I sometimes get asked questions about the benefits of training with punching/kicking into a heavy bag. This is something I don’t really begin to share with students until they’re brown/black belts. As a result, most of the training over the first few years, involves “air” techniques, which, admittedly, do not prepare one for the experience of impact has on one’s fist or foot and does not allow one to measure the amount of force being projected into one’s target. Fortunately, unlike a boxing or kickboxing program, ministry members won’t be going into a ring anytime soon and be dependent upon the effective power of their techniques in order to survive the rounds or win the fight. In fact, the Do encourages us not to seek out such competition or resolve potential conflicts amiably, if at all possible. Still, there’s the chance that one may end up in a real-life situation one day that would require the most efficient application of martial techniques to maximize the chances of a positive outcome. Briefly, my opinions on the pros and cons of early/frequent practice into a heavy bag…The Pros: 1) Very quickly, you can measure how hard you are punching/kicking. 2) You learn [...]

In my excitement at coming back home, I forgot to remind everyone that this Saturday, 28 Oct, is one of our periodic rake days at Momilani Rec Ctr. I call it “rake day,” because what we normally need is a lot of hands (and rakes) to clean the grassy areas of the park from leaves, small branches, etc. Also, we can use about three guys to bring weedwhackers and work the corner area behind the pavillion… usually Sempai’s Robert, Rodney and I bring ours, but the Molina Sempais have a conflicting engagement that day, so another weedwhacker (person and machine, haha) would be helpful. As usual, we start right at 09:00 am and if we work productively, should finish shortly after 10:00 am. Please bring your gi’s… as we’ll likely have time for some quick training afterwards (and just in case rain forces a postponement of rake day, we can still train).

Well, we (Trish, Lynne and I) just got back from an enjoyable 5 days in….Vegas. My old Sensei, better known today by his students world-wide, as Shihan Funakoshi, was hosting his eighth world karate tournament in the city. This was to be his last tournament there, possibly the last one in the US . Next year, it’ll be held in England , and since his dojos are primarily located in Europe , likely to be on that continent from this time onward. Hence, it was probably our best and last chance to attend, not so much for the tournament, but to have the opportunity to train with Shihan. Of course, throughout the seventies and eighties, I had been able to train with Shihan many hundreds of times, but Trisha could only vaguely remember being his little white/blue belt student when she was six years old. So this was going to be a possibly last time for me to train with my old sensei and a first time for Trish to train in his advanced class as a black belt. It was a lot of fun, and I realized two things: 1) That much of what I share with our brown/black [...]