Who owns your Karate?

Who owns your Karate?

Many moons ago I met a lady who trained at a local club, and Ironically had been presented with a chance to take over my old Dojo at a community club. She was very pleasant and her Karate was not bad, she lacked some physical ability but she sure made up with it by having a big heart. From what I gathered she knew little more than the curriculum to get a student to purple belt and perhaps what she needed to get her Shodan, but she was never asked to learn anything more than that.

She took one of my classes and said she had her eyes opened up a bit, she had never been pushed so hard in a class, and when I told her that was a standard class she was shocked! Her current Sensei, a man I had trained with many years ago, never taught classes like that. She also could not answer some very basic questions about Karate, and to be frank…her ability to do kumite was very lacking.

I wrote to her on line a bunch of times and found out that she was not training with her instructor at the old Shotokan club and teaching but she had also picked up training with a Kyokushin club. She explained that because of politics she could not train with me or my instructor anymore. And while she was stuck between wanting to learn how to defend herself and not wanting to tick off her instructor, she found the next best thing…she was going outside of her style to learn how to do Kumite.

As time went on she had issues with the instructor because he figured out she was not happy with his style of teaching. She also wanted to leave teaching as she felt like a fraud teaching a fighting art when she was not able to do basic Semi Free sparring with any kind of skill. Now, this is were it gets good…..She stopped teaching at the community club and started training with the instructor and her new club to the point that her instructor got very upset with her..She told him why she was cross training and he blew up at her. She left a week later when her new instructor at the Kyokushin group invited her to train as more than a drop in!

She walked away from being a Shodan and strapped on a white belt and started all over again…but training in something she liked better than the Shotokan dojo. She left his club of her own free will and this is where it gets weird……he sent her a letter, one that he printed out and signed that told her she was no longer an Shodan, an instructor or member of the organization. Now having said that he ripped her for not being loyal, for leaving her students without an instructor and for what he felt was a breach of some kind of moral code! I happen to know he did this without the permission of the organization or without his senior’s thoughts on the situation.

The lady was devastated, she did not worry about the ranking as she had moved on in her mind but his words were hurtful and he really was acting childish. She was upset that she had spent so much time in his club and she asked me what I thought. I responded that she should not worry about her rank, her Certificate (which he requested she burn) or what that moron had said. First off your Karate…is your own. You pay for it with your own perspiration and hard work and each person has their own level of excellence that they aim for. Once it is reached or you have mastered the basics you are a Shodan. As for burning the certificate….to heck with that its your property, don’t remember them saying pay us $100 for that piece of paper…but they retain ownership of it!

Your Karate is your own! You own it, and not matter what an instructor tells you about him owning Karate or your Karate…they can’t own it any more than they can own the air you breath. Its yours! I also don’t think that their being better physically than anyone else has any influence over your Karate. By this I mean that it does not matter how good your instructor is, unless they are going to walk around with you and protect you or do your tests for you…it does not matter if you train with Tanaka sensei or Bob Smith Sensei, its your hard work that is being graded and your hard work that will get real life testing.

When you reach Shodan, you have reached a point that you understand the basic Kihon Waza of a particular style, the basics and fundamental principles are all found in that Kihon Waza…so in essence you understand the basics of the system that you train in and your testing instructor recognizes that you have reached that level. They cannot go back at this point and say, hey you are leaving me so you no longer understand the basics that I taught you! That’s just stupid!

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that an instructor should be forced to keep those in his Dojo that he does not get along with or that he does not wish to teach, but at the same time they cannot take back the material and learning they have passed on to a student because they left! They have given someone knowledge and that persona has made it their own! Its their own Karate knowledge now!

It is safe to say that I have trained with more than 50 instructors since I started in Karate, and 1000’s of students. Each has taught me invaluable lessons on Karate and life. Some have taught me how to behave and some have taught me how not to behave. But no matter what, I have learned and made it my own. I have learned a lot about Karate in university, studies in human movement helped me understand some of the more advanced concepts being taught to me. But no matter how much more I learned, it all became MINE! No one can assign you more knowledge or understanding simply because they strap a pretty black belt around your waist, nor can they take it away from you by removing that belt and asking for a piece of paper back!

In the last few years I have read about an increase in the “stripping of rank” were much like the military you stand their (or it is done via mail) and have your certificate ripped up and your belt taken back. Personally, I would charge the guy with theft and destruction of my property or at the least ask for my money back! You paid for the belt and rank certificate, not just figuratively but physically …with money! Now Sensei Moron wants to rip it up and strip you of a satin belt he over charged you for! Screw that!

Our Karate is our own property, you cannot dig in my head and take out my knowledge of the Heian Katas or how to throw a proper reverse punch no sooner than you can stop me from thinking about Karate! My Karate is my own and reguardless of whom I train with, it shall remain that! One can be removed from a club, but I am 300% sure that they can find another club in a matter of a half hour that will take them in. One can boot them out of an organization, but maybe two hours later that will be a past memory. The most an instructor can hope for is that they wont have to train with someone they don’t like, but Karate is my own!

I am not big on rank, I don’t believe that a Yondan is that much more advanced that they can kill a Nidan or even beat them in a tournament simply because that person is a Yondan! Or that a shodan is 5 times less than a Godan! In fact I have seen some Nidans that make godans look very silly. The fact is that the person that has the best Karate is not always the guy with the highest rank in the room.

I hate it when a Yodan leaves a group with his club only to be a Godan under a new group, like a signing bonus they get a bump in rank just for showing up in the new group. It belittles the style and makes your students look silly, I mean why else worry about rank if not for ego and to impress your students? Lets face it, if you don’t got it…you don’t got it and no matter what rank you hold…you wont have it. So, instead of rank shopping in different organizations, how about staying put and working to make it a better organization?

Your Karate is your own, and what you make of it is what you make of it. Yes instructors and seniors will influence your Karate, some for the better and some not so much, but in the end they cannot take it away from you, they can only add to it. You make it what it is with your hard work, your efforts are going to mold your understanding of Karate and what you accept as truth and research to find is going to be yours! Not something that can be taken away by an instructor with more ego that brains.

You can lose skills however. It is normal for a student who has a down period to drop physical skills, but knowledge will stay sharp if you work out even two times a week on things that you want to remember. It’s like running, you might not be able to pull off a marathon if you don’t train for it, but you should be able to jog well even with a bit of effort. And no matter how much a coach yells at you not to run, the ability to jog or run is yours…they cannot take it away, if you train hard in Karate…your Karate is your own.

All of this basically boils down to two things. Your instructor does not hold any special powers over your ability to do Karate or your ownership of your Karate. He simply guides you as far as he can and tries to make you a better student. Take from him what you can, analyze it and see what holds truth for you and then reject what does not. That and no matter what the instructor or organization says to you, the Karate you learn becomes your own property and no matter how many silly letters they send to you saying different…your Karate…YOU OWN IT!