HIS Karate-Do

Have you ever wondered, what the odds are that a new white belt will ever make it to black belt? The most common answer that I’ve heard was, “Hmm, maybe 1 percent?” Of course, it varies, depending upon the karate style and dojo, but this agrees with my own personal opinion of one’s chances of making shodan. Curious, I tried googling the internet in search of any scientific study regarding this phenomenon, haha (I couldn’t find one). However, I did come across various quora where veteran karateka would share their estimates of the odds, and their most common guess was also in the 1-2 percent range. Think about it, back when you were a white belt, how many of your fellow new beginners lasted long enough to take the blue belt exam? Maybe half? That means of every 100 new beginners, perhaps 50 might make it to blue belt. Then, a similar winnowing phenomenon occurs at each higher rank level. Of the 50 blue belts, perhaps 25 make it to the green levels, then maybe 10-12 to the purple levels, at by sankyu (lowest brown) it’s down to a half-dozen. And at the more difficult brown belt levels, more attrition [...]

As you know, in recent weeks, I’ve been sharing various drills intended to help you understand that the fist (in Japanese, the ken) is only the “tip of the iceberg” in terms of understanding where the power of the punch comes from.  That’s the reason for the drills associated with keeping the foot “rooted” on the ground, leg thrusts, hip rotation, shoulder locks, arm thrusts, etc.  The fist – although crucial to the end-point delivery of the punch, is pretty much limited to being tightly closed and in proper alignment with the wrist and arm and the point of impact. It’s so much easier to show this to you by demonstrating it, and by having you practice the drills.  To augment this, I was going to write up a short note regarding discussing how the “power of the pen” actually comes from a mind full of ideas that is transmitted to the tip of the pen,  Similarly, I was going to describe how a powerful punch (the power of the ken) actually was the result of a whole chain of energy flowing from a rooted foot and conducted through various muscles/ligaments/tendons into the striking knuckles.  After several paragraphs, I became [...]

Training classes are good in that they help one to work out and learn something new – left to our own devices, most of us would probably not spend an hour or two stretching and exercising our minds in this way. There are, however, some alternative things one can do to further one’s understanding of Karate-Do that don’t involve punching and kicking. Fortunately, there’s a lot of information out on the internet that can help flesh out and deepen one’s appreciation for what we often do by rote. Since I’ve been talking about kata recently, I thought it appropriate to share a decent article regarding theories on the origins and evolution of the basic katas that you all know and practice – the Heian katas…previously named the Pinana katas…possibly before that, named the Channan katas. A couple of old photos in the article show the very recognizable opening moves in Heian Nidan (performed by the Founder), along with a fairly recognizable photo of the “morote-uke” from the same kata (performed by Choki Motobu). Generally, the Heian katas are said to be the creation of Anko Itosu, one of Funakoshi’s senseis, for application in the Okinawan school system. The article goes [...]