Entrance to the Barn Dojo....

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Blogs and pictures

Every time I write something--whether it is working on an article or writing a blog--I can't help thinking that this is time that I could be training. When I used to drive a half hour to train with my teacher, I remember him pointing out to me that I was spending an hour in the car to train for two hours--that is, for every two hours I was training I could have been training another hour.









Pictures. Many people look at the final moves in kata and use that position to interpret bunkai, missing everything in between. The application of the move can often better be seen in the movement from the previous position to the end of the next move. Like this move in Seipai. Many people look at it and see the lower hand blocking a kick simply because its final position is pretty low. But if you look where the technique begins, where it passes through the centerline of the body, you will see it as a middle level circular block. It starts on the outside of the opponent's punch and brings it across and down, opening the target.

3 comments:

  1. I drive an hour each way to Westhampton, and never thought of it like that. I suppose it doesn't count 'for real', as there is no hand's on, but for me, training starts the minute I get into the car. The space one creates starts with the mindset...I think.

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  2. Narda,

    My dad just forwarded this link to Sensei's blog so I'll offer the following:

    In terms of training, it might be argued that the drive and the 'mindset' that you attempt to inhabit on your way to the Dojo are a kind of adjunct to training. Probably important, but if someone asks whether or not you train everyday I think it would be disingenuous to say 'yes' because you think about karate or practice mindfulness on your morning commute on days when you're not at the Dojo.

    Perhaps on some level anything can be 'training'. But I think there's something to the idea that you've got show up and do the work as karate is a psycho-physical exercise that requires a corpus to really do.

    Perhaps when someone ask 'how long have you been training' we should count only the actual days we've spent in the dojo or the backyard, bedroom, etc. working through an exercise. This might dramatically reduce the volume of experience of so many contemporary masters.

    Like Giles said, all this time blogging and commenting, maybe it would be better to get up and head to the park :)

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  3. Nice to see you Luc, and hope all is well. Regarding your comment, I completely agree.

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