The purpose of practicing karate

People really get tied up in knots over this one. Mostly because they feel like their actions are being questioned if someone doesn't believe or practice the same as they do. Karate dojo are more church than gym. Their confidence gets shattered if someone does it differently.

There are definitely many different and overlapping reasons to practice karate. The most important and long impacting one being health and fitness. The mental, tactical and puzzle aspects of it keep it fresh and enjoyable unlike 45 minutes on a treadmill.

It does come down to either form or function I believe, and I don't mean kata form, but aesthetics. Is it the costumes, ritual and tradition that you like, or is it the functional movement. There is definitely beauty in watching a person who has practiced a kata to the point of intense internalization, but this a result of his dedication to function and not the other way around. The costumes, rituals, ranks, and traditions for the most part are about as useful as drawing flames on your sneakers to run faster.

Regardless of my feelings on the matter karate is a personal practice. Personal means you practice the way that benefits you, and ignore what everyone else is doing. This is the way it should be, and you should cultivate the confidence to be proud of the way you practice. Physics, anatomy and physiology remain constant through all of the martial arts. It's only how we understand and achieve these things, which are different.

Technique is not the problem with kata

I'm writing a whole book about this so I'll be brief.

It is ludicrously easy to come up with a scenario for a particular kata movement to become a technique or series of techniques. I practice one kata and I probably had 30 different interpretations for the first movement set alone in Seisan. Think about that. One little movement with 30 different variations. I'm fairly convinced that there are infinite applications. It is easy to find technique, but when you use a technique based system of practice where you try to get to a point where you can ingrain an automatic response this becomes tricky.

Let's say you need a 1,000 repetitions to ingrain a technique. Thirty applications means 30,000 repetitions. Every different technique I discover is another 1,000. So if the interpretations are functionally infinite, how do you do 1,000 repetitions of infinite? It's impossible.

Technique is not the answer. It's a parlor trick for demonstration. Technique is the visible expression of the application of principles. The context changes, the technique changes, but the movement and the principles stay the same.

If you're trying to build a catalogue of techniques based on your kata practice, you are wasting your time.

Naihanchi vs Seisan

The biggest difference I've found between the structure of Seisan, which I practice regularly and Naihanchi is how they show the relationships between movements.

Seisan is grouped in clumps of roughly three repetitive movements. The kata demonstrates how to move continuously with a single movement. One can ignore the lines of performance and go on to infinity and never have a definitive break. "Block," punch, move for instance. What is not demonstrated is how the different movements relate to one another. Kata is linear merely for presentation. It is impossible to have a non linear sequence of presentation. Unless you're some sort of N dimensional space alien.

Naihanchi on the other hand ignores how movements can be used continuously and instead demonstrates how the individual power movements can be linked together. Take the back hand to elbow movement in shodan. It begins with a step and then carries forward into the movement. One merely has to shift their weight and step forward again with their left foot to carry the same movement forward again. Step forward again and you return to the original position. This is not shown, but soon starts to look like the crescent steps and weight shifts of more forward facing kata like Seisan. Instead it chooses to focus it's attention on the movements being related and linked to one another, hence a mirror. Left and right.

What does this mean? Nothing really. Just be aware that the kata does not demonstrate linear application and that a kata cannot demonstrate everything at once even if you should be able to respond with any kata movement at any time.

The idea that a 100 year-old kata can predict what a living thinking human being can do is ludicrous and suggests that we're are all merely automatons.

Thoughts

I don't really like bunkai videos anymore. I used to like them a lot, but they don't really do it for me anymore. It's not really that they're bad, or that the ideas wouldn't work, but that they don't teach people to come to their own conclusions. They don't really teach people how to analyze kata for themselves.

I kind of think of kata as a spring board now, a template for possibilities and not so much as even different techniques. It's like a spring that gives rise to many different streams. The kata is the spring and the streams are the techniques, but the stream is not the spring.

I can come up with a bunch of drills, and techniques and variations of techniques and drills, and then make a flow drill to tie all of them together, but I don't think that would help people understand what a kata is in a helpful manner. A kata helps you build the tools to become a navigator. It's not a set of directions. If the directions are bad, or something goes wrong than there is no room to adapt. If you know how to navigate than you can come up with your own directions. You learn to adapt.

Practicing kata should start with identifying the principles that give rise to all techniques. Teachers should give students the analytical tools they need to find these answers for themselves. This way they can surpass the teacher instead of just following.

Finding Strategy in Kata

As I practice it, kata is a collection of principles. These principles are largely concerned with generating force to do work in an efficient manner. In the most simple terms, it's teaching you how to move to achieve a goal. The goal generally being to keep yourself safe from harm by ending a conflict, which is not just pounding the crap out of someone but also escape. If you exit the conflict, you also end the conflict, physically at least. These principles however usually have a common theme. This theme usually pops up in different incarnations, but the result is generally the same. This is the strategy.

I'm going to give a sport example. Ronda Rousey is super awesome at arm bars, and she's super awesome at hip throws. They are her strengths. They work together to achieve the goal of winning the fight. She can slam someone with a hip throw and while they're dazed she can put them in the arm bar. An effective strategy for her would be movements that exploit these two strengths. Getting close, distraction, softening blows, etc. If she were to create a kata, it would most likely involve different ways to exploit these two strengths. It would have a theme. It would be a group of tactics that work toward her larger strategy.

The common theme that I see in my flavor of Seisan is the explosive use of linear body movement and unbalancing an opponent through what could be called opposing action to knock them down. There are other things that can be gleaned, but most if not all of the movements I practice have the potential to just drop someone on their butt. There are other types of movements or "techniques" that can be gleaned from the kata, but to me these are the major themes. All the movements either help me do this, or help me get in a position to do this. This is of course just my opinion.

In short if you find the theme, you can find the strategy. You'll find the themes by studying how the kata moves you to deliver energy and what that kinetic energy has the potential to do. It's sometimes better to figure out what the moves are not good for.

This is just how I've tried to analyze it, and what I've found useful to me.

No Nonsense Self Defense

I'd like to turn people's attention toward this website, No Nonsense Self Defense, which I've added to my links. I've mentioned it before in another post, but I just wanted to repeat myself. It's full of great information on many subjects related to violence and self defense, and I encourage everyone to read it. I use this site as my bullshit meter. It helps me determine whether someone is trying to sell me snake oil. It's big, long and somewhat complicated so prepare to spend a few days glued to your computer reading all of Marc MacYoung's stuff.

Sorry if you recently tried to click on the link. It's now fixed.

Pressure Point Knock Outs

To paraphrase Rory Miller, if these pressure point knock outs were real than no one would survive a good massage.

I know you've probably seen the same videos as me. Some guy taps someone on the neck or the chin and they collapse like a boned fish onto the mat, and this guru has to do some sort of back rub to get the guy conscious again. This is stupid. People believe this stuff because they want the martial arts to be like magic. They want to power up like Dragon Ball Z, and turn into some ultimate unstoppable thing with their chi. Maybe not this exactly, but it's pretty close. I used to be one of these people. I wanted the martial arts to be magical and mystical. Some dojo don't try to refute this type of stuff. In some ways they encourage it when they say "you'll be able to unlock the kata subconsciously when attacked." It's playing on people's insecurities that they need an ultimate weapon.

I put this kind of stuff in the same category as the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, alien abductions, moon landing conspiracies and astral projection that is the utter crap category.

Edit: I'd also like to say that I don't care for pressure point fighting in general. Like I've said, I broke my arm riding my bike. Because of the adrenaline dump, I was able to pick the bike up, fix the chain and ride home. An hour later, I couldn't even lift it, so I find the idea of performing some type of vulcan nerve pinch rather dubious.

Push Hands and Constant Pressure

I like push hands as a training tool. It allows me to practice my structure against a person in a non-competitive fashion and practice many of the patterns in kata that are not only used for ballistic attack, but are also used to receive and redirect force and put you in a position to return force without changing positions. I don't want to have to stop and reset my position to manipulate someone. I want to be able to manipulate them from the position I'm currently in.

One thing I've learned while doing this is that you need to give constant pressure. This could be deemed sticky hands, but it's more than just keeping contact, it's keeping pressure. I want to bog down the other person, to throw off their balance and keep them reacting instead of acting. I want them to have to move, shift and reset to manipulate me, so that they're always a step behind me. Part of how I do this is using stances, weight shifts and stable arm positions to lean on them. The end middle block position is a surprisingly stable position for leaning on someone. If the other person doesn't use structure than they'll be bearing some of your weight. Proper stance integrity is essential when I do this because if the person suddenly shifts than I need to have my balance.

Another lesson is angles. Use them. Angles, angles, angles. When ever I read something or heard something where someone was talking about angles they always seemed to explain it like you were lunging at someone from a few feet away at an angle, usually a 45 degree angle. I think it can be a little more subtle than this. It's really the difference between pushing a boulder and rolling a boulder. Another example would be walking furniture. You push at an angle and then the other side at an angle or you tilt it at an angle and walk it back and forth. It's the same with a person. You don't want to push into the center of their mass you want to push at the angles and tip them.

Just a few thoughts.

Consumer Mentality

Our modern culture is a disservice to most of us in my opinion. Our consumer culture that is. The health, and safety aspects of it are wonderful. We for the most part are brainwashed by advertising. We all like to think that advertising doesn't effect us, but sadly it does. We are constantly bombarded with sales pitches to buy products and services, while each individual advertisement is for a different product, the message is always the same: "Buy this and your life will be better if not perfect." Notice that the message is almost never "buy this because it's a superior product."

All this advertising builds up in our brain and we're constantly given the impression that stuff = happiness. How many of us when we have a project that needs to get done immediately start looking for the tools that we "need" for the job? Television tells us that with the right tools any job is easy, so we buy the planer, the table saws, the exhaust fans and other various tools to build a bird house. We spend thousands of dollars trying to solve imaginary problems. We've essentially out sourced all of our thinking to merchandise. We are taught that almost any activity is so complicated that we need a specialist to do the job for us. It's supposed to be a convenience thing, but how many of us spend days waiting for equipment in the mail or spend hours driving around to buy something. We usually spend the extra time we have in front of the television anyway and pine after the lives of people who don't spend their entire lives in front of the television.

There's still cost in time however. Most if not all of us work for a living. If you work for an hourly wage you sell your time. "Time saving" contraptions still usually cost you time and money just in a different way. For instance you could spend a few days earning the money to buy a decent rotary tiller for your hobby garden. However, it would only take a shovel and a couple hours to double dig the garden and you'd have those days of pay in your pocket, plus a workout. Win, win. You could also choose to work less. More time for karate. Two hours of labor could literally save you days of work.

I believe one of the larger lessons of karate is learning to adapt and solve our own problems. If you outsource all of your problems you usually gain junk. If you learn and adapt, you get the job done and you also gain a skill.

Information at Cross Purposes

There's tons of information out there on any given subject that seems to contradict each other. People give information to people without the people who want the information truly understanding what they're asking.

Part of learning is not just asking questions, but knowing the right questions to ask. The cure is to ask questions and to keep asking questions and not to stop even if you're satisfied with the answer.

I see this all the time in many subjects from heating and cooling your house to physical fitness. Problems usually arise because someone has a problem, but instead of truly understanding it they go out and find a patch. The patch makes more problems, so they get another patch. It's like a massive game of telephone where the actual problem never actually gets addressed because it was never actually discovered, but you end up with a weird "fix" to the problem.

A recent example of this comes from bodybuilding. I'm not a bodybuilder, but I like to stay in shape to look good for my mate and everyone else. There's a lot of weird contradictory information about what it takes to get big muscles because of one piece of information that's usually lacking, because a question is never asked. Are you on steroids? Steroids almost completely changes the way you train, because they circumvent your body's natural processes. If you're on steroids you train a specific way, which is almost opposite to the way you have to train when you do it naturally. On steroids you work out for volume, so you do relatively low weight for lifting and do it a lot. If you're not on steroids and work out this way you will not see the same results, because you're not on drugs. However if you ask a bodybuilder what type of work out he does, he'll tell you and he's not lying, he's just not telling you the information you really need. I'm not on steroids by the way. I don't have big muscles either.

This happens in martial arts as well. Sports, aesthetics, combat, fighting, self defense, fitness and spiritualism have all been blended together to give us a bunch of information at cross purposes. Training for all of these is different yet many people think they're all the same. They model their training off of professional fighters, but don't understand that professional athletes train in a cycle with well defined training plans because they know exactly when they need to perform. It's on a calendar. In combat there are a huge amount of resources that go into each battle with each aspect of the larger military campaign assigned to a different type of unit, which each have their own individual goals and training. In self defense it's prudent not to push yourself so hard that you can't respond to a sudden violent attack. All that training doesn't do much good if you're limping down the road because you train full contact five days a week, and a half starved hobo just has to push you over to get your wallet, when otherwise you could have just ran away.

Technique for example is an illusion. There is no such thing. There are effects on the body. If I trip someone, it's not because I used my foot, hand, a chair or a fart, it's because the other person lost their balance. I made them lose their balance, but it's the result that's desired not how I get there. I don't care how I get there. However, if I train in a system where I need to learn a specific gesture or choreographed scene to get my next colored belt than technique is important. I will be tested on how I get to the result. The result is usually an assumed afterthought.

If the focus is on self defense than technique is less important than result. If the focus is on sport and who can do a specific group of techniques better than the other person than technique is very important. Sport is the cart before the horse. But, technique is important right? Nope, it's not. It's as if a soldier would stand up in the middle of combat and say "hey, time out guys. This dude didn't kill this guy right. He didn't use the right technique." Like they care as long as it gets done.

This is where these inane arguments about how long you should practice a technique for come from and when you've "mastered" something. As if there is such a thing. You practice until you die. End of story, let's move on to something more productive.

All this different information leads to a lot of wasted effort. Patches on patches on patches. People who train in techniques to get belts, because they believe they'll get skill, but all they have are belts and a dictionary as if owning a dictionary made you a writer. They add more technique to patch their kata because that's not real and then they add more techniques for different scenarios to patch the fact that they don't know how to use the movements they already have creatively to get results. They add more patches and techniques from other parts of karate to try and "understand" movements that they never sat down and studied to begin with as if being in a thousand one day relationships is the same as being in one thousand day relationship. Add to the fact that this is all just pissing in the wind when it comes to the complexity of violence and what it takes to survive the conflict physically and survive the aftermath mentally and spiritually.

The point is if you're a karateka sit down and look at what  you have right now. How can you use it? How can you abuse it? Do you really understand it? People survive in harsher environments with just a loin cloth and their wits. I think we can all learn to use what we have around us and inside us instead of looking for more imaginary fixes to made up problems.

Changing Gears and Getting Started

I'd like to try and switch gears a little bit with this blog and try and focus on its true intent, which is encouraging the individual study of karate through the practice of a single kata. While this has always really been the case, it's easy to get pulled into tiny little details regarding different types of practices and traditions. This usually involves a lot of critiquing, which can be fun and enlightening, but overall it can be very negative and exhausting. It does very little to encourage people in their own independent study. I'm going to try and remedy this as best I can.

There are many obstacles that can stand between a person and their ability to practice karate in the conventional sense. Time, money and location are the biggest three hurdles that keep a person from engaging in this very fulfilling activity. Money can be tight, a good place to learn can be far away and many people work odd shifts to support themselves and their families. Luckily kata can be both the textbook and the tool.

The study of karate can be achieved independently from any other person or organization with the practice of a single kata. It is however a very daunting prospect to undertake, but no more daunting than practicing at your local commercialized school. With diligent practice and an inquisitive attitude, it's possible to learn a great deal from one kata on your own. It's important to note however that because you are only focusing on one kata, you will not be learning a style, brand or type of karate. You will be studying your karate and it will be whatever you can make it. This is exactly the same as any other karateka, but you will not have the luxury of claiming status, legitimacy or the accomplishments of others through an established organization. There will be no cookie cutter template of acceptable practice, and there will be no one to hold your hand and point out any mistakes. You will be solely responsible for yourself. This is as it should be.

I am sometimes hesitant to characterize my own practice as karate, because karate in many ways is more of a combined cultural heritage made up of many kata rather than any single kata on its own.

To start, one must first find themselves a kata. You may already have a little background in karate and know a kata or two, but if you don't there are usually plenty of books available at your local library and there are thousands of videos on the internet to use as reference material. The Seisan and Naihanchi kata are fairly simple foundational kata. There are many different variations of each kata and there is no "true" version. Each usually just emphasize different aspects of the kata.

Even with personal instruction at a commercial dojo there is no guarantee that you will receive proper instruction. It's best to be patient, go slow, pay careful attention and practice. All the movements will feel unnatural and awkward in the beginning. This is normal. Keep calm and carry on.

To be continued...

Karate Snobs and Secrecy

Guilty. Of the first at least.

There are definitely all kinds of karate snobs that range all over the spectrum. Even the biggest, clown wig wearing mcdojo hanshi sifu can be a snob, but let's be fair the snobs usually reside on the shiny hardwood floor side of things right next to their hand crafted Okinawa toilet paper. You know who you are. This can just be part of maturing through karate, but I think it sticks with some and it's just as much of a problem as a mcdojo.

I'll be the first to admit to doing this. My first dojo was very traditional, run by a very high ranking individual, who belongs to a very reputable karate organization in Okinawa. The dojo looked like many Okinawa dojo. Anything that wasn't super traditional to me was bogus. I'm still guilty of being a snob, but at heart I'm really trying to make people better. I want people to think, explore and learn. This requires permission and there are about 0 reputable karateka that I've heard of that do this.

They act like they're giving permission, but they really aren't. It's a giant "catch-22." It goes something like this.

"You need to explore what karate means to you under a qualified instructor."

I saw what you did there. Qualified can mean basically anything. Especially in karate. These people will basically call all karate bullshit, but then say that you have to find someone good who can teach it. Hmm, one of these things is not like the other. What kind of logic is that?

This is compounded by the fact that secrecy is still alive and well in karate. This is secrecy through omission. This is usually done for "moral" reasons. They don't want people to misuse it.  These karateka want to get to know you, feel you out for eight years and then start teaching you how everything actually works, but you have to get an invitation to their super secret dojo first. Sometimes they'll only teach the good stuff at certain times. My first dojo only taught good stuff at noon on weekdays. This makes a lot of sense if you live on a small island with very intense weapon bans, but means very little if you can go to your local Walmart and walk out with a shotgun in about 20 minutes, or a cheap utility knife at a gas station.

Karate takes a lifetime of practice. Wild slashing with a utility knife takes as much time to master as it does to get it out of the packaging. Which do you think is more dangerous?

These are great karateka and they'll be better karateka than I will ever be, but these actions push people to bad places. People are forced to pick the lesser of evils and then have to waste eight years before they figure out whether it's crap. They'll most likely be brainwashed by then anyway. Soft clap. Bravo.

I've got one thing to say to all of you.

"Fuck you."

The secret is that you have to do it all yourself. You have to learn on your own, you have to study on your own, you have to practice on your own, and you have to think on your own and most importantly you can't stop. You can't find a place you feel comfortable and stop. There is no stopping. There is only more doing. No matter how awesome your sensei is and no matter how great a teacher he is you still have to do the work. The sensei doesn't do the work for you.

The next secret is that it might not work and probably won't work, not because it's a bad martial art, but because you have very little experience breaking people. The kicker is that you're not supposed to get experience, because self defense is about keeping yourself safe. The criteria for success is not getting into fights.

Here's your permission from a non-reputable karateka. Go practice for fun. Find a kata you like and a little bit of space and practice, practice everything, think, study and think some more. You have to do the work on your own anyway. Cut out the middle man and keep your money. Practice for fun, fitness and problem solving. Kata is like a puzzle half the fun is figuring it out. Start slow there's no rush. It's literally supposed to take the rest of your life.

Here's a riddle for all the karate snobs:

If the worst mcdojo in the world keeps people out of trouble and keeps them out of fights, is it bad karate?

Mastery

Qualifications are a big thing in the martial arts despite most being completely worthless and some being only slightly worthless. Usually we like to talk about years of practice or hours of practice, 20 years, 30 years, 70 years, 5,000 hours, 10,000 hours, 30,000 hours. I've read recently that 10,000 hours was the master mark though I always go with the 30,000 hour rule, which would take about 90 years if one practices one hour a day. Ten thousand hours for me is proficient. It takes about 10,000 hours of education to get a PHD. 

More importantly does this matter? Not at all.

I don't really care about time spent training. I care about skill. If someone has been practicing half the amount of time I have and is super awesome than I want to find out what they have to teach me. The same as all the quacks that have 20-30 years of practice, who aren't worth bothering with.

If someone wants to try and get in that 10,000 hours of practice, go for it. I don't really care. They either do it or they don't, and they either learn something or they don't. It's up to them to do the work.

Only the people who are willing to continually learn, work, practice and play will get good at anything. The people who practice something hollow for 10,000 hours are only dangerous to themselves and doesn't impact me at all, so do what you like. I'll keep learning.

Are You a Real Karateka?

Why?

The first question is a little easier to answer. The why part is a little harder to answer. The easiest explanation is that you go to a karate dojo, but even this answer gets murkier if you ask more specifics. The 20th degree black belt and the pilgrim to Okinawa are usually equally sure that what they're doing is the "true" way. The majority of people are pretty positive that there is a checklist of what constitutes karate, but it seems like everyone is working off a different checklist. People and other martial artists in general have a check list for karate whether karateka like this or not. Basically karate is Japanese, it is comprised of punches, kicks, blocks and doesn't work. The fastest way to piss off another martial artist is to say their stuff looks like karate. On the next Brazilian Jiu jitsu video you see on You Tube, write the comment "looks like karate" and sit back as the hate rolls in. This embodies the basic types of classifications and generalizations about empty handed fighting systems. They're divided by country of origin, technique, training practices, tradition and aesthetics. All of these lines look really blurry when we start to look at them more closely. For the sake of brevity, I'll talk about only a few general aspects.

Let's first look at the name karate. It means empty hand. Every good little karate kid knows this. It's also pretty common knowledge that the name changed to this from China hand or China Hand. Karate being a synthesis between the local fighting art of Te or Hand and Chinese fighting arts. But karate is Japanese, right? Is it?  Okinawa is now technically part of Japan, but it was its own independent nation and heavily influenced by China. Karate was adopted by the Japanese and changed to promote their needs. So is karate Chinese, Okinawan, Japanese or a mix? If we look at the name literally as Empty Hand then it would seem to encompass all of the unarmed fighting arts. Some have even claimed to trace the roots of the unarmed martial arts back to Alexander the Great, so wouldn't that make all martial arts European? Things are already looking pretty blurry.

These are mostly outside labels, but karateka have their own individual labels that they use to distinguish themselves. This usually has to do with technique, training practices, aesthetics and tradition. The entire basic argument behind all of these is "We don't do it like that we do it like this." You could say that karate is only stand up striking, until you find someone who uses karate on the ground. You could say that karate has mostly linear movements until you see a Goju Ryu stylist perform Saifa. You name the training practice, aesthetics or technique and you can find a karate stylist practicing it. Tradition is the biggest divider between karateka, which is basically saying that you belong to a different branching stream off of the glacier that is the past. We're all cousins and fairly close cousins.

So are you a real karateka and why?

Should you even care?

The most important thing for any martial art or self defense system is that it should enrich your life. It should get you healthier and not break you. It should be fun and not a chore. It should allow you the freedom to think as wide and as deeply as you wish.

Staying Positive, and Play and Movement

Staying Positive

It's hard to stay positive as a karateka. There are so few definitive answers in conflict already, but karate seems incredibly ambiguous as well. There aren't many definitive answers in karate either. Usually the days where I'm positive that I finally understand the essence of my kata are the same days where I feel I know the least and should stop kidding myself. There are plenty of other things that can make me feel negative toward karate. Tribalism, cults, fantasies, politics, egos and money to name just a few. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I remember eventually that ambiguity is one of the things I like most about karate. If there is no right answer, there is no wrong answer, so I keep on practicing and stop worrying about it.

Play and Movement

In a very real way the kata tells you what you're doing. The kata teaches you about karate by making you move and speaking to you through that movement. You just have to learn how to listen. Learning how to listen involves playing with the movement and figuring out where your kinetic energy is going. Usually it's a combination of forward movement and dropping down into a stance using gravity. It's a feeling similar to falling, but you fall into a stable structural stance, like front stance if exploding forward. There's also rotational energy and using leg strength to push up into a technique.

Figuring out in what direction your energy is moving is key to understanding what you can accomplish with the arm and leg movements attached to each portion of a kata. Body weight, gravity and structure are what power techniques. It's what makes them work. How you move dictates what type of techniques you can use. So forget about what your arms are doing, while you practice and focus on your stance, your footing and where you feel your center of gravity moving or your hara.

The fun part.

This is really where play comes in. Practicing the kata as a kata is great, but it's a best case scenario situation to showcase use of body weight, gravity and structure. One needs to know how to apply them in a more free form fashion. Take a section from your favorite kata and play with it. Don't just repeat the movements like a drill. Change tempo, stance length, speed and direction. Make it a dance and just feel how your body is moving. Stretch a stance to it's limits. How wide can you get before you become unbalanced, how narrow can you get before the stance loses meaning, are you dropping or pushing, how quickly can you move between each position at random. Practice the stances, but keep them fluid, loose and mobile. We want good principles not aesthetically pleasing sculptures.

Don't be afraid to do things wrong. Doing something wrong can tell you more than doing something right. Structure and balance is particularly squishy meaning that it's more of a "within accepted parameters" concept rather than right or wrong. You want to find the limits of the movements, so you know how far you can stress your balance and structure. If you're off balance than you know how not to do it. Everything becomes a lesson.

Most importantly it comes down to thinking, feeling and playing.

The Failure of Modern Karate-Do

Modern Karate-Do was never meant to be a practical self defense art. This is because of the Do or Tao, however you want to say it, which places the emphasis on spiritual development, Zen. Though a serious student of Zen doesn't call it that because it is The Way or Do. The serious applications of karate are not an essential part of this path of study. Despite this the practice still fails as a spiritual study because the techniques were not the only things that changed. The practice changed as well. This is where it went wrong.

Zen is sitting meditation, or zazen. It is posture, breathing and awareness. This is all. It's a simple exercise that sets a person on the path. You sit, you pay attention to your posture and breathing and let your thoughts go. Kata, a single kata, fills the same function as seated meditation. This was how karate was taught classically. This was how all the "founders" learned karate. Gichin Funakoshi spent ten years on the Naihanchi kata alone. Karateka learned other kata after they had a rock solid foundation in one. The parallel between Zen and karate is repeating a mundane task over and over and over again. It's repeating a single task as a foundation that slowly seeps into other aspects of your life. This is the aspect of karate that leads to self awareness, and it's one of the major changes the founders made.

I believe the founders misidentified the root of this spiritual development to karate itself instead of the repetitive act of a single task. They believed practicing all of karate would give you the desired result even though no one had practiced it this way. There was no reason to doubt this, but I think the results speak for themselves. The reason for this is they forgot about thinking.

Thinking is the big difference between meditation and none meditation. I'm not talking about ignorance or stupidity or knowledge, academic thinking. I'm talking about being present in the moment and focusing on what you're doing. Full commitment and intent on the task. Practicing several kata keeps you thinking all of the time. You think about your form, what you're doing, whether you're doing it right and whether you need to do it more. You're thinking about grading, testing, making your sensei proud, what you're going to learn next and the other students. Your focus is on everything except the moment. There isn't much to think about with one kata. Your focus is on one thing and your movement. The movement becomes as natural as breathing. The only goal is to practice the kata, so you practice the kata fully committed and intent, because there isn't anything else to think about. This is what leads to spiritual growth, not karate. One could do the same thing washing dishes.

We've had more than 60 years of modern karate-do. It has not created a legion of self aware people, who can become fully intent and committed to the moment. It has created a legion of people arguing about where your big toe should be pointed during a kata performance and how many years it should take before you tie different colored belts around your waist. Spiritual development has been the excuse for lousy karate, but modern karate-do lacks the characteristics to develop any spirit.

Simplicity Over Complexity

I see much more complexity in karate than efficiency. I think this is a backlash to the kind of punch, kick and block interpretations that people are so used to seeing. Karate can't be too simple anymore. I fear that it's only been replaced by overly complex maneuvers and frankly just as preposterous situations. Just because something is complex doesn't mean that it's better.

There are straight forward, effective and robust movements in every karate kata. It's okay for karate to be simple as long as it's effective.

Modern Violence and Karate

The key to understanding old school karate and their training methods is violence. Not the type of violence that most people are aquainted with, such as movies, television and sporting matches, but social and asocial violence. Violence is what links the past and the present.

The past is filled with such extreme violence that in comparison the conflicts of today look about as dangerous as chamomile tea. Any injury could become infected and lead to death, or cripple you and cause you and your family to starve due to lack of income. The stakes were much higher in the past. They didn't have many of the safety stops that we enjoy in the first world, such as medicine, law and order, and welfare. However, the criteria for surviving in those conditions are very similar to surviving a violent conflict today. Avoidance and ruthless efficiency.

Even old manuals on civil self defense arts mention the importance of avoiding conflict and escape. Along with behavioral rules to be respectful, to mind your manners and to keep your mouth shut. It's not empty character building. It's how you stay out of fights and survive. If you're nice, respectful and courteous to everyone you meet, the conflicts you have with people drop significantly. According to Marc MacYoung, the best indicator that you're about to be attack is you're being an asshole.

The physical part is very similar as well. The opponent should be downed in one move. The longer the conflict goes on the chances of injury and death go way up. Attack and defense must be simultaneous and you must have a handful of moves ingrained so deep that you act automatically.

Reading about modern day violence is what made me understand karate the most. I suggest that if you want to study karate more deeply you look to modern texts on violence, social behavior and crime. It's a bridge to the past.

Keep in mind that this is not an endorsement of karate for self defense. Karate can be used for self defense, but it must be remembered that karate was developed during the 19th century in Okinawa. The moral, ethical and legal ramifications are different for that time period and environment than the time and place we live now. Know your laws.

Kata in the Cold

It's been snowing for the last two days and it's below freezing outside, but I went outside to practice anyway. I practiced the kata for about twenty minutes stamping down the snow and adjusting to the difference. Then I spent a few minutes striking the pounding post.

It's always good to practice in varying weather conditions and terrain. It's easy to say you have a stance locked in when your bare toes are gripping the dojo floor, but it's harder to say when your leg muscles have to lock in a stance while sliding on snow and ice to keep yourself from falling, while wearing boots. It's a different feeling. Different terrain calls for different stance depths and there needs to be a certain amount of adaptability when dealing with uneven footing. These are things most don't talk about in the rigid uniformity of the dojo.

It's also good to be uncomfortable. Can you practice with the wind throwing snow in your face? Can you stick it out until your body heat compensates for your thin clothing? Can you keep going after your shoes are soaked and your fingers are numb? Questions that need answering.

Direct Action

I like to practice direct action in my karate. Direct action is only acting on things that you have direct control over. You can't control your opponent's actions, but you can control your own. It's acting on the openings that are presented to you and acting on them instantly, not waiting for the openings that you want. You can't control the opponent. Direct action is movement that breaks down an opponent despite the actions of the threat. I don't like to gamble as to whether an opponent will react the way I wish him to.