HIS Karate-Do

One of the very popular pastimes I remember as a kid, growing up in the fifties was…bowling. Not sure what the trends are on the mainland, but in Hawaii, there used to be so many bowling alleys throughout Oahu. These were great gathering places for co-workers, friends, family, etc to spend several enjoyable hours together. Except for the really competitive ones, the score wasn’t so important, as having a good time spent in fellowship. Over the years, just like the once popular drive-in theaters, one by one, the bowling alleys have shut down, leaving a precious few. Boy, there was a whole regimen associated with the sport, including: bowling gloves, bowling shoes, powder, customized bowling ball and bag (unless you were willing to use a pink or orange marble alley ball) bowling rag, the neat-o automatic bowling ball cleaning machine, not to mention the usually great snack shop right there in the establishment. One of the not so great things was the opportunity to catch a lot of second-hand smoke. Hard to beat being immersed in the sights and sounds that only the bowling alley has. In Hawaii, one of the few bastions of bowling are the military installations, where [...]

When learning a kata, the first thing we have to get past is the sequence. As discussed earlier, there are different depths of learning sequence. You really know the sequence of a kata when you can do it without conscious thought. Or, I suppose, you’d really be good at it if you could do it in the opposite direction or in backwards order. The great benefit of knowing the sequence is that you can practice the kata anywhere, at any time, by yourself. The second aspect we being to work on are the proper postures for each movement. Facing the correct direction, head and back straight, strong stances, hips in the prescribed position, feet rooted to the ground, and on and on. However, when I refer to posture, it’s so much more than just trying to “look correct”, nor is it limited to just the static positions such as one sees in the instruction books. To me, proper posture is not really about looking good, but to have a total body alignment throughout the entire process…from initiating a movement, executing a speedy, efficient transition, and finishing with a powerful, full-body kime at the point of impact and completion of each [...]

Some thoughts about kata. The first time I ever saw a group of people performing kata, it was at the old Pearl City dojo (used to be located on 3rd St). I can vividly remember that there were about 8-10 green belts performing Heians Sandan and Yondan. I was amazed at their precision… not to mention their memory, being able to do these exotic, powerful looking moves in unison. I remember thinking that I’d like to be able to perform these kata too, and how little these looked like what my mom had pointed out to me when I was a little child. My mom, being proud of her Okinawan heritage, used to tell me that the Uchinanchu had developed a martial art of their own, just like judo and aikido had been created by the Naichi or Japanese. One night, we were at a party where some of the old Okinawan men had drunk a lot of beer/sake and had begun doing some “dancing” with their open hands twisting and turning in the air in time with the music. Looked kind of silly to me, but my mom insisted that they were doing martial arts movements. Some fifty years [...]