It's a new year and that means a chance to reboot and recharge! Getting outdoors is a big part of staying healthy, both physically and mentally. Studies show that connecting with nature can help our mood, and what better way than to do some karate in the mountains, or at the beach, or just about anywhere! Even better in bare feet!

We all have those indelible moments in life, and mine happened in Taos when I was on a ski trip. I got to the top at about 12,000 feet altitude, took off my skis, and under a crisp blue sky, boot deep in equally crisp snow, started to do my San Chin Kata. This is a rooted and slow breathing exercise, paired with slow and powerful karate movements. I heard a "whoosh" behind me, and looked up to see a gleaming, bright white glider plane pass over my head, and it seemed that if I had jumped, I could have touched it. Of course, I finished my kata, because that's what you do. 

These special moments that imprint themselves on you don't happen at your desk, or even in the dojo. Consider making it your New Year's resolution to get outdoors more, and to use your karate to interact with nature. When you are in the water, kick the waves. Or challenge your horse stance against them. Try a flying kick in the water! Take a break on your hike to do some kata. And remember that karate is exercise too, so include it in your weekly exercise regimen.  It also helps to invite a friend to train with you, which will give you further motivation and accountability. But, watch out... you are going to get awfully good at this stuff! 

Ganbatte!

Success is not a straight line. It's a squiggly line that looks messy and is full of dreams, successes, set-backs, celebration, failure, opportunities, missed opportunities, and in my case, coffee. It's also up to each of use to decide what success is to us. Is it fame? Degrees? Money? Skills? Love? Happiness? Mindset? Improvement? It's a long list of possibilities, and what they all have in common is hard work and opportunity. 

When you are there, barefooted and on the cold training floor, you are doing the work. You are giving up time with family or friends, comforts, and yet, you are there. You are there because you believe that karate training can change you, for the better, and it can. And... you have something going for you which is even more rare. You have opportunity!  

It takes free time, support, money, transportation, health, freedom, and much more to get you out there on the mat. There are hundreds of people in the world who would love to be in your shoes... emmm... well your shoes are in the cubbies, but you get the idea. That's where gratitude comes in. As we approach Thanksgiving, it is a good time to reflect on just how many things had to go right to create this opportunity, and just how lucky we are to be able to suffer through 10 minutes in a horse stance or 100 punching combinations. Even the failures are something to be grateful for. After all, they are part of the squiggly line, and perhaps, the most important part of that line. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sensei

"Don't fear failure- not failure, but low aim is the crime.
​In great attempts is is glorious even to fail." Bruce Lee

Yesterday, as we prepared for belt testing juniors, some of whom have trained long enough to earn a doctorate degree, I was asked by one of them if it is possible to fail belt testing. "Yes and no" was the answer, the usual cryptic Sensei business. On one hand, it is in-part my job to prepare young students, and to invite only those who have a reasonable chance to rise to the occasion. It's a rather public process, and I don't want to put young minds and hearts in a position to fail publicly. On the other hand, students need to be motivated, attend classes, and work hard. There needs to be a minimum standard. The solution to that has been the rare "conditional pass", which allows a student to save face by receiving the belt publicly, and then is privately tasked with re-presenting selected material two weeks later. The joke is that if they are not ready then, the karate police will come to their house at night, and take the belt. Silly, everyone knows there is no karate police... it's the karate sheriff! 

Our dojo is celebrating its 14th birthday today, September 23rd, 2022!  We have much to be grateful for; Surviving a pandemic as a school and business, our first black belt candidate who started with me 16 years ago, a new friend of the dojo- Sensei Margaret Izotov- a former  student of mine from my old Honbu dojo who teaches the Little Heroes while growing her own karate school, an upcoming October trip for six of us to join one of my original black belts, Sensei Eva Steinwald, in Boise for a weekend of mountain karate training, and our wonderful community of families who make the dojo a place that buzzes in the most pleasant and meaningful of ways. This all reflects on the kanji that graces our dojo patch, which means "soshin" or "beginner's mind", and also means to practice gratitude. We have much to be grateful for. 

Our theme for our 15th year of learning together will be another of our Dojo Kun character traits- Shidōhō. It means to lead by example with patience and kindness. As we all learned along the way, when it comes to teaching or parenting, what we do has greater impact than what we say. It can be a daily struggle as kids test our patience, while we juggle our complex adult lives. For me, what it really comes down to is that you have to teach out of love.  When you walk through that door, you remind yourself why you are here, and how much impact your words and actions may have. You bow in and clear your mind. A mindset of love and kindness goes a long way, and students are more likely to forgive your mistakes when they know that you are coming from that place. 

So in our 15th year, we'll continue to aim high, and bow low. We won't always hit the mark, but we'll be proud of our efforts, and we'll get back up and try again. We'll do so with a spirit of patience. As I said at belt testing yesterday, the three keys to long-term success in karate, and earning your black belt are:
1. Never quit.
2. Never quit.
3. Never quit.
Stick around, get back up, and success is inevitable. 

With Gratitude for Your Support,

Eros Sensei

Five Kensington Karate teen students joined me in visiting a Jiu Jitsu/Grappling tournament at City College today.  We watched six-year-olds and sixteen-year-olds alike, rolling on the mat like two snakes in a life and death struggle.  Nearly three hours of matches later, it occurred to me that we did not see a single student over-celebrating a victory, nor a single student showing poor sportsmanship,  no coaches yelling, no parents screaming, no arrogance or negative attitudes- I could go on.  It reminded me why I chose to train in a traditional martial art for 35 years now, why I continue to teach, and why it is such a valuable activity for children.  

I was particularly impressed with the parents who were watching, keeping a distance, letting the coaches and referees do their work, and being positive and supportive.  I see the same thing at our annual Karate Heroes Tournament and Demonstration.  Role-modeling respect for the officials, and guiding their youngsters to accept both victory and defeat with grace and sportsmanship.  It is, at times, an effort to do so.  How tempting is it to blame a poor score on the officials, or to insist that a competitor was "robbed"?  Done in the name of not having the student's feelings hurt, it has a harmful long-term effect.    Overcoming that temptation allows a child to come to grips with competition, losing, winning, and luck.  It makes for a more resilient child, who is able to deal with failures, bounce back from defeats, and enjoy the moments of victory with some perspective.  

Sometimes, a karate parent's role is to volunteer for an event, lead a committee, encourage students when they hit a bump, or just to ask to see their most recent karate move.  Sometimes, a karate parent's role is to sit back and watch their child roll around on the mat.  Sometimes, a parent's role is to not sign in for their child, not move their shoes under the benches, not tie their belt for them, and not remind them to bow in.  And yes, the student is probably going to get yelled at.  And yes... that's a good thing for them.

Practice Does Not Make Perfect

Anyone who has read the Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers, will recognize it as a reference to him when I tell students to count on 10,000 repetitions before they master a particular karate move.  There is truth in that, but with a caveat.: Practice does not make perfect, unless you have the proper feedback to correct errors and reinforce correct performance.  

World class Olympic down-hill skiers have coaches correcting them.  The top Major League Baseball players, making $29,000,000 a year, have a batting coach who keeps them swinging well.  Even with talent and years of experience, a coach is invaluable to an athlete.  The same is true in other walks of life where performance is measured. (Business, School, Dance, Music, etc.)

This brings us back to the traditional kata (forms) taught at Kensington Karate, that were left to the martial arts world by great masters from the past.  Make no mistake, these men were fighters and tested their skills in real life.  They learned and survived.  The ones who did not… left us no kata!  These kata serve as teachers and coaches, reminding us to focus on what works, rather than play at the fantasy world prevalent in most modern systems of fighting.  But, we must go beyond the repetition.  Instructors are there to ensure that students practice the moves with the right technique, safe body-mechanics, sufficient power, and correct intent. 

Like the symphony conductor, whose job it is to interpret music written hundreds of years ago, it is the karate teacher’s job to interpret the coded kata to its fullest expression.  “Bunkai” is the study of that process, “Oyo” is the application that results from that study, and that is what is emphasized when students reach the teen program at Kensington Karate.  Some of this material is not appropriate for younger students, so Karate Heroes ramps up the scope of material and mindset concepts over time.   

Encourage your youngsters to practice their kata and to focus on corrections that they received from their Sensei or classmates.  (Learning how to correct other’s kata helps you with your own.)  Kensington Karate's upcoming "Everyday Heroes" tournament on May 18th is a brilliant chance to seek perfection in classical kata.  For more on perfection through practice, follow the link below.  Good Training!

http://aubreydaniels.com/pmezine/expert-performance-apologies-dr-ericsson-it-not-10000-hours-deliberate-practice

Kensington Karate held belt testing yesterday, and 14 juniors passed their test to advance in rank.  Nine of the students were white belts, testing for their first colored rank.  Of course, it is a time of celebration, photos, pride, and in some cases... a good night's sleep with that belt still around your waist!  Then, there is that moment that you walk into your next class, and you realize something:  You are no longer a pure beginner, others are viewing you as a role model, and your days of limited expectations are over!  In other words, you are a "sempai" to someone, and they are now your "kohai".  A sempai's job is to educate and mentor the kohai in the etiquette, culture, and technique of the dojo.  This mentoring system applies across many different organizations and activities in Japan, and simply means that one who has been there longer has an obligation to help newer members.  Now, it is hard enough for adults to be gracious in mentoring new members of their work place, club, etc., but imagine trying to do so with the life-experience level of a seven or 11 year-old.  It is then the Sensei's job to teach sempai how to lead without bullying or bossing others around.  It takes some work, but the results are clearly visible, especially in the teen years and beyond.  This is one of the least understood and mentioned purposes of traditional karate training:  Students learn leadership skills.  In turn, they see themselves as having something important to offer to others, which leads to that elusive self-esteem.  It explains the Karate Heroes motto:  "Shaping Everyday Heroes, Every Day".

I’m a white-belt blogger, or am I?  Looking back on 30 years of teaching karate, whether in Kensington, Old Town, or Del Mar, it is tempting to view every class as an individual blog post.  Each time I have the privilege of teaching a junior or adult class, the questions gets posed; What do I want students to take away from this moment?  What is the content?  I imagine a very long blog, representing somewhere around 19,000 classes taught!  Not that anyone would want to read all of that, but it is fun to think about it.

Of course, a student walking in tomorrow, or next week, or yesterday, has not had the chance to read that very long blog.  They are a blank slate and have that wonderful state of mind that Sensei refer to as “shoshin”, or “beginner’s mind”.  It’s a combination of awe, enthusiasm, and an absence of intellectual interference.  That last one just gets in the way of learning karate properly.  Children are particularly good at shoshin, but it gets harder for students starting later in life.

I can honestly say that I have never taught the same lesson twice.  (True, the bad jokes and puns remain constant!)  Each class is an opportunity to write on those blank slates, or to remind senior students to keep their open minds.  Each lesson plan represents an opportunity for a unique experience, sometimes one with a good deal of impact.  The ideas get engrained through the physical expression of the training.  Very powerful.

So, yes, this is my first blog entry, but not really.  There are some 19,000 others that were not written down, but touched someone, somewhere.  And, much like the power of the web to disseminate information, those karate-ka used that message to relate to friends, spouses,  students, co-workers, and even their own children.  Many thousands of interactions that yielded many more thousands.  You might say that the concepts we learn in karate go viral!

Students are excited for the Jiu Jitsu seminar that’s coming up at the Kensington dojo.  It’s a chance to be in awe again.  A chance for, even the most senior students, to feel that sense of clumsiness.  It’s good to be a white belt again!