HIS Karate-Do

Since HISKF started in 2001, I guess this must be the twenty-third time that I’m sending out New Year salutations to our group. Man, that’s a lot of celebratory notes eh? This time, I wanted to take an excerpt from one of my old New Year notes from back in 2011 (Hey, if the Star Advertiser can recycle old photos from their archives every day, why can’t I “regift” an old note? haha). Aside from wishes for a good new year, it also contained a short origin story about how your senseis ended up training in Karate-Do. Excerpt from New Year’s Note Dec 2011… Back in 1963, when I was just twelve years old, my dad had decided that I should learn the art of Aikido (not well-known then). I asked dad if I could invite a friend. After he said yes, I quickly called up my best friend from school and told him how neat it would be, to start training and learning a martial art together. In the few days before we joined, we sat in the living room of his home and weaved all kinds of fanciful scenarios of how our new-found skills would wow the girls [...]

Well once again, it’s that season for reflection, or my usual Deep Thoughts, haha. Especially at this time of year, I feel extra blessed that Sensei Peter, Wayne, and I can continue to share karate with you all at HISKF. It’s been over 23 years since I started this club and am very aware that we won’t be able to do this forever. Today, your senseis would all be considered “elderly men” in our seventies. Now, it’s not purely about one’s chronological age and being “young at heart” (like us, haha) is a real phenomenon. If one’s age were the only life factor, I’d have some trepidations since the average male life expectancy in Hawaii is (wait for it)…77.6 years! And Hawaii’s average lifespan is ranked among the highest in the U.S. A pretty sobering statistic eh? Hey, no one lives forever, but it’s not just about living for a long time, but rather, it’s living in good health that makes it worthwhile. I’ve seen some estimates that the average “healthspan” (how long one can remain healthy) in the U.S. is a mere 63 years…a milestone that your senseis passed a decade ago. Just what is good health as applied [...]

Recently, we held one of our periodic belt exams. While students are patiently awaiting the exam results, I thought that I’d share my thoughts on what these exams mean to me. In life, there are all kinds of exams that may vary, depending upon the purpose these serve. I’d like to focus on just two specific types which I’ll call, the Final Exam approach and the Entrance Exam approach. For many folks, passing a belt exam means that “you’ve done it and achieved the rank.” So, whether it’s a yellow belt or attaining the black belt, one may naturally think that he/she is now fully qualified to proudly wear the rank that’s just been awarded. From this perspective, the student treats the test as a Final Exam and has a feeling akin to completing his/her studies and graduating from high school or college. One can now pause and look back on all that has been learned to get to this milestone. From such a perspective, each test seems to be a Final Exam which means they have mastered the previous rank and have graduated to a higher level. I guess that you may be surprised if I say that your [...]