Category: Kobukan Karate Club

This blog is my reflection on the changes within Shotokan over the past 60 years. You may agree or disagree, either way I welcome your comments.

It is now gender friendly; many more women are training in Shotokan; it has lost its male dominated machismo

Instructors have become teachers

The dojo is a safe, learning environment to promote the advancement of all students

It is no longer an activity designed to exhaust the body and push it to extremes

Stretching and warming up is done with due care and attention to the body

Self-defence/offence is no longer the primary aim

There is a recognition that repetitive drills are potentially harmful to ligaments and joints

There is an acknowledgement and acceptance of each individual’s capability with respect to age, flexibly and general health

Karate is like ballet with martial intent; it is an art form; there is an aesthetic quality to the performance of kata

It promotes fitness, flexibility and general well-being

It challenges the body and the mind; equal importance is given left and right sided co-ordination; the memory is stimulated through the accumulation and practice of 32 kata

Kumite in the dojo is performed with controlled aggression and respect; winning and losing have no place

“Sensei” is an honorific title that’s used to show respect to someone who has mastered a skill or art form. The term literally means “one who comes before”.

In karate, Sensei means “teacher” or “instructor”.

There is a difference between teaching and instructing.  This is true across all types of education including martial arts, yoga and all sporting activities.

Karate in the seventies was very much by direction. We did as we were told.  One reason for this was because our Japanese instructors were not always fluent in English meaning that the technicalities of karate were not always articulated in a way we understood. More importantly, we were respectful and did not question. This meant that commands of “more speed, more power” gained response of “Oss” from the students – we were obeying without really knowing how to generate more power because we were in awe of our Sensei. We followed without always completely understanding.

However, we managed this through our background knowledge.  We knew that twisting our hips in zenkutsu dachi would facilitate gyaku zuki. We understood that hikite, pulling back the left arm when punching with the right, produced more power. This is pure physics as outlined in Newton’s Third Law of Motion ‘action and reaction are equal and opposite. Credit to my Sensei Nick Adamou at the time for including this in his book.

 Even with background knowledge, many of the basic (kihon) techniques were copied but not explained. I remember the first move in Heian Nidan kata, a left uchi uke (inside block) with my right arm suspended above my head all performed in back stance (kokutsu dachi). But I had so many questions  – What is my right arm doing? Why am I in back stance?

We would not dare ask questions in a karate lesson – but how can learning and understanding happen without questions?

This approach can be taken to extremes when a militarised approach is taken to training. For example, being ordered by seniors to line up in perfect straight lines as the Instructor took his place at the front of the dojo. The warmup was then taken to, potentially dangerous extremes, taking no account of the age, fitness or flexibility of the students.  Trying to follow the lead of the Instructor as he slid down into perfect block splits and placed his chest on the floor resulted in my pulled hamstrings.

Other examples of such directed training include – Bunny hops across the dojo, sometimes with a partner on your shoulders, alternate punching into  each other’s stomachs (make strong hara), linked legged press-ups and walking up down on each other’s spines.

To demonstrate and prove our new found devastating power we indulged in “tameshiwari (test breaking) which involved trying to put your hand through one inch pine, house bricks, breeze blocks or roof tiles. I asked my Instructor how to go about breaking wood.  I was told ‘Just hit it’. I did as I was told, and it resulted in the main metacarpal bone in my right hand swelling up. An X-ray revealed no break, so with increased confidence I started breaking breeze blocks. As I write this I can’t quite believe the absurdity of my actions and the complete lack of guidance.

Teaching karate (teaching anything) must take into account the learner. In the field of education, where I have spent most of my working life, we talk about individual educational learning plans. Each student has specific strengths and needs, and our job is to tailor the curriculum and lesson plans to accommodate this. In the State Education system, teachers are charged with applying this strategy  for classes of up to thirty students.  Whilst this can be a great deal of work, it means that the teachers are aiming to understand the students.

In this way karate teachers, need a lesson plan. It is not good enough to line up and drill oi zuki up and down the dojo fifty times because we do not know what the students are getting from it.  Where is the teaching?  What is the learning?

We need to assess the age and physical condition of our students and ensure they stretch and warm up safely. We need to provide challenge within the capabilities of each student. To quote Vygotsky: teach within the zone of proximal development for each individual. Use, what Vygotsky calls, scaffolding ,when devising lesson plans. Put simply, teach the technical aspects of karate in small steps of increasing difficulty. Teach each individual with enough challenge to stretch them and facilitate their development.

In conclusion, a well-qualified Dan grade does not necessarily make a good instructor.  This could be because they are failing to understand their learners and the needs of their students.  This may be because they were in awe of the Sensei from whom they learned their skills, therefore they are modelling his teaching style.  This is why it is important to understand the difference between ‘instructing’ and ‘teaching’.  The former suggests commanding and ordering, whereas the latter suggest a more collegiate approach in which the needs of the student are considered.

As I said at the beginning of this piece, this message applies across all sport.  When Glen Hoddle became a football manager his players were in awe of his incredible technique and ball skills. However, he was possibly too much of a perfectionist when training them. Apparently they were heard to say ‘if he was chocolate, he would eat himself . Good teaching is a two way process and the voice of the students is of equal importance.

In his later years Soke Kanazawa understood the strengths and needs of his students and showed considerable empathy and patience when instructing and grading as he travelled around the World.  

There is a lesson here for us all – are we Instructors or Teachers?

One of the main differences that sets karate apart from kickboxing and MMA is the practice of kata. Many of the 32 kata practiced in SKIF have been around for two or three hundred years with their origins in China and Okinawa. They form a body of knowledge that encompass fighting techniques, defensive techniques and an exercise programme for health and longevity. When performed skillfully, they have an aesthetic quality, a rhythm, and an expression of dynamic power.

During my first 10 years of studying karate from white belt to 2^nd Dan, neither of my instructors taught any application from any of the katas. In the 1970’s and 80’s, that’s how it was, “monkey see, monkey do”. It never occurred to me to question the rather odd double block sequence at the start of Heian Sandan or the slow beginning to Heian Yondan. What was the reasoning behind manji uke? why was my right hand held high above my shoulder? Why in Heian Shodan would you step forward 3 times and block age uke? Surely your opponent would not be so kind as to step back while trying to punch you? (and yet I’ve seen this application performed by old Shotokan Masters in black and white on YouTube).

The only criterion for an application is that it broadly follows the technique and that it actually works. It doesn’t have to involve head twisting, neck breaks, eye gouging and stuff like that, although there are certain techniques that suggest these. My intention is to give you at least one application for each kata so you don’t find yourself “lost for words”.

Bear in mind, the first time you are asked to explain a move in a kata is for the SKIF 4^th Dan grading. That has flummoxed many of us because we were never taught any bunkai in our training. As instructors, we can and should demonstrate applications, but also ensure that everyone has a go themselves. This will enhance students’ understanding and give them confidence to experiment with applications themselves.

Shotokan must evolve if it is to survive as a Martial Art. We need to develop a new breed of karateka who are technically skilled and who have an understanding of kata and bunkai.

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The SKIF Stance Kata has several iterations. The basic kata starts with a forward oi zuki, step back with shuto uke, step across with gyaku zuki and then forward and back oi zuki in fudo dachi. At this point there are a number of alternatives. The version shown here by Tanaka Sensei incorporates a left turn to perform gyaku zuki, a switch back to the front to perform mae geri and then an anti-clockwise turn (180^o) to block uchi uke in hangetsu stance. On completing the full circle, turn with empi in kiba dachi.

N.B. Tanaka Sensei is performing this starting on the left hand side. We would normally start on the right hand side. He is doing this to show a mirror image as it is always difficult to learn kata from a video. We tend to get confused with left and right!

For the stance kata in a 4th Dan grading there is a basic format for which the examiner may/will change slightly by including a kick, a different block, three punches in fudo dachi instead of one and/or a new stance addition e.g. Hangetsu stance. The aim is to think on your feet, take on board the changes and perform this version of the stance kata three times with speed on both sides. Not an easy task, as many of us have experienced!

Tanaka Sensei is known and respected for his superb technique and attention to detail.