Doing the right thing?

I'm just getting back into a training routine now. I took myself out of the loop since that hip injury I blogged about. Fortunately, it wasn't so serious that I'm permanently damaged but serious enough to let me know that I need to be realistic with myself in how I push my body. Training can't be accomplished in a day. Training is a lifetime. Patience, perseverance and dedication.

I guess being out of the training loop is why I'm feeling this hang up with wondering if I'm doing the "right" thing with my ventures into jujutsu-judo-Kidpower. An idle mind is the devil's workshop. I mean, there is no "right or wrong". It's just that, I guess deep down inside I feel inadequate. I feel unqualified. It's the same feeling I had in Detroit when I had the opportunity to teach young people what I knew about karate. I was like, "what can I teach them? I'm no Olympic champion. I'm no karate master. I'm not even that good!" Much of that skewed negative self-perspective has changed, but it still lingers in the shadows of my mind. Who said I had to be an Olympic athlete with ten gold medals around my neck in order to feel qualified to teach young people? Who said I had to have 20 years of prior martial arts experience because I've trained since I was in the womb? Yeah, I need to be realistic about my skill level with people I'm teaching, but that don't mean I don't have anything to give. With young people, it's really less about the karate for me and more about finding a way to connect with them. To show them that the adults really do care and that they are investing their time into their development. I mean, that's not to say teaching them about how to face violence (within themselves and with others) isn't also important to me, but that's an ongoing part of my own personal training that is still in the process of being articulated with regards to how I'm going to present that. For now, karate is the vehicle with which to connect. But I did have the thought the other day that it seemed like what I am moving towards, with my Kidpower instructor training and my interest in "practical karate", is something along the lines of developing a comprehensive self-defense training program for young adults. A program that's rooted in something ancient (using the kata system of Matsubayashi-ryu for instance) and linking that to the reality of violence for today's young people. Otherwise I think Okinawan karate will, at least in the U.S, continue to lose its legitimacy with people. Violence is the factor which keeps the art fresh and alive; not preserved in formaldehyde. And facing violence continues to be a tremendous problem in our world now. We need an art that can address this issue. An art that guides the physical and mental development of its adherents along strong spiritual foundations...

What is this thing they call Karate-dō?

...the way of the empty hand.

Elbow SMASH!

- Hiji Até