Traditional progress in training.

 

               

Again, I am admitting that I am a bit of an old fashioned guy when it comes to my Karate training. As part of that adherence to the old ways of training I take pride in monitoring and managing the training of my students. I don’t teach them things that are beyond their current skill set, I used to think instructors who let their students learn Kata way outside their training level were bad instructors….I now think that they are just misguided. Students learn at different paces but when you attend some clubs you see brown belts doing advanced Kata way outside the curriculum and they normally…are not doing them well.

                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.