notices the sensei, the sempais, the color belts, and the white belts. It’s natural; they’re moving and kiai-ing the whole time. The folks one never really notices are those few who are sitting on the sidelines, just watching class. You know, the parents or older siblings who drove the kids to practice, or perhaps a student from another class, spouses, or friends, etc. Anyways, they’ll faithfully come and watch for so many classes and hours that they end up blending into and become part of the walls and furniture. For example, my wife has watched karate so much, over the years, that by osmosis, she has actually become knowledgeable about many of the techniques and can generally tell if a karateka is any good, just by watching for a moment. Anyways, I’d like to talk about one of these faithful watchers who was sometimes a member of our dojo’s sparse audience nearly twenty years ago. Mr. Young was an elderly Chinese gentleman, who would quietly come through our dojo (by weekday, a school cafeteria) doors and take a seat at one of the long dining tables. I probably didn’t even notice him the first [...]

If someone were to ask me as to whether I ever get emotional about the martial arts and karate in particular, the answer is “Yes”. Now, there’s emotion and there’s emotion. I’m not talking about the following things, which I experience quite often: the feeling of fulfillment anytime a student “gets it right”, or the awe of seeing a great karate technician execute flawless technique, or that feeling of comeraderie one shares with his/her fellow karateka in class, or even the thrills and excitement of a large tournament or a hard examination, etc. Instead, I’m talking about the deep emotional responses that can bring mixed feelings of pride, love, devotion, loyalty, and so on. You know, the kind of fierce, deep feelings that can almost bring tears to one’s eyes, and a strange warming of the heart. As dumb as this sounds, this most often happens if I’m watching a particular movie, which, under the right conditions, can evoke a response from within me. Right now, that old 1960 movie, “The Magnificent Seven”, is playing on my television (hence, the inspiration for today’s note). It’s one of my favorites, and I have probably watched it twenty times or more, over [...]

I guess that the use of color belts, (culminating in the black belt) has been used by karate dojos for nearly a hundred years. It’s apparently something that we adopted from the practices of judo halls, which were formulated in the late 1800’s. Depending upon the organization, the colors and the order in which these are earned, varies; although most every dojo starts with white, and ends up with brown and black belts. In our kyu (color belt) system, there are 10 ranks: white, two blues, two greens, two purples, and three browns. One would think that each rank in the hierarchy represents an equal step forward in time, skills gained, techniques learned, etc. As most karateka will tell you, this is far from true, and differs from rank to rank, from dojo to dojo, and from person to person. In an average dojo, exams are given out every three months or about four times a year. Most folks aren’t talented enough or train often enough to go up a rank every three months. However, in general, if one is training consistently (say, three times a week), he/she might progress 2-3 ranks each year; and in fact, it might take [...]