Martial News would like to introduce you to Sue Wharton who has kindly agreed to give us her take - the student's take - on our collective budo.
Sue is a 1st kyu in Shukokai Karate and trains with Sensei Steve Hegarty at Elite Karate Centres (EKC) in Sheffield, which is a founding  member of the Seishin-do Shukokai Karate (SSK). 
Sue is also trained in the martial arts weapon the Tonfa. She trains two to three times a week and  loves the history, culture and philosophy of martial arts.
As well as writing for Martial News Sue also writes her own blog called Kick Ass SueC - Journey to black belt.

For more information about the club she belongs to visit:

To read more Sue go to her blog: kickasssuec.blogspot.com

Why do we still practice karate as a barefoot art?

When I first started training in karate I just thought bare foot training was a quaint tradition – hasn't it always been done like that? 

Three years later I can't help thinking that there must be a better reason than mere tradition, after all, there are many very skilled and eminent martial art instructors around who must have pondered the same question once and come up with an answer good enough to convince them to carry on training barefoot.

I decided to research some of the history and culture behind bare foot training to see what I could find out. What I discovered is that there isn't a definitive answer to this question but reasons given seem to fall into three categories:

1.Tradition. This refers to the Japanese tradition of separating "indoors" from "outdoors", which involves taking your shoes off when entering someone's home. This evolved as a practical courtesy to prevent you from treading dirt into someone's home or damaging the tatami mats that covered the floors, with shoes. 

However, the custom didn't necessarily stretch to taking off your shoes in public buildings. Shoes were allowed to be worn in museums or libraries or other buildings that acted as meeting places.

This traditional argument is quite quaint but it doesn't really stand up to scrutiny very well. To start with isn't a dojo a public place in the sense that it is not a residential place but a meeting place for people following a martial art? Also, originally karate was practised outside in courtyards or gardens in bare feet – so karate was already a barefoot martial art before it was practiced indoors.

Others suggest that karate is practised barefoot because it was developed by peasants who had no shoes but karate wasn't developed by peasants it was developed by the Okinawan nobility – the Keimochi. 

These people would have worn geta, thonged wooden clogs when walking outdoors. Clogs would have been too impractical to train in and so would have been removed prior to training. A lack of unsuitable shoes may explain why karate developed as a barefoot martial art but doesn't explain why it is perpetuated today.

2. Health and safety. This refers to health and safety in a dojo setting. It is suggested that shoes bring dirt into the dojo and may damage mats. This is true if you are talking about normal outdoor footwear but people practising kung fu, for example, always train in soft martial arts shoes, which presumably don't damage mats or dirty the floor.

Most "health’" arguments I have read seem to refer to keeping the dojo floor clean rather than a concern for the practitioner's feet. The downside of practising barefoot from a health point of view is the risk of spreading fungal infections, such as     athlete's foot, or viral infections, such as verrucas. Obviously it is the student's responsibility to treat such infections promptly and abstain from training barefoot until the situation is resolved – but the idea that barefoot is healthier than wearing shoes? I'm not convinced.

I'm not sure the safety argument holds up to well either. Okay, being kicked by a shoed foot will hurt more than a barefoot one – but only if you’re wearing outdoor or hard shoes. Perhaps it doesn't if you wear soft martial arts shoes.

3.Bio-mechanics in karate. This relates to the delivery of power when punching and kicking and being able to grip the floor in order to make strong stances and maintain balance. Every karate student learns that power starts at the feet and is transmitted up through the body to its target. It's what we all strive to achieve through our constant practice. If we don't grip the floor well, maintain strong stances and introduce torque (twist) into our kicks and punches, they won't be very powerful.

Training barefoot also strengthens the muscles in the feet and the calves. We distribute our weight differently when training barefoot, tending to put our weight slightly forward onto the balls of the feet rather than the heels. We are also less likely to twist our knees and ankles when training barefoot.

This argument for barefoot training appeals to me most and makes the most sense. It would explain why karate developed as a barefoot art in the first place – before it was ever practised indoors. The strong, muscular feet and calves needed to practice karate well don't develop if cushioned by shoes so for this reason I think karate is best practiced barefoot. 

Barefoot training probably allows us to sustain our training for years without developing knee, hip or ankle problems – something that may not be possible if we wore trainers or outdoor footwear.

Of course having acquired the advantages of barefoot training it is probably wise occasionally to practice with shoes on to understand how different techniques feel!

www.sskarate.co.uk

www.elite-karate.co.uk

To read more Sue go to her blog: kickasssuec.blogspot.com

FUNAKOSHI, THE VOLCANIC ASH CRISIS AND SELF PROTECTION

However, being in the middle of the drama did provide me with a ring side seat to observe how people reacted and coped with the situation. It dawned on me after a day of two that we were in the middle of a self-protection situation.

The need for self-protection comes in many guises. It’s not just about protecting oneself from physical attack; it’s also about protecting ones health, finances, safety and wellbeing, perhaps even our very right to exist. The kind of questions that came to mind when we realised that we were stranded for an indefinite period were things like: Where will we stay? How much is this all going to cost us? What if one of us gets ill? What about our work commitments/responsibilities? My son had two exams in the week we should have returned – what would happen there?

There were 5500 people stranded on Cyprus just with the tour company we had booked with, this included virtually everyone in our hotel, all pondering the same questions so stress levels in the first few days were pretty high.

Funakoshi’s book on the twenty guiding principles of karate states principle number twenty as, ‘Be constantly mindful, diligent, and resourceful in your pursuit of the Way’. This turned out to be good advice since the people who were mindful, diligent and resourceful coped better with the situation than those who were not.

Mindfulness and diligence needed to start at home before people set off on their journeys. The people that came out best in this crisis were those who had booked package holidays rather than organised their holiday as ‘independent travellers’. It was amazing how many people didn’t realise how much protection they lost by going it alone to save a bit of money.

At one point there was a virtual apartheid developing in our hotel where ‘flight only’ holidaymakers were separated from ‘package’ holidaymakers. Flight only people were downgraded to self-catering status and bussed out to lower-rated accommodation whereas package holidaymakers were allowed to stay in the hotel and were upgraded to full-board status. A standoff ensued in the hotel reception as some ‘flight only’ people refused to board the coach, wanting the same treatment as the package holidaymakers. Had they read the small print before booking their holidays they would have understood that the protection they had was at a lower level than that for package holidays.

Other areas where people had not been sufficiently mindful and diligent were in bringing sufficient medication with them. Okay people didn’t know they would be delayed but some were running out of prescription medicines before the planned part of their holiday had finished. One sweet gentleman I spoke too had run out of a specialised drug only half way into his holiday and had visited a doctor at a local hospital to obtain more supplies. He was horrified to learn that the prescription would cost 1000 euros! He would have saved himself a lot of distress had he realised that he could obtain it through the E111 scheme (European reciprocal health scheme) – it was only through the intervention of the hotel rep that he got his prescription for free.

Mindfulness and diligence mean we prepare adequately and understand the implications of our actions – this helps us to avoid potentially harmful situations. As martial artists we instinctively know this in our avoidance of violent conflicts but the same principles apply in other self-protection scenarios too.

Funakoshi’s guiding principle also mentioned resourcefulness. This includes utilising things available in your environment. As martial artists we would employ things we find in our immediate surroundings to help defend ourselves in an attack. The same approach was relevant in our situation as well.

Everyone had access to a phone, whether it was a mobile phone or the hotel telephone system so communicating with people back home was no problem. The hotel also had two computers with internet access for guest use and these became extremely well used. Most people utilised these resources well and were able to re-arrange work meetings, access paperwork they needed, communicate with schools and colleges to re-arrange exams or have work sent to them.

For most people I met it seemed perfectly possible for them to notify, re-arrange or keep life and work ticking over back home – at least for a week or two. No-one needed to panic about getting home quickly. We all had reasons why we needed to get home but no-one could really claim to be a more urgent case than others. However, some peoples ‘resourcefulness’ in trying to get home quickly did seem a bit misplaced – and unnecessarily expensive.

Funakoshi’s 7^th guiding principle states, ‘Calamity springs from carelessness’. Some people were so keen to get on the first available flights out of Cyprus that they failed to follow their airlines advice to check in for their pre-booked return flight (knowing that it wouldn’t be taking off because of the blanket ban on flying) and instead booked themselves onto two or three different flights for later in the week – hedging their bets in other words. By not turning up for their original flight they broke their contract with the airline and lost their right to be provided with accommodation and subsistence. They also had to foot the cost of flights they wouldn’t take anyway – where was the sense in that?

Many people’s resourcefulness and urgency to get home led them to make ‘heroic’ efforts to travel home by land and sea – at great personal expense. I can’t help thinking that some of this type of resourcefulness was driven by ego. Was anyone’s need to get home so urgent that they needed to spend £1000’s of pounds to do it? They put themselves at the mercy of gross profiteering by hire car companies and other transport companies, not to mention the personal safely issues of travelling long distances in such an unscheduled way.

I heard a story of one man chartering a private boat at a cost of £8000 to get his son home for an exam! Apparently another woman travelled thousands of miles by land and sea to get her seven-year-old daughter to an optician’s appointment – why not just re-arrange it?

Many of these stories have been presented in the media as tales of heroism and adventure. The plucky Brit beating all the odds to get home! Adventurous they may have been but good self-protection? I don’t think so. The patient, more humble traveller who prepared adequately in advance, sorted out what they could from where they were, followed the guidelines of their tour companies or airlines and then waited, maintained a much greater level of self-protection – both physically and financially.

And the last word from Funakoshi – ‘Apply the Way of karate to all things. Therein lies its beauty’. Guiding principle number ten.

If you want to find out more about Sue's karate organisation you can visit its website at:

www.sskarate.co.uk

www.elite-karate.co.uk

To read more Sue go to her blog: kickasssuec.blogspot.com

CLICK HERE TO GO DIRECT TO KICKASSSUEC.BLOGSPOT

Why is kata in karate so misunderstood?

SUE WHARTON: Kata in karate seems to me to be a very misunderstood concept, both within some karate clubs/styles and amongst practitioners of other martial arts. I know other martial arts styles utilise kata in some form or other but the principle of how kata is utilised seems to be different.

In my jujitsu/kobudo club for instance there are many kata (both one and two-man) for both jujitsu and kobudo students. In fact both types of students have to pass several kata gradings on their way to black belt. The kata however seem to be developed from the techniques and practised as some sort of aid memoir or as a way of programming oneself to respond in a set way to a given situation or even just as a way of stringing together a series of related techniques in order to demonstrate a repertoire of locks, blocks or stances for example. We would refer to this as a drill in my karate club rather than a kata – but that’s probably just semantics!  In fact the word kata just means ‘formal exercise’ so it is not surprising that there is several interpretations of its use.

However the use of kata in karate is fundamentally different to its use in some other arts. Kata is one of the cornerstones of karate training, along with kihon and kumite (both of which ultimately come from the kata). In karate the kata come first and the techniques are drawn out of them. The kata themselves are not sequences of specific techniques put together in combinations but rather are the principles behind techniques. This means that a specific movement in a kata can have several alternative applications.

To understand kata in karate one has to learn the ‘language’ that it speaks in. By this I don’t mean a spoken language but rather a non-verbal one. For example, if a kata movement is performed whilst moving forwards then it should be interpreted as an offensive technique. If the same technique is performed whilst stepping backwards then it should be interpreted as a defensive technique.

To illustrate this consider the downward block (gedan barai). If the kata tells you to step backwards whilst performing this movement then you are probably moving back to avoid an incoming kick to the groin. You would not literally block the kick with your arm ( that would hurt you more than your attacker) but you may try and deflect the kick to the side if it’s not coming in too fast or hard or you may be using the movement to protect your own groin as you try to evade the kick. If the kata tells you to move forward whilst blocking then the block should be interpreted as a strike to the groin or grabbing the testicles for instance.

There are many principles like this in karate kata. As a student I am only just beginning to grasp some of these principles and the kata I know are starting to reveal some of their secrets to me.

One of the weaknesses in some karate styles is that too many kata are taught. In the system I am training in there are 20 kata to learn up to 3^rd dan level. I think this is too many. It is impossible to study every kata in detail. However, even with this many kata we are expected to learn 3 bunkai applications from each one. So instead of learning all the principles and techniques from within one kata we choose bunkai applications which demonstrate a range of principles and techniques across the kata. This seems like a reasonable way of doing it.

One thing I have learned is that if you are being taught a kata in order to study its applications then it is important to learn it accurately. If every movement is not performed precisely as intended then it will become impossible to interpret what the movements mean. There is no room for sloppy technique in kata!

Karate instructors are renowned for being extremely pedantic about the details of any technique. The position of the fingers, angle of the wrist, height of the punch, bend of the knee, shape of the foot movement, twisting of the hips, keeping shoulders relaxed, use of the hikite arm – if you have a single thing out of place they will tell you and correct you. My instructor is no exception! And there is good reason for this – if you don’t perfect technique you will never understand kata and if you can’t understand kata then you can never really master karate.

So all that kata practice, supported by kihon practice is never a waste of time because it is preparing you to effectively draw out the principles of the kata and understand the techniques stored within them.

However karate would not be complete if we stopped at this stage. The techniques of karate are no good to you unless practised against a partner. As the bunkai are teased out of the kata they can initially be practised through ippon kumite (one step or pre-arranged sparring). Ippon kumite is by no means like realistic fighting but its advantage is that it allows you to break down techniques and learn the proper mechanics of each move, including distance and timing.

The ultimate test for the karateka though is testing out the techniques with random attacks – a kind of randori. This is the closest thing to a realistic attack and tests out whether you have really learnt to defend yourself.

I am far from being proficient in any of the things I have talked about in this post. I know about 12 kata and the mysteries of bunkai are starting to reveal themselves to me now. In fact it is only now, towards the end of my third year of training, that I actually feel ready and sufficiently trained in the basics to study bunkai in any meaningful way. However, one thing I do now truly understand is the importance of kata to karate. Without kata there is no karate.

www.sskarate.co.uk

www.elite-karate.co.uk

To read more Sue go to her blog: kickasssuec.blogspot.com

CLICK HERE TO GO DIRECT TO KICKASSSUEC.BLOGSPOT

SUE WHARTON: One of the things I like about being a part of the martial arts world is that it is non-ageist. Nobody ever makes you feel that you are too old to be practising a martial art. 

In fact, I find the attitudes within martial arts are almost opposite to those in the wider society. Within martial arts you are respected and valued for being an older, experienced and still active martial artist; whereas in the wider society you are increasingly considered a 'has been' as you get older and youth is revered much more.

I have a secret to share…. I am 47 years old (not many women are prepared to reveal their true age – so you are lucky!). I didn’t take up martial arts until the relatively late age of 45. I feel lucky that I am healthy, fit and flexible enough to participate in such a physical and vigorous pursuit and I do not take it for granted. There is great pleasure in being able to move your body about freely, without pain or discomfort; to explore the limits of what you can do and stretch yourself beyond those limits.

Many people might consider me to be middle-aged. You know what? I hate being called middle-aged. I would never refer to myself as middle-aged. Middle-age is a concept not a number; it’s a state of mind. Middle-age is for people who think it is time to take things a bit easy, to plateau, to coast into old age, to stop setting goals, to stop learning new things – to just sit back and let life pass you by.

Be warned! 'Middle-age' can strike you at any age and you should guard against it. I've met people in their twenties who are 'middle-aged' and I've met people in their senior years who have still yet to reach 'middle-age'. I just consider myself to be the upper end of young.

Definitions and images of middle-age are always so negative aren't they? It's all about decline. Decline in strength, flexibility, skin elasticity, bone density, cognitive ability etc. If your expectation is that you are going to physically and mentally decline then that is exactly what you will do! 

I refuse to be so negative about getting older and I refuse to believe that I am declining. When I joined my karate club nearly three years ago my instructor never once suggested or hinted that I might be a bit too old for such vigorous exercise. He makes no allowances for or demands less of the older people in the club – he expects the same level of performance from us 40 something's as he does the teenagers and I thank him for it.

Since I have been training (I train for approximately 6-7 hours per week) I have got physically fitter, stronger and more flexible than I ever was in my twenties. And I don't think I’ve peaked yet! So that busts a middle age myth – decline is not inevitable, providing you make the effort not to decline. Apparently a physically fit 65-year-old will have greater muscular strength than a sedentary 25-year-old. What is that old adage? Use it or lose it!

I am always inspired by stories of older people participating in vigorous physical activities or gaining academic success. They all share a mental attitude that says 'life is for living' and 'nothing is beyond my grasp'. People like this make all things seem possible, regardless of age. There seems to be plenty of people with this attitude to life in martial arts.

Ironically it is often the young people in martial arts who can be the most frustrating! 'Youth is wasted on the young!' is a well known saying. It’s true – at least for many young people.

They just don't realise what advantages their youth brings them – fitness, flexibility, energy. We have known teenagers 

We have all known teenagers who don't realise what they have! In a karate setting they would pay lip service to the warm up and stretching exercises; give about 50pc to their karate training and would complain if they felt tired! 

Of course, not all teenagers aren't all like this, some do show more dedication and work hard at their lesson, but lazy ones frustrate me! 

They make you feel like shaking them and saying 'wake up, you won't always be young you know – try harder while you can!' Of course I wouldn't actually say anything even if they do make me feel quite mad sometimes.

The most frustrating thing about the 'lazy' teenagers is that they can pull it off when it matters, i.e. for a grading or competition – this is another advantage of youth! If I did not work hard all the time I would not be able to 'pull it off' for my grading.

Whatever age we are we should appreciate our physicality and enjoy the freedom it brings us. Who knows what is around the corner. When I worked as a nurse I saw many people cut down in their prime by chronic illness or accident – their physicality or sometimes their lives taken away from them.

We currently know a young lad, in his twenties, is battling cancer – he is not responding to chemotherapy and his future balances on a knife edge. He may not get the chance to fulfil his dreams, experience the joy of life or rejoice in his physicality until old age takes him.

So forget what age you are, resist the decline of ‘middle-age’ and ENJOY your martial arts simply BECAUSE YOU CAN. Continue to push your own boundaries, continue to learn new things and continue to make every minute of it count.
See you next month....

www.sskarate.co.uk

www.elite-karate.co.uk

To read more Sue go to her blog: kickasssuec.blogspot.com

CLICK HERE TO GO DIRECT TO KICKASSSUEC.BLOGSPOT

Why the tortoise always wins

SUE WHARTON: There has been a lot of ‘chatter’ in the martial arts blogosphere recently on the importance of practising ‘basics’. Most of this chatter seems to be in favour of regularly returning to drilling the basics, however senior you are.  As a student, I spend a lot of my training time doing basics and I enjoy it and see merit in it. However, despite the generally positive view on the importance of basics every person blogging or commenting on the subject seemed to know someone who thought drilling basics was boring, pointless and a waste of time- preferring to get on with the sexier more advanced stuff!

In my opinion this ‘anti-basics’ attitude seems to be mainly an affliction of youth. Younger people seem to be in more of a hurry to learn the ‘interesting’ stuff quickly and want to skimp on spending hours practising basic ‘indirect’ techniques. It’s ironic that the people who actually have the most time ahead of them to learn martial arts are in the biggest hurray and the ones with less time ahead (like me) are happy to occupy the slow lane! 

Interestingly, several of the mature martial arts bloggers admit to having had this impatient attitude when they were young but came to realise as they got older that there’s no such thing as a short cut in martial arts and have become some of the biggest supporters of practising basics. Of course not all young people suffer this impatience and with good guidance from their instructor they can be persuaded of the merit of practising their basics.

So why do I, as a student, think that basics are so important? Well, from my point of view, spending time punching and kicking the air or pad, or practising combinations (indirect training) is a chance to work on improving balance, body alignment, turning, timing, stepping, sliding, shifting body weight, twisting the hips, power generation and many other attributes without also having to think about how to get out of a strangle or headlock or some other direct training technique. It’s about learning to master myself (both physically and mentally) before I learn how to master someone else (an attacker perhaps). 

Of course basics also includes working with a partner to practise ippon kumite or sanbon kumite. Both the attack and defence are pre-arranged so you don’t have to think too much about what it is you are going to do but instead you can concentrate on how it is you do it. You can focus on how your feet are moving, the correct way to hold a wrist to get a lock on, the distance you need to be from your partner to kick them or coordinating your block and counter strike correctly. These techniques can be practised slowly and cooperatively to start with and the speed built up as you progress.

Many people have criticised ippon kumite for being unrealistic. Well I’d agree! But it’s not meant to be realistic – it’s a training tool, a way of allowing you to focus on principles as well as technique. You have to remember that for beginners (I’d count anyone in the kyu grades as a relative beginner) there is so much to think about in the execution of every technique, nothing is properly internalised or intuitive at this stage of training, so the idea of doing anything bordering on ‘realistic’ is a bit out of the question. I suspect anyone at this stage of training put into a realistic fighting situation would just regress to ‘school boy scrapping’ and abandon any martial arts techniques they had learnt.

From an instructor’s point of view it seems that getting students to work on basics acts as a good diagnostic tool. My instructor often gets us to work on a combination (for example our first punching combination is: jodan oi zuki, chudan gyaku zuki, shuto uchi) and gets us to freeze after each move. He can then check our feet position, arm position, fist, balance, general body alignment etc.  He’ll point out if our stance is incorrect; the fist too weak or twists too soon, if shoulders are raised or we are too tense into the punch. I had a particular problem with maintaining balance after turning – I wobbled and had to re-adjust my feet after the turn. This was affecting my performance in kata or any self-defence technique where I am attacked from behind and need to turn quickly. Through observing me practising basics he was able to diagnose that I don’t prepare my feet adequately before I turn (thus unbalancing myself) and I don’t twist my hips correctly (causing me to wobble). 

I was regarding my hips as being that region where women put the tape measure when measuring themselves i.e. over the widest part of the buttocks and consequently twisting them as if I was dancing to Chubby Checker!  I now realise I have to think like a man when it comes to hips –apparently a man’s hips stretch from the top of the waist to part way down the thighs! This whole region has to be tensed and moved together to twist the ‘hips’. Now I’m learning to twist my hips like a man and position my feet better, my turns are getting quicker, more powerful and I’m losing my wobble. This is all thanks to basics.

Perhaps we shouldn’t call these types of training techniques basics. Words are emotive and basics make us think of beginners or simple things. However what we learn from basics is not simple – elementary techniques are used so that we can focus on the principles behind them. Once we have mastered these fundamental principles and internalised them we can then focus on more complicated techniques knowing that our bodies will move in exactly the way we want them too without us having to think about it. Core skills or fundamental skills may be a more acceptable term for those people whose egos are too big to do basics.

So where would we be without practising these core skills? If all you are interested in is learning direct fighting techniques without being willing to practice and internalise the underlying principles of movement, balance, coordination, timing and distancing etc. then that’s all you’ll have – a repertoire of unconnected techniques. The principles learnt through basics form the glue that holds techniques together. Without it they will just fall apart as soon as you are tested in a real fight or competition scenario.

There are no real short cuts. If I haven’t convinced you yet that taking time to train in the basics will pay dividends, then just remember who won that proverbial race – the hare or the tortoise.

www.sskarate.co.uk

www.elite-karate.co.uk

To read more Sue go to her blog: kickasssuec.blogspot.com

SUE WHARTON: Are bugei or budo arts better for sustaining long term training?

Since I started blogging 10 months ago and started communicating with martial artists all around the globe, who have a variety of different martial arts experiences and train in many different systems, I have been struck by the fact that there are more similarities than differences between different martial arts styles.

I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised by this – after all there are only so many ways that the human body can move, strike, kick, lock, block and grapple with another human being. Different martial arts just emphasise different categories of technique.

However, despite the many similarities in physical training there are some very apparent differences. I have been struck by these differences since I joined a jujitsu/kobujutsu club about six months ago. I actually joined the club to do kobujutsu rather than jujitsu because I thought it would complement my karate training.

When I first joined this new club I didn’t feel too much out of place because there were many similarities in the way training was conducted compared with my karate club. The warm up was similar, we wore the same gis, we bowed at beginning and end of class and there was a sense of discipline and focus.

However as time has gone on I am becoming more aware of the differences between the classes. I don’t mean the differences in techniques I am learning, clearly they are different – one club teaches me empty hand techniques and in the other I am holding a weapon the entire time.

The more noticeable differences are in the class structure and in the mindset of people at these two clubs. Before I explain why these differences are important I will just recap on a bit of history and culture of these two types of martial arts to set the context for my discussion.

Kobujutsu and jujitsu are examples of bugei arts whereas karate is an example of a budo art. Bugei simply means traditional martial arts, i.e. those of the samurai. Budo means martial Ways and is a more modern concept, where the definition of 'modern', in Japanese martial arts, refers to the period after the start of the Meiji Restoration in1866, i.e. post samurai era.

Of course that doesn't mean that the concept of a Japanese Way is modern, just its application to the fighting arts. Indeed the idea of seeking self improvement through the pursuit of mind, body and spiritual harmony is an ancient Japanese and Chinese tradition based on Zen principles going back to about the 7th century.

I suppose that once the samurai were disbanded after the Meiji Restoration, applying these self-improvement principles to their fighting arts was a way to retain a purpose to continue to study them now they weren't needed on the battlefield.

The traditional bugei arts such as jujitsu, kobujutsu, ninjutsu, sumo, kenjutsu, and others are very much about learning practical defensive fighting skills and training mainly involves working with a partner to hone skills. Modern budo (karate-do, aikido, judo, kendo, iaido, kobudo etc), on the other hand, use the art of learning to ‘fight’ as a means to master control of one’s body and mind with the lofty aim of achieving ‘self-perfection’. Of course martial arts are not the only Way to seek self-perfection. In Japan the same approach is used in other arts such as chado (tea ceremony), shado (calligraphy), ikebana (flower arranging) and kodo (way of fragrance).

You may have noticed that this way of dividing martial arts into bugei and budo gives slightly different results to more contemporary ways of dividing up martial arts into ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ which, I think, are confusing and not very useful since they seem to get people rather ‘hot under the collar’.

Anyway, back to the differences between my two clubs. My kobujutsu/jujitsu club is a bugei club and my karate club is a budo club. I said that the most notable differences were in the structure of the class and the mindset of the people who train. The bugei club trains to the syllabus (almost exclusively) – just occasionally some ‘off-syllabus’ stuff has been shown to us or we have done something as a ‘whole class’ but this is unusual. Most sessions you train, with a partner, to the syllabus, learning a set number of techniques for your grade – over and over again. Most people train with the same partner all the time. After each grade you move onto a new, more difficult syllabus and learn some different techniques. Training feels linear.

In my budo club the syllabus is relatively unimportant – many people don’t know what is on their syllabus until they are coming up to grading! They are then surprised to find that they actually know it anyway. Apart from working on the katas for your grade, everyone works on learning the same thing – it doesn’t matter whether it’s from the red belt syllabus or the black belt syllabus – it’s all karate and we need to know it and keep practicing and revisiting basics if we are to improve ourselves. The emphasis is much more on learning to move properly, react quickly and have proper control of your limbs. It is not so technique driven. Training is circular, not linear.

Does it matter which way training is structured? Is one way better than the other? I think that depends on what it is you want to get out of your martial art. Clearly the people in my jujitsu/kobujutsu club have a very pragmatic approach. They are looking for effective self defence training with a degree of realism about it – does it work on the street? This seems to be the overwhelming consideration and is the subject of conversation in the dojo. If this is your mindset and you feel at risk of attack (perhaps you work as a bouncer or policeman) then clearly learning various techniques with a degree of realism about them is the fastest way to train to meet your objectives.

But if this is your mindset – a pragmatist- what sustains you to continue training in the long term? Last week I went on our jujitsu club’s Christmas ‘beer and curry’ night and was surprised by how many ex-club members were there. These were people who had acquired black belt and then stopped training. They seemed to have a variety of reasons why they had stopped – training was no longer offering them what they wanted; didn’t like the 2^nd dan syllabus; too busy at work etc. I couldn’t help thinking that these reasons were just ways of rationalising their decision to stop.

Let’s face it, if your whole purpose for training is to learn to ‘fight’ and you never actually get into fights then the amount of time spent training to maintain skills becomes disproportionate to the risk you actually face of ever using those skills in reality – it’s like the law of diminishing returns. I’m not surprised these people eventually give up; they have no ‘outlet’ for the skills learned.

The black belts who have continued to train in my jujitsu club either teach or train in another art alongside jujitsu – either in kobujutsu or in another art at a different club; they have broadened their reach to sustain them. It does not surprise me that many people migrate from jujitsu to either judo, Brazilian JJ or MMA where they can compete and thus maintain an outlet for their skills.

This pragmatic mindset, with its limitations, is not so apparent in my karate club. Clearly people still want techniques to be effective in a self-defence situation and will discuss this with their training partners when we are practising Goshin waza (self-defence techniques). We spend most of our time though on the 3 cornerstones of karate – kihon, kata and kumite. The students see merit in drilling kihon, practising kata and perfecting speed, distance and timing through kumite even though there is no direct self-defence application for this type of training. It is all part of mastering control of one’s body and mind.

Through dissecting and studying the kata new and interesting techniques are discovered which are then applied to our goshin waza training. There is no doubt this is the slow route to learning effective self-defence and requires a lot of patience. However I do feel that if you train your body and mind in this way rather than solely focusing on the pragmatic, you will eventually become an effective and responsive ‘fighter’, should you ever need to use it. More importantly though, I think following a budo art enables more people to be able to sustain their training for the long term.

If you want to find out more about Sue's karate organisation you can visit its new website at:

www.sskarate.co.uk

www.elite-karate.co.uk
My Blog: kickasssuec.blogspot.com

How do you move from Novice to Expert in martial arts....?

SUE WHARTON: I have been thinking recently about some of the higher mental skills one needs to acquire in order to become a proficient martial artist. I don’t possess these skills yet but I am curious about them. I am still functioning at the level of a ‘technician’ in terms of skill. By technician I mean that I am still learning the physical techniques of karate – how to punch, block and kick in different ways, various stances, locks, sweeps, escapes etc. Some of these are put together in various sequences and combinations. However, despite developing the ‘tools’ of self-defence I am currently too inexperienced to know how to use them effectively in a self-defence situation. I lack the higher mental skills needed to do this. I don’t mind admitting this – I think I am pretty typical for a brown belt with only 2.5 years experience.

I drill techniques so that both my brain and my muscles remember how to do them and I can demonstrate them when requested. But through drilling I am merely ‘sharpening’ the tools ready for use. Despite these technical skills I doubt I can defend myself much better than I could before I took up martial arts. I have never been attacked but I’m pretty sure that if I had been I would have instinctively screamed and tried to run away. If someone had tried to hit me I would have flinched, if they had grabbed me I would have struggled and kicked out at them. These responses are hard-wired into me; I didn’t need to learn martial arts to execute this initial response. However, how successful I would have been would have probably been down to luck and chance.

So how do I learn to use my ‘tool kit’ in an effective manner? How do I ensure that my chances of survival are more dependent on my use of martial arts skill rather than luck and chance?

There is no substitute for experience here, but experience has to be learned from – it’s not a passive process. There is an adage used in experiential learning which says ‘You can have 10 years experience or you can have 1 years experience repeated 10 times!’ Experience does not equate with time expired – you have to reflect and learn from that experience to move forward.

Experience requires exposure to situations where you can test out your skills. For most of the time we have to constrain ourselves to fairly contrived, artificial situations with simulated attacks or free sparring.  This is not a bad thing, in fact it is pretty essential for the inexperienced martial artist to train in a controlled environment with clear rules of behaviour because as I have mentioned before he/she lacks the higher mental skills needed to cope with anything that resembles realism.

So what are these higher mental skills I keep going on about?

The acquisition of skills has been fairly well researched by psychologists and one model that I am familiar with through non-martial art sources is the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition. This model divides skill acquisition into five stages: Novice, Advanced beginner, Competence, Proficient and Expert. I have written a post about the application of this model to martial arts on my ‘Kick Ass SueC’ blog recently so please visit that if you are interested in a full explanation of each category.

However, for the purposes of this post I will outline the differences between the levels a Novice and an Expert function at. (Note: this model has been used extensively in engineering, nursing, flying and in some sports such as skiing and American football).

Novice: A novice has no previous experience of the situations in which they are expected to perform and relies on taught rules to help them perform. Rules are not prioritised and apply equally so a novice's response to a situation is limited and inflexible. No discretionary judgement is applied.

Martial arts application: The novice will learn the basic techniques of their art - various kicks, punches, stances, locks throws etc according to the 'rules' - correct arm, hand, foot positions; correct weight distribution etc. They will have no sense of how these techniques could be applied to a self-defence or 'sport' situation. They could not select an appropriate technique to a given attack unless directed what to do. (Probably applicable to white - orange belts depending on natural ability and speed of learning)

Expert: The expert performer no longer relies on an analytic principle (rules, guidelines, maxims) to connect her or his understanding of the situation to an appropriate action. He/she now has an enormous background of experience and an intuitive grasp of each situation and zeroes in on the accurate region of the problem without wasteful consideration of a large range of unfruitful alternatives. The expert operates from a deep understanding of the total situation. They know what to do because "it feels right". The performer is no longer aware of features and rules and his/her performance becomes fluid and flexible and highly proficient. Intuition underpinned by tacit knowledge replaces direct analysis, though analysis continues to be used in novel situations or when events do not turn out as expected.

Martial arts application: The expert martial artist has truly internalised the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of their art so that they are completely in tune, allowing effortless and free-flowing movements together with a tacit understanding of the higher ideals of martial arts and how to achieve them. He/she has an intuitive grasp of every attack/defence situation and knows instinctively how to deal with them. He/she has moved to a position of calmness, truth and peace. (Probably applies to: only true masters)

The higher mental skills that I have alluded to are intuition and tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is defined as that knowledge that can only be transmitted through training and personal experience. It cannot be told or written down. You just 'know it' or 'feel it' but can't explain how or why.

I think tacit knowledge is applicable to concepts such as ‘mushin’ (empty mind), ‘zanshin’ (total awareness) and ‘kime’ (focus). These are higher mental skills that only an experienced martial artist can truly understand – but can’t really communicate. I tried to explore the concept of kime on my other blog but got a little stuck with it. The sticking point was what people meant by ‘focus’. It clearly meant different things to different people. For some focus was about intense concentration on the task, for others it was a physical process of targeting a kick or punch on a specific point (a kime point), for others it was about concentrating energy in the dantian region in the lower abdomen, and for others it was about the coordination of relaxing, tensing and then relaxing the muscles in the arm during a punch in order to produce an energy efficient but maximally hard punch. Clearly someone who has experienced kime knows what it is but can’t explain it to others – it is tacit knowledge.

In my post on the Dreyfus model I gingerly rated my karate skills as ‘just into the competent stage and expecting to be there a while’. One of my commentators pointed out the perils of the ‘Dunning-Kreuger’ effect, i.e. the dangers of self-rating. The Dunning-Kreuger effect states that: “The unskilled suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than actuality; by contrast the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than relatively more competent people”.

So now I’m having a crisis of confidence – am I overrating or underrating myself? I don’t know, I just know that to get any better I need to keep on training, drilling, thinking....training, drilling, thinking......

If you want to find out more about Sue's karate organisation you can visit its new website at:

www.sskarate.co.uk

www.elite-karate.co.uk
My Blog: kickasssuec.blogspot.com

Mixed Martial Arts or A Smart Lad Re-mix it!

SUE WHARTON: I have been writing this blog for Martial News for a few months now and you have probably gathered that my limited experience of martial arts is confined to the more traditional arts of karate-do and kobudo. 

However, I do read the news articles in this paper and it is clear that this newspaper is a big supporter of mixed martial arts. I know virtually nothing about MMA – it is on the outer reaches of my martial arts radar. I have decided that since I am now a member of this newspaper team and with ‘fight night’ coming up I should make the effort to find out something about it and share my thoughts with you.

So it is with an open mind and with a spirit of curiosity and discovery that I bring you this post. By the way, anagrams of mixed martial arts include: a smart lad re-mix it (Is this a clandestine reference to Bruce Lee – sometimes attributed as the father of modern MMA?) Or: art drama sex limit (is this some kind of description?) or how about slimier mad ax tart (unkind, I’m sure) or perhaps the best: its real drama time! (If you substitute the ‘x’ for an ‘e’).  Yes, I really do have time to do this!

Things I like about MMA:  

It has a history: Any sport that has bothered to trace back its own roots and write about it gets my vote. There is a good Wiki on MMA – check it out if you haven’t already done so. Though its current form is very modern the concept of mixed martial arts is very ancient. The earliest reference to it in recorded history is the Greek sport of Pankration which is a mixture of wrestling and boxing. This was introduced to the Greek Olympic Games in 648 BC. Apparently modern mixed martial arts competitions have come to feature many of the same methods that were used in pankration competitions in the ancient Greek world.

Skill and fitness: I have watched several videos of MMA fights, read about training schedules, listened to some fighters being interviewed and it is clear that these people are fit, highly trained and skilled individuals who show a lot of dedication and commitment to the sport – at least as much as I’ve seen in any other martial art.

Excitement: The fights are quite exciting to watch and would probably be more so if I understood more about what I was seeing (I can’t quite work out what is going on during all that clinching and grappling on the ground). I prefer watching the fight whilst they are still standing up but that’s probably because I understand striking arts better.

Honesty: There is an honesty about MMA in that it claims to be a sport and nothing else. It’s all about the fighting. Sometimes more ‘traditional’ martial arts don’t quite know what they are really about. There are dozens of styles of karate now and most of them will lay claim to having their roots in classical Okinawan Te. Yet many have developed karate into a competitive sport or have diluted karate to a few kicks, blocks, strikes and kata. Karate is clearly different things to different people. MMA on the other hand does not promise to train you on the path to enlightenment or improve your whole life – it’s a sport, plain and simple.

Things that confuse me:

The name: ‘Mixed Martial Arts’. This name was coined in the early 1990s by the super heavy weight Greco-roman wrestler and Olympic gold medallist, Jeff Blatnick. I suppose the name fits when you think about the definition of MMA, which according to Wikipedia is:

“Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a full contact combat sport that allows a wide variety of fighting techniques, from a mixture of martial arts traditions and non-traditions, to be used in competitions. The rules allow the use of striking and grappling techniques, both while standing and on the ground. Such competitions allow martial artists of different backgrounds to compete”.

The thing that confuses me about the term MMA is that it’s not clear whether it’s referring to the individual who is trained in more than one martial art style or whether it’s the competition that is ‘mixed’, i.e. boxers vs. Wrestlers, karateka vs. Jujitsuka etc. I suspect historically it is the latter and this fits better with the wiki definition above. However, from what I have learnt it seems that now it is more likely that it is the individual who is trained in more than one martial art and the competition pits against each other people with very similar skills.

I think MMA has evolved to the point where the term MMA is not so appropriate to describe it. There are now many clubs that offer to train you in Mixed Martial Arts. Presumably this refers to training people in a set of fighting skills borrowed from arts such as Brazilian jujitsu, boxing, wrestling and full-contact karate and re-packaged to offer the optimum fighting portfolio for an MMA fighter. I would imagine this approach would offer a more fast-track way to learning what is necessary to become a good fighter. Whether a fighter trained in this way is better than one who has trained in each martial art individually and evolved their own package of skills I don’t know.

I would also argue that this new ‘genre’ of martial arts training referred to as MMA training has in fact become a new ‘single’ martial art in its own right so perhaps MMA is not the right thing to call it anymore. Likewise with the competitions – the fighters generally have similar skills to each other so the fights aren’t really ‘mixed’ anymore. Still, I expect they are stuck with the name now.

Rules for winning a fight (or not losing one): According to Wikipedia: “Victory in a match is normally gained either by the judges' decision after an allotted amount of time has elapsed, a stoppage by the referee (for example if a competitor cannot defend himself intelligently) or the fight doctor (due to an injury), a submission, by a competitor's cornerman throwing in the towel, or by knockout.”

I can understand from a health and safety position why you would need so many ways of stopping a fight but it seems to me that you win by virtue of not losing! This doesn’t sound to me like a very satisfactory way of winning. I won because I went the full time, I wasn’t stopped by the referee, doctor or cornerman, I didn’t give in and I wasn’t knocked out – but one of these things did apply to my opponent! Isn’t that a bit like winning a race because all the other competitors dropped out – you didn’t need to be the best or the fastest or even finish the race? You just needed to be the one that didn’t drop out! It sounds to me that you win an MMA round by default.

Things I don’t like about MMA.

The posturing and the hype: I once went into WH Smiths to see if I could buy a martial arts magazine. They were positioned on the top shelf, which I couldn’t reach, so I asked a man nearby if he would pass one to me. He looked at what I was pointing at and asked me if I really wanted that one. Not being able to see what it was I said yes so he gave me a funny look and passed it to me. I can’t remember what it was called but it was an MMA magazine. The first thing I noticed was the testosterone wafting from the pages. This glossy magazine was full of pictures of oiled, tattooed bodies posturing for the camera. There didn’t seem to be any useful articles about martial arts in it – just news about competitions and who the top fighters of the day were. I felt embarrassed looking through this magazine, as if I’d picked up a porn mag by mistake – no wonder the man gave me a funny look!

It seems to me that MMA is portrayed as being more about the fighters than the fights, that having sex appeal and the ‘body beautiful’ is the most important thing. I’m sure it’s not the most important thing but it is portrayed that way in the media. This brings me onto my other bug bear....

Overt sexism in female MMA: If you are not a ‘hottie’ or a ‘babe’ in female MMA then you may as well forget it – or at least it seems that way from the way these girls are portrayed in promotional videos. Though these girls are good fighters it is clearly their looks and bodies that get them a long way and it seems to be the feature most admired about them. I visited a website for an MMA club and there were tabs to click for information on class times, instructor details, future events and one labeled ‘babes’. I thought (naively) this was going to be information on children’s classes so I clicked on it and was taken to a page with photos of scantily clad female fighters holding up their winning trophies! It is hard to believe that such overt sexism has been allowed to creep into a 21^st century sport. Presumably the girls involved revel in the male attention it brings and there is no doubt they take the fighting seriously but you just don’t see this attitude to women in other martial arts. Shame on MMA.

Conclusion: Well that’s my appraisal of my first impression of MMA. I admit I have never visited an MMA club, attended an MMA competition or even know anyone that does MMA fighting so my appraisal may be simplistic and naive. However, apart from the hype and sexism, I think MMA as a sport is okay. It’s more exciting and skillful than just boxing or wrestling and is going to great lengths to make itself an acceptable mainstream sport – you never know, maybe one day it will make it back into the Olympics, I wouldn’t object.

If you want to find out more about Sue's karate organisation you can visit its new website at:

www.sskarate.co.uk

www.elite-karate.co.uk
My Blog: kickasssuec.blogspot.com

When it’s time to move forward: Seishin-do Shukokai Karate

SUE WHARTON: A time may come in a sensei's martial arts journey when he/she needs to take a different path to the one set by his/her own sensei. A need to break away, find a new path, their own path that enables them to continue developing and maturing as a martial artist.

Dave Lowry, in his book The Karate Way - discovering the spirit of practice, likens a healthy sensei-student relationship to that of a parent and child. He says that "the sensei must be like a parent, one with a healthy and realistic sense of who he is, who his children are, and what he wishes them to become.......Good parents not only accept that they will be surpassed by their children in many areas, they welcome it.......The healthy parent does not view the success of his or her child as a threat but rather as a testament to his or her good parenting."

 

In his book, Budo Mind and Body, Nicklaus Suino, also uses the parent-child analogy. He states that "...just as children nearing adulthood must challenge their parents and seek their own role in the world, so must students of the martial arts eventually become complete individuals by seeking independence."

 

Many of the great past karate masters had to take this step to move away from the sensei that trained them, sometimes to spread their karate style more widely but often to create a new style themselves. Gichin Funakoshi  developed Shotokan karate after training with two different masters. He learned Shuri-te from Yasutsune Azato and from Yasutsune Itosu, he learned Naha-te. Likewise Kenwa Mabuni went on to develop Shito-ryu karate after training with Kanryo Higaonna and Yasutsune Itosu.

 

However, most 'students' who wish to flee the nest of the system they trained in don't actually wish to develop an entirely new system - they just want the space and freedom to add their mark to the style they know and respect. To develop it further, expand it, improve it.

 

This is the place my own sensei has reached on his martial arts journey. Opportunities for him to continue developing within the parent organisation of our club – the Shukokai Karate Union (SKU), which is run by his own sensei, have reached an end-point. Two professional martial arts colleagues of his within the SKU have reached the same end-point. So together they have taken the decision to leave and set up their own association.

 

This must have been a very difficult decision to make, requiring much soul searching. These instructors have trained for over 20 years in the SKU shukokai karate style. Initially they trained directly under its chief instructor and have remained loyal to him and the SKU's aims and syllabus since developing their own clubs.

 

Ties of loyalty are strong; it must have been difficult to tell him they were leaving. In Budo Mind and Body, Nicklaus Suino says " While this separation might seem like a severing of the ties of loyalty, and in some cases it may end up actually doing so, it is a necessary step in the maturation of students.....As long as the students remember that nothing in their martial arts careers would have been possible without the guidance of their teachers, they will understand their proper place in the continuing succession of martial artists."

 

The new organisation is called Seishin-do Shukokai Karate and took effect on the 17th August when insurance and licences were transferred to the new association. It is not a rival organisation to the SKU it is merely another link in the shukokai karate lineage with a chance to develop shukokai karate in new ways.

 

So how do I feel about this change? Well, it's a test of my loyalty too. Do I stay loyal to my instructor and move with him to the new organisation or do I stay loyal to the SKU and move to another SKU club? It wouldn't be difficult to move, there are plenty of SKU clubs in my area. In fact a new one is being set up in the same venue that my current club trains in now.

 

As far as I'm concerned though it's a no-brainer, of course my loyalty is to my sensei. He is an excellent instructor and I trust him to continue to train and grade me to a high standard. The new syllabus is exciting - it offers an expansion rather than a contraction of the shukokai style. There are some jujitsu and aikido influences being added as well as a return to more traditional training methods and etiquette. The sport and fitness side of our style also remains important and courses and competitions are already in the planning. There is much to look forward too - and much to get to grips with!

 

I think my sensei and his colleague were courageous to take this step and it deserves my support. Clearly other club members feel the same way. Only 3 people have left our club (from the same family) to join another SKU club. Seishin-do Shukokai karate (SSK) already has 14 clubs and approximately 650 members - it should go from strength to strength. Here's to a new beginning.

 

If you want to find out more about this new karate organisation you can visit its new website at:

www.sskarate.co.uk

www.elite-karate.co.uk
My Blog: kickasssuec.blogspot.com

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SHUKOKAI KARATE - THE WAY FOR ALL

SUE WHARTON: I decided it would be a good idea for me to write a bit about the style of karate I am studying, mainly for your interest and my education. Though I could find a lot of information about the history of karate’s development, I could find very little information about what actually makes the Shukokai style different to other karate styles. Well, here’s what I’ve managed to find out:

Early history of karate
For hundreds of years the natives of Okinawa would defend themselves against attack with a fighting system that was a pre-cursor of karate called Te. Te was then heavily influenced by the Chinese art of Chuan Fa– a form of white crane kung fu brought to the island by visiting Chinese monks and envoys from around the 14^th century and developed into the art of Tode.

During the 18^th and 19^th centuries the art of Tode developed separately into three styles: Naha-te, Shuri-te and Tomari-te. The Tomari-te style essentially merged with Shuri-te, though there are still kata practised today that can trace their lineage back to the Tomari-te style, including Wankan and Annanku.

Naha-te versus Shuri-te
Shuri was the capital of Okinawa and the King of Okinawa (Sho Tai 1847 -1879, deposed by Imperial Japanese decree during the Meiji restoration, he died in 1901in exile) lived in the heavily guarded Shuri Castle

The original Shuri-te style was developed by the keimochi bureaucrats, who were the government officials living in the castle and doubled up as the king’s bodyguards. Names of note: Sokon Matsumura and Yasutsune Itosu both worked as bodyguards in Shuri Castle. The keimochi were Okinawa’s traditional nobility class from whom Gichin Funakoshi himself was descended.

Naha was a seaport village on the west coast of Okinawa, about 3 miles from Shuri. As a deep water seaport Naha received visiting sailors from all around the world. Often these visitors would be armed with weapons such as knives, harpoons and clubs.

Kanyro Higaonna (b.1853) lived in Naha but spent many years in China where he learnt the art of Chuan Fa. He brought this back to Okinawa and developed it into the Naha-te style of karate – but did not teach it until 1902.

At the time karate was being developed (1800s), Okinawa was basically under siege from both Japan and China. The Tokugawan shogunate operated a brutal military dictatorship in Japan for over 200 years and with the Satsuma Samurai clan it terrorised the Okinawans, making them defenceless by banning all weapons.

The Shuri-te style developed by the King’s bodyguards is also known as ‘hard’ karate or linear karate, and is considered best suited to people who are light and quick on their feet. It uses the momentum of the whole body to generate power and impact.

Naha-te style, on the other hand, is also known as ‘soft’ karate or circular karate and takes many of its influences from Chinese Chuan Fa. This style emphasizes body building, muscle power, stationary rooted stances and keeping your hands in contact with your opponent, with lots of grappling. It generally suited the larger, more powerful man. It was a useful style for fighting in the dark if you were attacked at night as you walked home after a drinking session in Naha!

Itosu developed the Pinan katas practised by followers of the Shuri-te styles, whereas Higaonna developed Sanchin kata (a body building kata) typical of the Naha-te styles.

So where does Shukokai fit in?

Shukokai is a direct descendent of Shito-ryu, one of the four main systems of Japanese karate (the other three being Shotokan, Wado-ryu and Goju-ryu).

Shito-ryu was developed by Kenwa Mabuni around 1929. Mabuni is an interesting character because he studied karate under two very different masters, Kanryo Higaonna who developed the Naha-te style of karate and Yasutsune Itosu (b.1830) who taught the Shuri-te style of karate. By studying these two very contrasting styles Mabuni created a unique system of karate that included elements from both the Naha-te and Shuri-te schools.

Mabuni believed that Katas are the most important part of karate-do, and that it is necessary to understand the meaning of each movement in the Kata and to perform the Kata correctly. He was the first to introduce the concept of Bunkai kumite and Hokei Kumite, which demonstrated the purpose and showed the correct use for each Kata

Mabuni believe that the final result of proper Kata and Kumite training is the ability to apply karate-do techniques in free Kumite. Practice of Kata also helps to transmit the knowledge encoded in Kata to the subsequent generation. Shito-ryu, unlike other karate-do styles, has many more Katas.

As a descendent of Shito-ryu, Shukokai also has elements of both Shuri-te and Naha-te styles. We practice all five Pinan katas as well as Sanchin and the related Tensho kata. In fact, Shukokai has 22 kata in total.

Shukokai was developed by Chojiro Tani in 1948. He studied Shito-ryu under Manubi and brought pad work into karate training. Shukokai is known for its relatively high stances, speed, hard hitting techniques and scientific approach to body mechanics, blending it with principles of modern sporting dynamics. Although very traditional techniques are taught through the kihon and kata, Shukokai also puts a lot of emphasis on sports karate.

Shukokai was brought to England in 1968 by SenseiTani and Sensei Kimura. The Shukokai Karate Union was founded in 1969 by Sensei Stan Knighton who was graded for black belt by Senseis Tani and Kimura. Stan Knighton remains Chief Instructor of the SKU and last year achieved his 9th Dan.

So, now I know where I’m coming from, so to speak!

www.elite-karate.co.uk

My Blog: kickasssuec.blogspot.com

DFM Martial Arts presents its Cage Fight Night at THe Alnwick Gardens


The event will feature some of the top MMA and kickboxing clubs in the region in an explosive night of non-stop action


There will be pro, semi-pro and amateur MMA
and
full-contact and semi-contact K - 1 and kicboxing

GETTING TO GRIPS WITH KUMITE

SUE WHARTON: I have had a very busy month martial arts wise! 

Apart from the usual twice weekly karate training, I’ve attended a kumite training seminar, entered my first kumite competition, joined a new kobudo club and graded for 3^rd kyu.

The main emphasis though has definitely been on sparring, not something that has come easy to me.

When I first started karate I didn't like sparring at all, I just didn't really get what it was all about. The moves that we were being taught in sparring were very different from the moves we were learning in the traditional karate. They seemed to contradict each other. 

With the traditional stuff it was all about planting your feet firmly on the ground, staying low in a stance and making big arm movements with the blocks and strikes. 

Then we move onto sparring training and suddenly its 'up on your toes' and 'get off line'. The punches become more like quick sharp jabs and the blocks are more like parrys. 

This sudden change of technique is very confusing to the beginner. It's a bit like training to play tennis and then entering a badminton competition. There are similarities, yes, but the techniques are completely different. 

It took quite a long time to realise that in Shukokai we are basically learning two different types of karate side by side. We are learning traditional karate and we are also learning sports karate. 

Now that I realise that these are separate things I have learnt to switch more easily between them. With my sparring 'hat' on when doing kumite training I am making more progress and actually starting to enjoy it. 

However that doesn't mean I find it easy - I don't. 

Initially I found it hard to see openings - the opponent's arms always seemed to be in the way! I was telegraphing too much and I didn't have enough variety of techniques to use. 

Sensei has been putting in a lot of work with us recently to prepare us for the competition. This was an 'in house' competition just for our club. Most people in our club have never entered a kumite competition before so the idea of it was to provide people with experience and boost their confidence before entering a larger competition. With over 160 club members I’d have expected a reasonable turnout for the kumite training seminar but we only had 10 people!

So why do people shy away from sparring? Remember we do non-contact sparring (touch contact in reality) so you're not going to get hurt. 

I think people misunderstand what non-contact sparring is about or what it can teach you. To me this kind of sparring is not just about fighting - you have to actually hit people to have a real fight and feel some aggression towards them. 

So, if it's not just about fighting what is it about and what use is it? 

On the physical side it improves fitness and endurance; it speeds up your reactions and it makes you observe your opponent very carefully. It doesn't teach you any techniques that would be useful in a street attack, but it doesn't try to - it's a sport. However, it does teach you mental techniques that would help you in a self-defence situation. In fact I think it is the mental benefits that really bring kumite training into its own. 

When sparring you have to find the courage to face your opponent and have a physical confrontation with them. For some people that is very difficult, some people have to dig pretty deep inside themselves to find that courage, but I do believe it's inside all of us somewhere - training will help bring it out. 

It also teaches you resilience, determination, patience, self-control and awareness. These are all positive character traits that may help you in a real attack situation if you are ever unlucky enough to be in one, but they will certainly help you in other areas of your life - your work, interpersonal-relationships or just dealing with any situation or challenge that life throws at you.

Anyway, by the time the competition came around Sensei had persuaded 32 people to enter and we were split into relevant age, sex and grade categories. We warmed up with a team sparring event so that everyone got the chance to have a round of sparring before the individual event. 

This took about an hour and allowed us to loosen up and shake of some pre-competition nerves. Then we started the individual event with the children going first.

So how did I do? Well, there were three ladies in my category, two 1st kyus and me (still 4th kyu) so I didn't really expect to win. I came third out of the three of us but I think I put up a pretty good fight. I know both my opponents find me a little scary to spar with sometimes because I generally have a very attacking style, but they really shouldn't worry because their greater experience and more skilful techniques generally prevail.

I had a long think about where I went wrong when I got home. My big disadvantage is a lack of height and I haven't yet worked out how to deal with that. Both of my opponents were much taller than me, one about three inches the other five or six inches. This also means they have a longer reach than me and makes my head a nice target. Being smaller I tend to go for chudan punches but while I'm throwing my punch they are aiming for my head with the counter punch and their longer arms tend to make contact with my head before mine makes contact with their abdomen! 

The referee nearly always (correctly) awarded the point to them. 

I think my aggressive style is working against me. I seem to be able to drive my opponents back with no problem but I seem unable to capitalise on this advantage. I'm too slow to spot openings but seem to be leaving myself undefended because they still manage to get a jodan punch on me. I think I must be getting too close to them as I drive them back. 

It wasn't all bad - I did score some points but not as many as I gave away. One opponent landed an amazing kick on my chin, very controlled and accurate and deservedly got her 3 points. The other opponent, who has the benefit of youth (she’s only 17), was just too quick for me. She's very graceful and light on her feet! 

So the event was a great learning experience for me and hopefully I will improve with training.

In fact I had another chance to try out my sparring skills under competition conditions the following week during my grading. 

Part of the grading syllabus involves doing two rounds of sparring. 

Since I was the only woman in the grading session there was no choice but to partner me with men.

Don't worry, I went easy on them! I decided to pare back on the aggression a little and it seemed to work - I won one round and lost the other.

I’m feeling pretty all ‘sparred out’ now. This next month I plan to start getting to grips with the 3^rd kyu syllabus and learn to twirl my tonfas and draw my bokken!

See you next month...

www.elite-karate.co.uk

sku website: www.sku.org.uk

My Blog: kickasssuec.blogspot.com

Sue Wharton: This month I want to share my thoughts with you on what, from a student’s point of view (well mine anyway), makes a club a good club, an instructor a good instructor and a student a good student. I can only talk about these things in relation to karate as currently that is the only martial art I know. Why did I choose karate? Well, I’d heard of it! I’d also heard of Kung fu but contrary to other people’s experience, Bruce Lee films actually put me off this! The only other martial art I knew anything about was jujitsu because my husband and sons do it. My husband’s constant injuries put me off that!

The club: I think three things make a club work well: High standards from a good instructor; a dynamic and progressive ethos; and a good mix of students.

I really fell on my feet when I chose my karate club though I didn’t really know what to look for or what to ask. I was only vaguely aware that there were different styles of karate and I certainly didn’t know the differences between them. Where I live there are two clubs nearby, a Goju ryu club and a Shukokai club. My husband suggested that Goju ryu might be ‘too rough’ for me and suggested I do Shukokai. Not knowing any better I agreed and have never looked back.

So why is my club good? Well to start with I think the standard of training I receive is high. I am reassured of this because the club is externally validated by the SKU (Shukokai Karate Union).  This suggests to me that all clubs in the SKU will have to provide training to the same syllabus and standard. My instructor has to attend 3 instructors’ courses a year in order to maintain his instructors licence so his teaching standard is also externally assessed. The SKU also provides brown belt and black belt training courses which will enable me (when I get my brown belt) to train with members from other clubs and reassure me that I am being trained to the same standard as others.

This is not to say that clubs not externally validated or affiliated in this way do not offer a high standard of training, it’s just that as a student with little experience it can be hard to know.

My club is also very active, lively, outward looking and progressive. There is always a positive buzz about the place – it makes you want to join in, be a part of it. There is a whole range of off syllabus stuff to do. The club arranges extra weekend sessions sometimes to concentrate on just kumite or just kata or even just fitness training. These sessions are serious but fun.

Our club is very family orientated. We have several families that train together, including mine. I think this family friendly ethos encourages more women to join and more importantly - to stay. We have roughly an equal split between males and females, even at the senior coloured belts.

We also have social events such as bowling, clay pigeon shooting, meals out, family games days and even a p...up in a private brewery (Adults only!).

We are also planning to join up with another Shukokai club for a joint training session soon –swap training tips, see how others do it. I think it’s important for a club not to be too insular.

Most importantly, my club feels safe. Supervision is high, bad technique is corrected and discipline is maintained. No one is allowed to be too rough and no one is allowed to be a diva. Injuries inevitably happen from time to time but they are minimal and minor.

The Instructor: So what do I expect from my instructor? I expect him to train me correctly in all aspects of the syllabus. I expect him to correct me when I get it wrong and encourage me when I get it right. I want him to push me and motivate me so that I can be the best I can. I trust him to ensure my safety and know what to do if there is an accident. I want the classes to be serious but fun at the same time. I want to have a good grounding in the traditional stuff but have a chance to learn and experiment with more modern techniques. I need my instructor to be friendly and approachable but also authoritative and in control of the class. I need to respect him. I don’t want much do I?

Does my instructor deliver? Yeah, he delivers pretty well on all these aspects. So how does he do it? Well, student’s eye view, but I think he does it like this: He is very passionate about martial arts – it’s his life, his job. He trains regularly himself with other instructor friends that he has, and even occasionally with his own sensei. He continues to develop himself – he does aikido training and occasionally some jujitsu training as well as attending various seminars. New things he learns he brings back to class.

He plans every lesson and doesn’t just make it up on the night. He thinks about the pace of the lesson. It generally starts on a fast pace, slows down a bit in the middle and then speeds up again at the end – so that we leave on a high. Each lesson is structured differently, there is no predictable routine.  He is upbeat, injecting a lot of energy into the class and he cracks jokes occasionally - you never get bored.

He knows everybody in the club. He has over 160 members between his 3 clubs but he rarely forgets a name. He knows everybody’s skill level, their strengths and weaknesses and gives everyone a bit of personal attention in the lesson. You never feel that you are just an anonymous student in the class. In my view he is a good instructor.

The Student: What makes a good student? Well, a good student and the best student are not necessarily the same thing. A good student can only strive to be the best they can rather than the best there is. I think it’s all a matter of attitude. Any student can be a good student with the right attitude to training.

This is what I think makes you a good student: Take responsibility for your own learning. You can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink! Just because you’ve found a good instructor doesn’t in itself mean you will become an expert in your martial art. You have to actively listen, watch and practice. I think you enter into a two way partnership with your instructor and to succeed you have to both play your part. So be prepared to work hard.

Practice outside the dojo if you can. This is easy in karate because you can train without a partner and you don’t need much space or equipment. It may not be so easy for other arts. Even if you can’t physically practice you can still mentally rehearse kata and various techniques – this will still help you when you get back to class.

Immerse yourself in the history and culture of your chosen art. Read books and blogs. This may not be essential to learning the art but it helps to put it all into context and makes it more interesting for the long term.

Support your club: attend extra activities and social events – your instructor goes to a lot of trouble to set these up. Help out with teaching if you are senior enough. Promote your club when you can. Represent your club in competitions if you can – go on, give it a go, it’s not that scary!

If all members get involved in supporting the club then the club will just go from strength to strength and give you a better experience. After all a club is only the sum of its members.

So, am I a good student?  I hope so, I try to be. I’m not the best and I’m not the worst. I just know I love it and I’m in it for the long term.

www.elite-karate.co.uk

sku website: www.sku.org.uk

My Blog: kickasssuec.blogspot.com

Sue Wharton: Why do women do martial arts? I’m sure they have a variety of different reasons but I expect that  if you asked around in your dojo virtually all women would have the following two phrases in their answers: ‘to get fit’ and ‘to learn some self-defence’. 

Well I’ve no doubt that if they put the effort in they will get fitter, I know I am certainly stronger and fitter than I was two years ago before taking up karate, even though I was a regular attendee at a gym.

Unfortunately I have some doubts as to whether women actually learn a useful and effective self-defence strategy. 

They will learn many self-defence techniques that seem useful such as escapes from strangles and grabs; blocks and counter strikes to various kicks and punches and maybe even defences from the ground. 

But I have some doubts as to how useful all this really is in a real life attack situation.

I am taught exactly the same techniques as the men in our dojo are. It is my observation that the men can generally get to grips with most of the techniques and get them to work, they seem fascinated with the whole bio-mechanics of things and will spend ages getting complicated locks on.

Women on the other hand are a bit more pragmatic in their approach and are more discerning about what works and what doesn’t. 

There is often much chatter amongst the women along the lines of ‘I’d never try and do that – it’s too fiddly,’ or ‘That would never work on a big bloke,’ or ‘I’m not strong enough to do that one,’ or ‘p;It’s too complicated, I’ll never remember that’. 

I’m often the one saying these things!

I’m not actually surprised by this, after all martial arts of all styles were developed by men for men to fight other men. 

Traditionalists have ensured that ancient fighting techniques have been preserved and so most martial arts taught today seem more effective for the male body form than the female one. 

On top of that we have ‘sex equality’ issues and ‘political correctness’ to throw into the mix. It would probably take a brave instructor to treat male and female students differently because of their differences in body shape; particularly if he were male, the risk of sounding sexist or patronising could be enormous.

In the dojo that I train in men and women are treated exactly the same in all respects. 

On the whole this works well, after all I have two legs and two arms like a man so I can do most of the same things that a man can do, so I have no complaints about being treated the same. 

I will partner the men almost as often as I partner other women and I think this is a good idea as I can learn what it is like to throw or apply techniques to a much larger, heavier person.

So, what is my problem? Well, being a male orientated fighting system, karate teaches you how to deal predominantly with a male on male attack. 

If a man is attacked it is most likely to occur in the street by a random attacker or by a ‘rival gang’ or in a pub brawl or somewhere like that. Statistics suggest that women are rarely attacked by strangers in the street.

Eighty-five percent of women who are attacked are attacked in their own homes or in the home of someone they know by someone they know. 

There is often an emotional attachment between the woman and her attacker which the attacker plays on and manipulates; or her attacker may have got her drunk or drugged prior to a physical attack. A woman is often already defeated before the first blow is struck.

An effective self-defence system for women needs to help her deal with the events that go on between her and the attacker before the physical attack starts so that she can learn how to diffuse or prevent an attack from occurring. 

This requires quite a different approach than simply learning combative techniques.

I’m not saying that the self-defence techniques that I am learning are no good; indeed if I am one of the few unfortunate women that are attacked by a stranger in the street then I feel confident that I may be able to help myself. 

However, my training does not adequately prepare me to deal with the more likely event of being attacked in my own home by someone I know or trust. 

A woman’s biggest mistake is to believe in will never happen to her – it may never be your husband or partner that attacks you but he could be a neighbour, family friend or colleague, or someone you just met in the pub, you just never know.

I think women’s self-defence is a specialist area. Women are different to men, both physically and psychologically, whether we acknowledge this in the dojo or not and their self-defence needs are different. 

Even the method of attack is likely to be different and requires a different approach.

Not every club is equipped to deal with this and there is no reason why they should be.  A martial arts club teaching traditional or modern techniques has much to offer women and should be free to teach what its instructors want. 

After all martial arts are not just about self defence. 

But even courses that are specially designed and sold as ‘women’s self defence’ courses are often still based on the assumption that a woman will be attacked by a stranger in the street and don’t touch on issues of date rape or domestic violence which is much more common.

All that I am asking is that if a woman wishes to join your club and says that she wants to learn some self-defence, if you don’t offer any specialist training for women, please be honest with her about the limitations of the self-defence she will learn.  Don’t let her be lulled into a false sense of security. 

Don’t allow the empowerment a woman may feel from learning a martial art to simply turn out to be an illusion.

See you next month...

www.elite-karate.co.uk

Sue Wharton: First I’d like to say that I am very honoured to be invited to write this blog for Martial News.

Scrolling down the blogroll I see I am in some very eminent company, with my fellow bloggers having made life long commitments to mastering many different styles of martial arts and being willing to share their knowledge, wisdom and experience with you.

Then there’s me! I have been learning karate for less than two years. What could I possibly tell you? What contribution to martial arts knowledge could I make that isn’t already known?

As a relatively inexperienced student of karate I am generally on the receiving end of other martial artist’s teachings, knowledge and wisdom. I read, I listen, I watch and I practice. All that is being thrown at me whirls around in my head, I try and make sense of it and then I make my own interpretation of it – my own unique insight of learning a martial art. These insights are what I want to share in this blog.

For example, when I started my own personal blog, I have in the title ‘- journey to black belt’. I thought this seemed a reasonable target to pursue in a martial art. Isn’t this what every martial artist wants? Well it has been made clear to me now through listening to other more experienced martial artists that ‘it isn’t about getting a black belt – it’s about the training’.

I have also heard people mutter about not needing the coloured belts; that we should go back to the traditional training system of students wearing a white belt until their sensei deems them proficient enough in the mental and physical aspects of their art to be awarded the black belt. Do I agree with these view points? Err..yes and err..no!

Yes I agree that it’s not just about getting the black belt. I don’t want to follow some watered down syllabus that fast tracks me to shodan. I want to immerse myself more fully in the physical, mental and cultural aspects of martial arts and I need time to do that properly. BUT… I like my purple belt and I liked all the coloured belts I had before – they are markers of my progress, they help me put my new found skills and knowledge into context, they motivate me. They are like mini rewards for the effort I have made. And yes, I want that black belt.

When I look at who it is that tells me it’s not about the black belt or that we don’t need coloured belts, I realise that they are all (no dis-respect is meant here)  – black belts! It seems to me one needs to acquire the wisdom and experience of a black belt to realise that getting the black belt is not important and only really represents the beginning. I can ‘know’ this but it remains precisely that – knowledge, not wisdom. I have to go through the process myself of converting this knowledge into wisdom through practice, learning and experience and to help me do this I need my belts, all of them! I call this the black belt paradox – you need to acquire a black belt in order to truly understand that ‘it’s not about the black belt’.

See you next month...

Contact Sensei Steve Hegarty

0114 2201015 or 07952 158838

Kurai-Nami
Kenjutsu Club


The Way of the Sword
George Allison Community Centre
Byker, Newcastle
Saturday 10am to noon
john@kurinami.wanadoo.co.uk

Zanshin AikidoSunderland University
Sundays 6 to 8pm
and
Fridays 7 to 9pm
The new Cityscape Centre
Chester Road Campus
Chester Road
Sunderland
psethp@yahoo.co.uk
www.zanshinaikido.co.uk0191 5226294

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