Hahaha. You ever heard those two words go together? Maybe. I haven't. But that's what I been thinkin' about recently.
I just got an email update from a friend in Detroit. She told me about the housing cooperative they are building on Field St. in East Detroit. It is exciting stuff and it is the reason I went to Detroit in the first place. My friend also gave a speech recently (read it on her blog here), quoting from Grace Lee Boggs:
“And unless we want to live in terror
for the rest of our lives [think of the fear that drove George Zimmerman], we
need to change our view about acquiring things.” The antidote to consumption is
creation. The antidote to violence is interconnection. The antidote to fear is
community. “Beloved community,” Grace says, “is the essence of the next
American revolution.”
My thoughts exactly. And I'm thinking about Personal Safety. I'm thinking about in the meantime. I'm thinking about the people who don't give a f--- about "beloved community" and would rather make a quick deal on the street. I'm thinking about the ones who have a mean streak. Who got no respect for the boundaries of other human beings and who use their weapons to scare others into submission. I believe that there are hella more good people in this world than bad, but who then will respond to the bad? Who will respond to the violence? We need a new kind of "police officer". Not even like the old kind. I went to a documentary screening about the Zapatistas in Mexico the other day and found out that there are like community "police" in their communities. That they are proficient in hand-to-hand combat. That they carry machetes. I think about my upcoming work with Kid Power. I think about my hoped for volunteering and participation with the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP). I think about my jujutsu training with Sensei Mike at the dojo. I'm thinking about all of that and I'm thinking, "how can I be of service to this beloved community?" And I see those things as being like getting qualified in that, you know? Not that I need a name tag or a certificate or a title to qualify me. But that I need training in those things in order to know how they work and how they can be implemented into whatever particular situation. This is me dreaming big now. Maybe it's not right to associate the karate of my ancestors with Beloved Community, but I think they go together like peanut butter and jelly. Okinawan karate should be (I agree with Sensei Nagamine) an art of peace. Therefore, I think, how do we practice it as such? How do we manifest it as such? This is the real, honest reason I got involved with karate in the first place 6 years ago; I wanted to acquire a real skill that I could use in defense of some vague notion of "community" (that's such an abused term).
In retrospect, I realize that I may not have really been ready to receive such skill (demon's hand). And I'm only just now beginning to get a better understanding of what that community looks like and how my training connects with that.
I need to know what I'm doing. I need to know why I'm training. I need to know what purpose my training can serve. That purpose to me has to be something larger than myself. I need to know what my art is for or what I want it to effect. It may not effect like how I want it to affect but that's okay. I just need to know what I'm going for. Without a strategy, all the tactics in the world can't save you. Without a strategy, how can a team attempt to win the game? You might have the best talent in the world. But no strategy? Then you're just relying on your luck.
I'm trying to figure my life out here in Oakland. Not being able to train for a month sucks. But it's good cause it allows me time to evaluate my VISION. This is something I've been struggling with since I left for Detroit. I see it as a necessary step in my life right now.
Something is off right now though. I'm not sure what it is. A thought came to me the other day that maybe I'm in the wrong movie? That was kind of a scary thought.
I need to push ahead with honesty, humility and integrity.
This past Sunday after my morning Wing Chun class, I did like I sometimes do and stayed a bit longer at the dojo to do some stretching. Perhaps my body was not warmed up enough, perhaps it was poor conditioning, and/or perhaps I overworked my body doing certain drills in class, whatever the case, I ended up with a minor (very slight) soreness in my right hip after doing my usual hip-flexor stretch:
There were no other complications the rest of that day or night despite that minor soreness.
The next day I had my Monday evening jujutsu class. We didn't do anything unusual that night; some falling, lifting, rolling, etc. Nothing I hadn't done before. Throughout the class though I did feel the soreness in my right hip a little more acutely but nothing that alarmed me.
I went to bed that night at my usual time. I remember not sleeping very well. My right hip area felt cramped and I couldn't lay my leg flat. I was sorta in and out of sleep the whole night. Things went from a minor soreness to a swelling pain overnight.
When I woke up the next morning I realized I could barely move. It wasn't like a sharp pain or anything, it just felt like a really bad bruise or an extreme cramp. I texted my friend telling him that I had to cancel our plans to hang out that day because I couldn't get up. Fortunately since we live in the same apartment complex, he came up to my room and helped me out. It wasn't until the evening of that day that my friend finally convinced me to go to the hospital. I didn't think it was that serious to go despite the fact that it felt as though my ability to move had become much more difficult since that morning. He drove me to the ER and to make a long story short, we stayed there for about 5 hours.They took some x-rays, drained some blood, got my urine, did an ultrasound to look at my bones, etc. What the physicians on duty figured out was that I had torn my muscle and there was some internal bleeding which is what was
contributing to the pain. They gave me crutches, a prescription for some Vicadin and advised me to stay away from the dojo for about a month or longer to fully recover.
It's been a couple days since that trip to the ER and I'm feeling much better. I can even walk around my room without my crutches, albeit with a hobble in my step. I'm kinda surprised at how I feel actually. I'm certainly not going to risk going back to training any sooner than necessary. But it's just funny how I went from being basically helpless a couple days ago to now being able to make my own meals. And don't even get me started on how difficult it was to sit on the toilet! WHEW! That was a mini-ordeal.
This is the first time in my life that I've done any serious injury to my body. I hope it's the last (or at least a rare future occurrence). All I could remember thinking as I lay there in the ER hospital bed waiting for the physician to check on me was the words of my Sensei:
All you have is your health.
That may sound pretty obvious to some people, but for lots of reasons it's not always apparent. People wanna learn how to fight, how to hurt, how to maim, how to injure or how to kill. Guys especially wanna be the one who is toughest, who hits hardest, who stays in the fight longest. What's so hilarious and serious to me is how fragile we are as human beings. Hilarious because we think our training makes us tough and yet the smallest paper cut, the slightest speck in your eye, the littlest splinter in your foot can make you irritated with pain. Knowing how to hurt someone, but also how to heal someone, including yourself (whether physically, mentally, or spiritually) seems to me the necessary paradoxical task of the authentic martial artist. IMHO.
So for the past few weeks I have been contemplating what the best martial path for me to take is. Because I have not found any qualified "practical karate" teachers in the Bay Area, I have been considering whether or not to continue my Wing Chun training or Danzan-ryu jujutsu. I am giving myself this month of July to figure these things out. I have spoken with both of my instructors on this matter and have received different answers. The only thing that has become clear through all of this inquiry is that the kind of training I am looking for must be created by me. I'm not talking about having my own school; I'm talking about the specific way and methods in which I train. I'm also not saying there's not someone out there that doesn't offer what I want and need, it's just that they may not be local or accessible.
Although it isn't the end of the month yet, I can say that I am leaning towards focusing on Danzan-ryu jujutsu with Sensei Mike Esmailzadeh. This is sort of an unexpected decision for me in that I initially wanted to begin training in Wing Chun because I thought it might help me to better understand practical karate and that's the first thing I sought out after arriving in Oakland. Ironically enough, the Wing Chun classes were being held at the Suigetsukan Dojo which is where Sensei Mike teaches. On a whim and out of curiosity I decided to check out the jujutsu classes because I saw that as being something integral to my understanding of karate. Although the same disappointment arose in me with regards to the fact that the attention of the classes focused more on skill/etiquette/culture without any attention paid to fitness, I saw that I had a good connection with Sensei Mike as a person. And I think that's been an important consideration for me as a student; whether or not I am able to connect to the teacher/the school/and the students, let alone the art itself. What is interesting about the art of Danzan-ryu, historically speaking, is that its founder (Sensei Seishiro "Henry" Okazaki) incorporated elements of Okinawan karate into his system. And when Okazaki sensei initially moved from Japan to Hawaii in his childhood, they settled in Hilo, which is where my grandparents used to live. And funny enough too, the name "Danzan" is Chinese in origin and translates to "Sandalwood Mountain", which is what the Chinese used to call Hawaii; Sensei Okazaki used this term as a way to honor one of his teachers who was Chinese. The other hilarious thing too (is that just me?) is that I took up judo for five months while still doing karate in the hopes of finding an art that complimented the 1/4th of my Japanese ancestry (my dad, uncles and cousin all did/do judo so I thought it was the perfect art to connect with). Well, perhaps I've finally found my own way of connecting to that part of me.
So my point with highlighting all of this is just to say that, not only do I have a connection with the teacher (which is important), there is also a connection with the art itself, its founder and even the name. This is gonna sound silly but because my partner is Chinese I saw Wing Chun as being the perfect complement to that. But this 'Chinese connection' is still maintained in the fact that the name is Chinese in origin. That sounds almost silly but it helps to give me some meaning. It's like those little road signs along the way that let you know you're in the right general direction. And fitting too in that the signs you're reading don't always point in the direction you think.
Whatever the case may be, this is the current martial path I am about to step on. Where it leads me I'm not sure. The thing about Wing Chun is, I really like it. It not only looks cool, but at a high level of skill the Chun is just wicked man. Its methods are brutally practical, simple, and direct (much like how karate once was practiced). There's no beating around the bush; the strategy of Wing Chun and its tactics are clear (hit the head or neck; and if blocked, remove obstructions to keep hitting the head/neck). But I have to accept the fact that I'm obviously not in this to look cool. What's important is whether or not that martial path can lead me to accomplishing my goals. Looking "cool" is just a side effect....hahaha.
Yesterday in class Sifu Greg quoted something that his teacher, Sifu Gary Lam told him:
"An ox works hard all day, but at the end of the day it's still an ox."
What Sifu Greg explained was that gongfu is not only about working hard to develop the skill, it is about knowing what you need to work hard on. That is to say, knowing what you are training for and how to train for that. Otherwise, like that ox, you can be working hard all day and still not be progressing in your training. This of course seems like common sense, but especially with martial arts, oftentimes the student (like me) has no clear idea about why they are training and what exactly they are training for. Again, the goal, the strategy, needs to be clearly defined. Or defined enough perhaps so that you know the general direction you want to go. My Sensei has of course said the same thing, albeit without the animal analogy. It seems to me that anyone who has ever worked hard and achieved a certain skill level in their life tends to understand this. I'm just gettin' started here...
That's one of the phrases the facilitator had us "repeat after me" at the recent Kidpower workshop I attended in Berkeley yesterday.
While I am not permitted to blog about this experience in detail because of a confidentiality head-nod (yes, she had us nod our heads in agreement that we would not record or transmit our experiences at this workshop in any public way because things said and done in the workshop could be seen as horrible when taken out of context), I am going to say that I believe the instructor training with Kidpower is my next big step here in Oakland. The skills I learned and gained at this workshop go deeper than just "personal safety"; they were human skills; skills that spoke to the conduct and behavior we need to practice as personally responsible human beings in order to evolve past the "victim-mentality" that so many of us, including me, have.
This is a big next step for me because it will require a courage in me that I don't know I have to be able to eventually one day, stand up in front of a group of people (young and old) and effectively help them to practice and understand these skills. As I said before in my blogs, this is a field that I believe is one aspect of the holistic nature of karate training. I think if the Okinawan masters were right and this art should be one about "peace" (as I believe it should be), then it is imperative that this kind of training (or something similar) be integrated into a dojo curriculum. Having the skill to hurt someone or even seriously maim, injure or kill them (which is essentially what martial arts teaches) is not sufficient enough to be able to evolve the human being from the inside-out (which is what the stereotype of martial arts is). I don't believe transforming yourself internally as a human being through the martial arts has anything to do with some mystical mumbo-jumbo jumping-around-in-trees-smashing-wood-blocks-sitting-under-waterfalls type of training (although that last one might be a good way to wake yourself up in the morning!). I think it obviously has more to do with gaining real, down-to-earth, easy-to-learn-hard-to-practice human interaction skills (and not just with others, but how you interact with yourself!).
Anyways, all this blahging about my personal belief in the importance of integrating "personal safety" training in the karate dojo is just to be redundant and say:
"No matter how you may excel in the art of te*, and in your scholastic endeavors, nothing is more important than your behavior and your humanity as observed in daily life." - Teijunsoku (Okinawan scholar, b. 1663)
And I'm definitely still working on that one.
Elbow SMASH!
- Hiji Até
* "The Okinawans developed their own unique art of self-defense; te literally means hands...The art of te antedated that of karate...te developed as it absorbed aspects of the martial arts from other countries, particularly China." (pg. 20, The Essence of Okinawan Karate-do)
“No
matter how you may excel in the art of fighting [te], and in your
scholastic endeavors, nothing is more important than your behavior and
your humanity as observed in daily life.”
- Teijunsoku (b. 1663), Okinawan scholar
- See more at: http://www.karatebyjesse.com/choosing-the-right-path-towards-the-ultimate-aim-of-karate/#sthash.GYZ3a8Yc.dpuf
“No
matter how you may excel in the art of fighting [te], and in your
scholastic endeavors, nothing is more important than your behavior and
your humanity as observed in daily life.”
- Teijunsoku (b. 1663), Okinawan scholar
- See more at: http://www.karatebyjesse.com/choosing-the-right-path-towards-the-ultimate-aim-of-karate/#sthash.GYZ3a8Yc.dpu
1. Too many martial arts students have too many false assumptions about what violence is. Unfortunately those assumptions are only reinforced during practice.
2. Too many students too caught up with the form of the art rather than the doing, i.e. "Sensei! Should I be turning my left foot at a 45 degree angle or a 46 degree angle?".
3. White students telling me what is or what is not proper in a so-called "traditional" Japanese dojo that's located nowhere near that country makes me feel annoyed.
4. Realizing that I'm getting annoyed at those white students for telling a Japanese person like myself what is or what is not "traditional" when in fact I'm culturally Westernized makes me want to laugh...and then slap myself.
5. Too many students too caught up with the style rather than the principles.
7. Too many students falsely believing that what they're learning from their Tuesday/Thursday night one-hour martial arts class is going to help them "in the street" when the time comes.
8. Finding most dojo to be filled with hobbyists rather than serious martial artists.
9. It really is true that the Person makes the art, not the other way around.
10. Although most modern martial arts students will probably never have their skills be tested (and I don't mean for a belt promotion), it is still dangerous to be taking a martial arts class that does not at least give to the student the chance to experience a simulation of physical violence with non-compliant partners.
11. Too many students (and teachers!) too caught up in the tradition of the damn thing rather than being concerned about what informed that tradition in the first place.
12. I'm not joining your dojo for a lesson in Japanese culture (I can get that by going online or enrolling in a Japanese class at my local community college). I'm joining because I want to have confidence in civilian self-protection.
13. Too many damn students thinking they're being good students by always blindly following "tradition".
14. There are of course benefits to having a formalized/standardized way of training, but when the training becomes so formalized so as to dissuade you from thinking critically about it (or even changing it), that's called stupidity.
15. Recognizing that although I have all these concerns and critiques about training, my own training is lacking in many of these areas.That needs to change dammit!!!
Sifu Greg was correcting me the other day about keeping my elbows in when doing the two-person drills and also looking at the target area I'm striking towards (the center-line) because I have a bad habit of looking down (which makes my body lean forward; needs to be straight). Being the perfectionist I am I immediately thought "Damn! I'm doing it wrong!". But then I got over it, realizing of course that this kind of "attribute training" takes time to make it become a characteristic of your body. But what Sifu Greg said about habits is something my Sensei has said to me countless times before. Which got me thinking about what makes a good martial artist. And I thought: Martial arts is about skill building like any other activity that utilizes the human body; the "skill" you are training for is fighting (that's arguable of course). The better you are in your foundations, the better you'll be when you build upon those foundations. Just like a sturdy house. I play drums so drumming is always a good analogy for me. I have crappy drum habits. Yes I'm functional on a drum kit; I can hold a beat. But if the tempo becomes fast, my arms tend to cramp up. Plus I slouch on the seat, which makes it hard to breathe easy. And my fingers lose control of the stick more easily because of bad grip. To some people, I might really sound like I can play well. But I know my limitations on a kit because I know that unless I really train out those bad habits, there's only so much I can build on my house before it all comes crashing down on me. So good structure equals good execution of the learned skill.
That's what it feels like anyway with regards to my martial arts "endeavors". I'm not calling it training here cause it don't feel like I been training very hard lately. Yes, I go to this dojo 5 days a week but most times I walk out of class going, "I don't feel like I did anything." Ugh. I'm not soaked in sweat like when I would train with Sensei. My muscles don't ache. My body isn't sore. Of course, that didn't happen ALL the time with Sensei, but enough times to know that you were getting a good training session with him. And I suppose you don't need to be dripping wet everytime you train but it's kinda like an indicator for me as to the amount of effort I put into the class.
I want a vigorous workout when I train. I also want the training to be connected to reality. Both of those things mean that: I want to be training for my overall health and being in shape (fitness) and I want the martial skill I'm learning to correspond to the reality of violence and aggression in the world (self-defense/personal safety). It's really just not important for me to go to a tournament or be a competitive fighter. At the same time, fighting skill is what I need and want. Without that kind of experience, I don't see how I can call myself a martial artist. I'd be more of a paper tiger. Yes there's more to martial arts than just acquiring fighting skill but that is of course why martial arts needs to be holistic. And I'm just not finding that holisticness in my training endeavors right now.
At age 30 now, I feel as if I'm starting my training all over again. When I started at Sensei's karate dojo at age 24 I didn't really know what my goals were with training. I remember just thinking that I wanted to learn self-defense so that I could have a skill that could be of service to the people I was politically involved with. I wanted to be capable of "defending my community" so to speak. Sounds a bit naive perhaps but that's really the truth. At the same time I was looking for a way to connect with my Okinawan roots. What better way to do both than take up karate! Or so I thought. I connected with my roots for sure. Since that time I've been to Okinawa twice (although not for training) and I was involved with the Okinawan Association of America in Southern California. But my confidence and self-esteem were not growing in my training. Partly that had to do with my own personal maturity, but partly, and I've realized this now by being in Detroit, that modern karate was incapable of helping me to develop real-world fighting/self-defensive skill. So my confidence about self-protection was just not being boosted. In fact, I was becoming so increasingly insecure over my ability with karate that I quit for nine months. And I was attributing my lack of ability to some kind of corresponding lack in my ability to handle life. I mean c'mon, how many students are really going to perceive that it's the pedagogical model that needs re-structuring and not themselves? You fail your standardized tests in school and how does that make you feel? Like YOU SUCK. But that's cause we been playin by the system's rules and not our own. You don't suck.
My concern with developing "real-world fighting skill" has more to do with the question of how does the modern martial artist connect with the world? (rather than, how can I kick somebody's ass?). Specifically, how can the martial arts, which is a skill, serve the needs of something larger than the individual? Fighting in defense of a community, literally and metaphorically is important I think. My interaction with Feedom Freedom in Detroit (a local neighborhood community garden/org) showed me that young people in these neighborhoods need to feel invested in their community; starting from their homes, to their blocks and to the city at large. Feedom Freedom was doing that with growing food. It was Wayne Curtis (a founding member of that group) that got me thinking about how to do that with my karate.
Okay I gotta stop writing now. It's getting too late in the day. These are all ongoing thoughts anyway...
Honbu is Japanese for like the "headquarters" of an organization.
That's where I was this past week; training with Sensei and a few other students in Gardena, CA.
My entire body is sore from those practices. My butt, my back, my arms, my legs. It's a good kind of sore though. The kind of sore that lets you know your own training has not been up to par with Sensei's standards, i.e. lazy. The way that Sensei teaches us karate engages our whole bodies. Subsequently, if you're like me, you feel afterward as if you had jumped into a pool with all your clothes on. Wet. Soaking wet. I have yet to encounter another martial arts teacher that gets me to engage my body the way Sensei does. The man just knows how to train.
It was interesting participating in and observing the drills/exercises we did during class. One particularly difficult drill for me was practicing a kick aimed at the abdomen of the body while twisting the foot of the supporting leg and simultaneously shifting forward. The twisting of the foot was to add deception to the kick, i.e. it looks like you're gonna give a front kick and then suddenly in mid-flight it changes direction; the shifting forward was to aid in closing the distance gap. This is a great workout routine on the kicking bag. A great technique when sparring. Not necessarily good to use on someone attacking me outside of the dojo/tournament environment.
What was so interesting to me was that I could see how the drills/exercises we were doing were geared towards athletic performance. I used to think these drills were good for learning how to defend myself. I mean, yes technically I could kick someone like that and it would hurt. But there is a great article by Iain Abernethy entitled Kicking: Below the Belt? in which he explains that, because real-life assaults are messy affairs, kicking at targets higher than the waist is not only extremely difficult, it is dangerous (lifting your foot off the ground makes you unbalanced). It's interesting to note that in the kata we practice in our system, any kicking is done below the belt (except maybe for like the flying jump kick in Chinto; but the reason for that technique is not necessarily for how it looks). So why are we training our kicks to go any higher than the belt?
The point of this observation is just to say that the drills we practice need to correspond to the skills we are trying to build. And what people don't realize is that in a modern martial arts dojo, you can be training for athletic performance and think that it corresponds to real-life fighting ability. That can be a deadly serious mistake (and that's not necessarily the fault of the student!). I mean but, now that I can differentiate what the drills my Sensei has us do are trying to develop, I feel better about doing them. Whereas before I felt that the difficulty I had in kicking like in the drill described above was due to my overall crappiness in "self-defense", it was really just due to my crappiness at being good in tournament/sport kumite. And that's not the skill I want to be good at. But the body mechanics I might use in learning how to kick this way could be transferable to when I am using that kick for self-defensive purposes. Plus I am learning about how to judge distance between myself and an opponent as well as conditioning the body. These are invaluable benefits regardless. It is this "fitness" aspect of martial arts training which is something I have yet to see incorporated fully by other dojo here in Oakland. It's one of the reasons I really appreciate and miss my Sensei. "All you have is your health."
It is important for me to understand that everything I am blahging about here, everything I get passionately frustrated about with karate IS MY OWN TRUTH. The things I am picking out, the things that I am viewing as "lacking" with modern karate, these are simply the things that I lack IN MY OWN TRAINING and are not necessarily the concern (nor need to be the concern) of other karate/martial arts practitioners or the general public. A lot of times I sound like my own truth is the truth. I need to change up my language and perspective and simply speak from my heart about what is important to me. What I am seeking right now is some clarity with karate training and how it can manifest and remain relevant IN MY LIFE. That's it. Writing out my thoughts like this is helpful for me to process the discoveries I make along the journey; but perhaps even more importantly, it helps me, as an artist, to push past my fear to create.
But I still cringe every time I hit the "publish" button...
Since I've begun doing Wing Chun at Sifu LeBlanc's school I've been able to access some interesting articles available on the email listserve they have. The following quotes were taken from: "Personal Protection: Concepts for survival in the street" which was an article written by Andrew Williams, Rolf Clausnitzer and David Peterson and published in Australasian Martial Arts magazine (Vol 6/issue 6, 1999/2000 and Vol 7/issue 1, Feb/March 2000). They are basically speaking to the reasons why I now define "functionality" as my goal in karate/martial arts training:
"...martial arts instructors who teach self defence tactics that are repetition/technique based, executed on overly compliant partners, and do not take into account the effects of fear in a life or death scenario, are possibly placing their students in a dangerous position." (pg. 6)
Placing the student in a dangerous position? Jesse Enkamp over at KARATEbyJesse has a good way of explaining that:
If you were to walk into a gun shop, and ask for their best revolver, you would expect to get what you ask for, right? Of course. But what if - when your life might suddenly be in danger - the time comes to actually use that revolver?
What if, at that very moment, you find out that your revolver is a water pistol? A squirt gun.
You thought you were buying one thing, but you got something completely else.
You thought you were safe because you had the revolver, which may
have changed your perception of what constitutes a threat, or perhaps
even clouded your judgement.
- See more at: http://www.karatebyjesse.com/karateka-do-you-need-a-reality-check/#sthash.MV9x1h1F.dpuf
"If you were to walk into a gun shop, and ask for their best revolver, you would expect to get what you ask for, right? Of course. But what if - when your life might suddenly be in danger - the time comes to actually use that revolver? What if, at that very moment, you find out that your revolver is a water pistol? A squirt gun. You thought you were buying one thing, but you got something completely else..."
But it can be confusing (like it was for me) when the sign on your dojo reads "traditional" and you are even being taught karate by an actual Okinawan master! Those two things together sound like you're gonna learn the "real" thing. It's funny because I guess for some people, realizing the truth comes in the form of a bloody nose or bruised ego (or god forbid, a crippling injury or death!) because you decided you wanted to try out your martial skills in public only to find you had no actual skill. And for others it comes in the form of a feeling that something just ain't right. That's how it was for me. I could not have explained why I felt that way at the time. I was turning whatever that feeling was inward and berating myself for not being able to put two and two together. My Sensei kept wanting me to participate in the tournaments and I was silently like, "I don't care about no f---ing tournaments!". Partly it's because I'm shy and have a natural disinclination towards performing in front of others; and partly it's because that's not the freakin' reason I got involved with karate in the first place! I'm not saying participating in a tournament isn't a good thing. I'm saying that:
If you were to walk into a gun shop, and ask for their best revolver, you would expect to get what you ask for, right? Of course. But what if - when your life might suddenly be in danger - the time comes to actually use that revolver?
What if, at that very moment, you find out that your revolver is a water pistol? A squirt gun.
You thought you were buying one thing, but you got something completely else.
You thought you were safe because you had the revolver, which may
have changed your perception of what constitutes a threat, or perhaps
even clouded your judgement.
- See more at: http://www.karatebyjesse.com/karateka-do-you-need-a-reality-check/#sthash.MV9x1h1F.dpuf
If you were to walk into a gun shop, and ask for their best revolver, you would expect to get what you ask for, right? Of course. But what if - when your life might suddenly be in danger - the time comes to actually use that revolver?
What if, at that very moment, you find out that your revolver is a water pistol? A squirt gun.
You thought you were buying one thing, but you got something completely else.
You thought you were safe because you had the revolver, which may
have changed your perception of what constitutes a threat, or perhaps
even clouded your judgement.
- See more at: http://www.karatebyjesse.com/karateka-do-you-need-a-reality-check/#sthash.MV9x1h1F.dpuf
"If your training has led you to believe that you will somehow be able to control yourself and the situation without your training ever having placed you in harm’s way, then you have been misinformed...There are vast differences between sparring in an institution where you know that a fight will not deteriorate to the point where your opponent is going to bite you or stab you after you are knocked to the ground, and when these things become a very real possibility." (pg. 11)
The following video is a great example of what "kumite" means for modern karate practitioners. Ask yourself, "Is this how people fight in real life?". I'm not posting this video to imply in any way that the athletes involved are somehow incapable of defending themselves in a real situation. This video showcases in fact the awesome skills of renowned karate athlete/champion from Hawaii Elisa Au Fonseca (she's wearing the blue belt):
It's likely because I've had very little experience with handling real-world violence that I somehow believed my kumite sessions in the dojo were preparing me for reality. There were certainly a lot of lessons I learned about myself through kumite but ultimately that kind of practice was not geared towards building real fighting skill.
"Sparring, and in the case of Wing Chun, ‘Chi Sau’ practise, are usually too regimented and controlled, and both are too bound by protocol to successfully reproduce the emotional pressure that occurs when a threat is not generated at our choosing." (pg. 14)
Reproduce the emotional pressure. Among other things, that means your training needs to help you break through the psychological "freeze" that happens when you are assaulted (read Rory Miller's Facing Violence). I realize that not everyone wants to get involved with martial arts for the same reasons I was interested in it for. There are other benefits to modern martial arts that make it appealing to people. But if you are smug enough to think you will be prepared for a real-life attack simply because you know how to punch, kick, jab or throw someone, then I hope that one day all reality does is slaps you in the face and not stabs you in the back (literally). Your personal safety is serious business. It needs to be trained as such.
"It is, or should be, the goal of every sincere instructor to equip his or her students with the skills to survive. It is the wish of the authors of this article to encourage, at the very least, a discussion of the protective methods now employed in your school. We would hope that the concept of Personal Protection presented on these pages will lead to a return to reality and practicality in the martial arts, regardless of style." (pg. 19)
