Growing
up in Karate we were told to train in your own lane, or to keep your nose in
your own book. Basically we were told that if you were a white belt you did
Heian Shodan (Granted now things have changed a bit with rank requirements, but
you get the point) and you did not do free style Kumite much or work on any
Kihon that was just outside your ability. This was supposed to help bring your
skills up to the next level and help you improve your skill set slowly, get you
ready for the next step and not rush you or let you jump to far ahead. It worked well and the curriculums were
cemented because of this. The JKA has even gone to great lengths to improve on
this ideology by including more junior ranks, adding Taekyoku to the mix and
addressing the need for better Kihon by slowing down ranking in the Kyu levels.
Now
I see brown belts learning Sochin, not just having fun with it but honestly
learning them for training and competition purposes. I see purple belts
learning Kanku Dai and I see Orange belts working on Jion. It’s maddening for
someone that knows that they are not ready for this leap. They are not
technically mature enough to handle this and it shows in the demonstration of
the Kata. This also draws away from their training on the curriculum. Most students train 2-3 times a week maximum,
they are not in the Dojo every day like we were in the old days. I would be
doing Bassai Dai (when I was a brown belt) 4-6 times a week in class (most
times 2 classes a day when I could) and on the week end I would slip into the
club (I had keys I was not breaking in) and do more of the 15 Kata but always
Bassai dai over and over. This added up and over time you begin to internalize
the Kata, but the new students only get 1-2 classes a week in some cases and
they don’t work out on their own, add into the fact that some are now doing
Sochin, how well do you think they get to know their grading Katas?
I
also see young orange belts doing Jiyu Kumite at tournaments and I physically
flinch when I see the horror show that is in front of me. They barely know
their own body or the techniques and suddenly they are hitting each other and
throwing horrible techniques, some get hurt from the hard impact and some get
hurt from twisting joints the wrong way. The instructors shrug and say that
they are accidents, but they are preventable. The instructors say that the
students want to learn the advanced Kata or Kumite training…so? Students are
STUDENTS they should be taught the basics, given a solid foundation and then
when they are ready they should be taught the next level of techniques or the
next Kata or given training in the next level of Kumite. Until that time they
should be working on the fundamentals for THEIR level!
We
use rank belts to denote rank…this is the level of understanding a student has
and what they should be working on. The
Niju Kun was one of Funakoshi Sensei’s greatest compilations of work that he
left to us. In the Niju Kun it says “Karate do no shogyowa issho de aru” or
Karate is a lifelong pursuit. As my instructor used to say “Karate is a
marathon, not a sprint”! Don’t rush to know things above your skill set or
outside of your own syllabus, instead focus on the core fundamentals of your
Karate. As students and instructors we
have to step back and focus on the things that will make solid Karate-ka out of
our students and not rush to learn above our grade. Funakoshi also said “Hita
kata sanen” or “one Kata….three years of training”. We don’t come close to this kind of training
today, more like “One Kata…three months of training”. For our part the JKA has slowed progress and
JKAMB has slowed it even more. We now focus on the improvement of Waza over
fancy training and we teach students patience, perseverance and focus on
improvement.
What
strikes me the most as an instructor is the students focus and insistence on
advancement in skill when they simply are not ready to move forwards. What
strikes me as a student of the arts is that some instructors are blinded by the
same need for advancement as the students are. They don’t see that the goal
should not be on doing the next level Kata or getting the next color belt, but
on perfection of the weapons and systems we are training in. My instructor always said that you have to
learn to crawl before you stand, you need to perfect standing before walking
and you need to walk well before you run, or your running will get you
hurt!...okay, it falls apart at the end but you know what I mean.
I
remember going to Ottawa a bunch of
years back and Tanaka Sensei had brought with him the students from a
university he taught at. The students for the most part wore white belts, the
odd member of the troop was wearing a black belt and was shown a great deal of
respect by the other students. We had a tournament that year and I thought that
it was going to be a bunch of white belts all competing against other white belts,
but the white belts were all lining up to spar with seniors in the Canadian
group. I was rather perplexed by this and scared for the white belts, whom all
looked eager and friendly enough…My thoughts were that they would get torn up
and think us mean people for making them spar against seniors…the funny part
they did not look scared at all and Tanaka Sensei did not seem upset at all
that they were going to face Saeki Sensei’s seniors. Then the tournament started…..
A
curious thing happened, the white belts were all lined up and one by one they
did their Kata against a Canadian counterpart, they all did Bassai Dai…white
belts doing Bassai Dai….and PERFECTLY. They were sharp, snapped and had perfect
form and waza. It was a bit embarrassing watching our best go against white
belts and not really match up! They Canadians held their own in Kata…..but
white belts were making our Senior brown belts look pretty bad! I watched the
Kumite matches go on and saw perfect speed, execution of waza so fast and
accurate it was scary so I had to ask Mrs. Saeki who the heck these kids were!
Mrs.
Saeki explained to me that the kids were all senior brown belts and black belts
with the university that Tanaka Sensei taught at, those wearing white belts
were because they refused to wear Kyu level rank belts we normally see. They have only worn white belts and one of
the students was waiting on seeing if he passed his Shodan (which I am sure he
did) and was going to wear the white belt till he got the okay to wear a black
belt…..all this confused me and really struck me as totally strange!
The
students who came with Tanaka Sensei valued the training and process more than
most of us in Canada were. They practiced every day for an hour (on the week
ends….4 hours on week days) and I was told that the training was mostly Kihon,
basic Kumite…not much Jiyu Kumite and a great deal of Kata work…nothing higher
than Bassai Dai however. They were ANIMALS.
Fast
forwards to a more recent experience I had. I was talking to a friend on line and
they were saying how great the students they trained with were doing, some were
fresh Shodans and were training for nationals learning Unsu! I was floored! Then
I watched the aforementioned Unsu…and it was obvious to anyone with half a
brain that the students should not be doing Unsu. The problem is that
instructors rush their students to try and keep them entertained or for fear of
losing them to others who will let them push beyond their acceptable skill
level. This to me is the epitome of stupidity! Never mind that someone may get
hurt or that the school is watering down the training. The students are getting
ripped off! They expect traditional standards, traditional skill development and
they are getting fast food martial arts.
A
friend of mine once said sport training was important, but roots in the
traditional essential. My goal is to focus my students on the traditional
essentials, the fundamentals and build both my foundation to be strong as well
as those of the students. Students should be focused on learning, working and
polishing the basics and the instructor should be holding them back from their
natural tendency to push to hard forwards and they should be working on
ingraining and hard wiring basics to the students to ensure a proper base in
training. This is traditional Karate training and proper progress in the art of
Karate.
