It’s sort of weird, the timing of things. I was planning to write a note entitled “Balance and Force Projection”, sharing some of my thoughts on center-of-gravity, as it relates to karate-do. On Tuesday, I attended a motivational training seminar (ho-hum, I thought)…which turned out to be an extremely entertaining session, taught by a professional juggler, unicyclist, drummer, etc entertainer, who also taught some profound lessons in life. He also gave some short references to his church and pastor and talked about spiritual growth being one of the five major areas we balance in life. What struck me was that his lessons centered around the very subject I was planning to share, except where I was thinking about Balance vs Force Projection, he was talking about Balance vs being Off-Balance with a Purpose.

He talked about learning to balance on a 6-foot high unicycle, then learning to move where ever one wanted to go, by leaning in the direction one aimed at. He also talked about the intracacies of juggling 3, then 4, then 5 objects and the necessary change-ups in patterns to do so. He talked about faith in taking risk, added to the responsibilities of due diligence prior to doing so (practice and preparation). He then went on to apply these principles to life.

I was dumbfounded that he was going through my own such thoughts (based upon karate-do) and his statements struck me with great resonance. You know, we spend the first several years in karate-do, doing much practice with the idea of balance, when it comes to one’s center-of-gravity. We stretch, exercise, and train our ankles, knees, and hips to be able to handle movement of our respective bodies over our supporting feet in a manner that allows us to stand with power and… balance. This is so that we don’t fall flat on our faces and hurt ourselves.

However, as you reach the brown and black belt levels, we begin a relearning process that revolves about the concept of moving our centers-of-gravity (COG’s) with power and speed, beyond their normal balance point (right above our supporting feet) — without falling on our faces. You see, in order to be able to project real force with our kicks and punches, we have to carefully thrust our COG’s beyond mere balance. Balance is great, if you’re not interested in projecting beyond yourself and you’re only doing “air” techniques. To actually place impact upon an object, using maximum speed, you must also time the employment of your entire body at a precise instant, at a precise target. Any slight deviation in timing or misalignment of the body, and you not only fail to impart the force, but you risk falling on your face and hurting yourself. If you’re juggling five balls, one similar mistake and you drop ’em. Without saying, all of this takes much intentful practice… one has to always stretch oneself. There were all kinds of common analogies between his area of expertise and ours, but balance and going beyond was at the heart of his talk. Of course, one must learn to walk before one can run. There is also always the risk of failure when one goes beyond one’s COG… however, in karate-do, as in life, if one does not go beyond one’s COG or comfort zone, one is never able to make any real influence or difference in the world.