HIS Karate-Do

Seeing as how all of your senseis (with the exception of Sensei Trish) are In our seventies, I guess that we’d be considered “elderly” or (more kindly) as kupuna these days.  Nowadays, the term is often applied to anyone over a certain age (say, 65) and especially during the pandemic, you’d see “kupuna hours” at various stores.  Actually, the term refers to a grandparent or other prior ancestor.  Since Sensei Peter and I are indeed, grandfathers, we both qualify for the original meaning of the term. Being so old and having grown up in the 1950’s and 1960’s, I sometimes forget that our younger students are often two or even three generations after us.  This means that sometimes, the comparisons, similes, and analogies that I like to use when teaching karate can be so outdated as to lose their meaning and impact on certain demographics in our class, haha.  Small wonder that I see blank faces staring back at me when I use certain sayings during class.  Here are some examples and clarifications (for the kids): – “Sometimes, I must sound like a broken record.”  Kids, in case you don’t know, a phonograph record was the cassette….er, CD…er, streaming music [...]

Actually, I’m sending this short note and videos with the white belts in mind, although it certainly applies to all of us. Being able to perform kihon and kata well is the product of practice, practice, practice. Training with a focus on improvement is the best one can expect of oneself. Here’s a clip of a young Mahiro Takano (6 years old at the time) performing Heian Shodan (along with her brother): watch She’s good eh? As a youth, she won the kids JKA kata championship something like six times. The immediate thought is, she must have been doing this right after she climbed out of her crib, haha. She has trained consistently since she started as a four-year old. By contrast, see what Mahiro looked like, performing Heian Shodan when she was four: watch Cute yeah? Looks like any white belt kid just beginning to learn Heian Shodan, though I must say that she had a nice deep stance, even then. Today, Mahiro is about 14 years old and still practicing her katas. Here she is, practicing Kanku Dai recently: watch Now, you don’t have to spend all of your free time training in karate. And a young white [...]

For Sensei Peter, Sensei Trisha and myself, one of our greatest joys in Karate-Do has been learning and practicing the various katas. Many folks practice kata just so they can pass the next promotion exam. For us, it’s always been practicing something we love. When we are performing a kata, we actually become immersed in it. We feel doubly blessed when we can share and teach kata with all of you. I hate to admit it, but another thing that I enjoy, is watching Kdramas and listening to some of the South Korean singers (So Hyang and Lee Hi are among my favorites). I know I’m getting pretty old, but I even enjoy the music videos of certain KPOP groups for their energy and catchy dance moves. Anyways, the reason I mention this, is that I recently came across a number of YouTube videos which feature a KPOP random dance game. Hundreds of teens will line up outside of a large rectangular space and the speakers will play about 20-30 seconds of random KPOP dance songs. The kids are all waiting to see if they can identify the song. As soon as they do, they go rushing into the dance [...]