I don’t think I’ve ever written about the seiza (the formal way of sitting before/after class). One usually sets one’s body down with the left knee first followed by the right knee. Etiquette usually has the women’s knees together and the men’s knees apart at a 90-degree angle. One should sit in a relaxed but erect posture, hands resting on one’s thighs, just below one’s obi (belt). When rising, the right knee goes up first, followed by the left. The ancient reason for this was to allow the samurai to easily unsheath his sword in the event of sudden attack while rising or lowering himself. This assumed that he was right-handed with his sword sheathed on his left side.
For some of our older members or others with knee/ankle/hip issues, we allow dispensation from this position. So many of our karate practices can be healthful to one’s body and the seiza is no exception. See this article about the value of such a posture. https://postureclinic.in/
That said, one of Sensei Trisha’s favorite childhood stories concerns the seiza. She had woken from bed late one night (she was around 5-6 years old) to get a drink of water and found me fast asleep in the living room. I was in front of the TV, head down, with my hand on the channel knob, sitting in the seiza position. She could see that the screen indicated normal programming had ended for the day. I’m so glad she woke me up as I must have been in that position for over an hour. I had lost all feeling in my legs and for several minutes, couldn’t use them to get up. Then feeling rushed back into my legs in the form of thousands of painful needle pricks and I slowly got up and hobbled off to bed, haha. Amazingly, even today, with so many hundreds of channels and streaming options available, it can still be hard to find something good to watch on TV. And thank God for the television remote.
