Dean’s Dojo

I was trying to think of a more clever title, but I believe this one gets the idea across.

Often, when thinking about what exactly to teach to students, I have had to trim down what I have planned. It is much easier to overplan and plan to overachieve than it is to have a measured, steady approach to things. Specifically, the winter teaching session at my high school comes to mind.

Every January since high school graduation, I’ve traveled back to my high school with an awesome group of alumni to teach an intense, week-long Karate ‘Camp.’ Last year was the first year we really made an effort to organize. We brainstormed a list of goals, objectives, and what we wanted our students to accomplish by the end of the week. At the same time, we set some goals for ourselves as instructors, and also talked about what changes we would like to effect in the high school Karate Club. We came up with a course packet, handouts, crossword puzzles, presentations, and numerous ‘extras’ that really made a difference that week. And by the end of the week (and in the weeks following the session), we struggled to come to grips with the fact that we had not accomplished everything, and that several goals had been accomplished to a mediocre degree because there were simply so many to absorb our efforts.

So, in thinking about new strategies for dealing with this problem, I’ve been applying the knowledge gained in my intense and immersive involvement in teaching at the Academy of Traditional Karate to trying to understand how to do better next year. The answer is simple: do less.

There is a huge list of specific items that could be modified for next year that I have sitting in front of me, but I’m saving the details for those who are dedicated enough to keep coming back year after year to teach (and others who foolishly agreed to receive said details). The basic idea is to take a list of ten or so things we wanted the newest Karate students to learn, and narrowing it down to a handful. Likewise, narrowing down the objectives for instructor development is also a priority. By attempting less, it should be possible to focus more energy towards each task to achieve great results, rather than distributing energy amongst myriad tasks and achieving mediocre to poor results.

Of course, what would this post be if it didn’t bring this idea back into “real life?” I’ve tried to take this idea to heart recently–I normally plan to accomplish so much during the week and weekend that I often end up with a fairly dense list of goals and tasks for the coming weekend by Wednesday–consequently, my weekend evaporates into planned task after planned task. Time management is good, but having to constantly multitask just to get through my list does not leave much time for relaxing before the start of yet another work week. So, instead, this past weekend I restricted myself to a handful of items, and it worked out spectacularly! I had time to do everything on my list (even some extra items!), and I am ready for the current week. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and nobody ever mastered a kata in a week.

To twist the words of an old Jedi Master, “Do or Do Not. There is no Try.” Try less, and you’ll do more.

Formations…the trademark of the martial arts class. Neat rows and columns of students, all even with the person in front, and the person on the right. A demonstration of not only rank progression, but also of the discipline in the Dojo. And not necessarily the best way to run an exciting class.

Almost any instructor knows that if you want to keep everyone engaged—especially younger students who don’t have that adult ability to stand in one spot for an hour (and the adult ability to tolerate sitting in a chair for 8 hours a day—yuck!)—you have to break up the formation every once in a while. Sometimes, more often is better (but not so often that you lose all semblance of a disciplined martial arts class).

This came up when Shihan K. was giving me feedback and critiquing the way I had taught some Kumite-style Kihon in a youth class. I realized immediately one of the problems. I had been up there for a good 25-30 minutes, and the students had been in their neat tic-tac-toe formation the whole time. The only good news was that somehow they continued to be engaged by what I was doing in the front of the classroom—but if that was the case, I was trying to imagine how much more fun and engaging it could have been with just a few changes! Whether it would be collapsing the lines to do techniques moving down the floor, practicing “red light, green light” with specific techniques, having everyone change directions, or turning towards a partner to practice reaction time, the options are nearly limitless.

Everyone needs a change of scenery every once in a while—especially martial artists. The martial artist not only relies on the perfection of techniques earned through the sweat and trial of rote memorization, but also on the creativity and initiative to apply those techniques when they count. To keep the martial arts class static is to hinder and strangle that creative atmosphere, while keeping the class moving, both in a metaphorical and literal sense, will foster and nurture the exact behavior that we want to see in the mature martial artist. And, as with everything, neither to over-do nor under-do it.

The other day I showed Sempai A. a neat ‘ki’ drill that I learned at a seminar from Professor Giovanni Acevedo at an I.C.K.O. Illinois Martial Arts Hall of Fame a few years back. I couldn’t stop there, so I then showed her something else we learned, about how to keep someone from pushing you over by redirecting their force with a minimal amount of pressure. I then heard back from her brother that she had shared that technique with him, and resolved to show him something the next time I saw him so he could take it back and share it with her.

For this, I dug up my old, beat-up blue folder that holds the thick stack of notes I have from the summer that I studied martial arts intensely under Grandmaster Waldrop. As I was looking through my notes on all the techniques, drills, exercises, and even forms that we had studied, I realized that I hadn’t been doing my job as a representative of his system. Three pages and one Google Document later, I have a review plan for what I need to keep current with—the problem was that I had forgotten many of these techniques and thus, didn’t even think of practicing them! Fortunately now, though, I have a plan, and I’m sure I can eventually rope someone into helping me figure out what some of my sometimes-cryptic notes mean (apparently I was in a hurry sometimes, and wrote in “martial shorthand,” with phrases such as ‘strike & grab to turn the elbow up’ and ‘step around and submit,’ to simple ones such as ‘lock wrist, step through.’). Of course, which wrist lock and which way to move aren’t specified, but I’m sure contextually something will jump out at me when I get to that point.

So now, not only do I have a list of what to review, but I also have 1) a set of techniques I can ‘gift’ to junior students, to get them excited about the depth of martial arts, and 2) more motivation for keeping detailed notes. My first instructor, Grandmaster Waldrop, would confide in me that he has probably forgotten more than he’s been able to teach me, and Shidoshi K. is a huge proponent of ‘Karate Notebooks.’ Between the two of those, and my recent discovery of my Combat Karate notes, I recommend keeping a notebook (or notebooks!) to any serious martial artist. Oh, and on a side note…it helps if your notes are legible and clear, but also concise—keeping notebooks will become a burden if it takes you a page to describe every technique. Then again, some techniques need a page. That reminds me…time to go write something in my Karate Notebook!

Something very interesting has been happening to me in the Dojo recently. It all started last week, when in one of Renshi G.’s classes, I was given a line of students to hold a bag for, and one of them shouted “Yes!” right after Renshi told me which group to stand in front of. This was particularly exciting for me since I have been trying to build rapport with students in order to be a better assistant teacher to them. Then, last Saturday in one of Sensei D.’s classes, students used my title and name for the first time that I can remember when asking questions. Previously it had been plainly “Shidoin” or the students would raise their hands. I think in that one class, I was called “Shidoin Dean,” “Sempai Dean,” and I think someone almost called me “Sensei Dean” (which would have been plenty confusing).

Based on the ‘popular reception’ I had received, I was feeling pretty good about how things were going. Then on Monday, I was again in Renshi G.’s class, this time encouraging a group of students to meet some physical challenges (pushups and situps). After figuring out their names, I had a blast encouraging them to keep going, and actually found myself vicariously taking pride in their accomplishments. Whether they were doing 50 situps or 250 (there were two in the group I was with who reached this number!), I had to go out and tell all the parents I could find of the students just what they had done.

As I drove home, the idea that this was what I was meant to do was reaffirmed and reinforced. This is somewhere I belong.

Shorin-Ryu. Small (Pine) Forest Style.

There are hundreds of “Shorin-Ryu” Dojo around the world, and also there are numerous subdivisions of Shorin-Ryu. Whether it be Matsubayash-Ryu, Shobayashi-Ryu, Matsumura-Ryu, or any other style, the basic fundamentals and kata are very similar. There are, however, subtle differences between the ‘trees’ in the ‘forest’ of Shorin-Ryu.

Last night instead of having an advanced class at the Dojo, we traveled up to Hanshi Bernard’s (Shobayashi no Shido-kan) Dojo in Derry, NH, for a (great!) workout. The class started with some light stretching and immediately got into some intense work on basics (kihon). There were some good combinations of blocks and speed punches (a quick reverse punch that does not require the chambering of the blocking arm), followed by the same combination with a reverse punch, then both (maybe I’ll write more about that in another post). There weren’t really enough kicks in the class for me, but that was okay too–that’s what individual practice is for.

The really interesting (intellectually, at least) part of the whole experience was when the students from both dojos got on the floor to share kata. Not only was this fun to watch from a kata standpoint, but it was also neat because there must have been at least 50 sankyu+ (and one yonkyu from our Dojo)–most of whom were shodan+, including one adult who just passed his nanadan (7th Degree) test.

The biggest difference I noticed in watching was the presence of more circular techniques (including the tomoe taesho (circular palmheel), versus the tomoe zuki (circular punch) in Matsubayashi-Ryu). The second biggest difference was that in all the basic kata, where Matsuabayashi-Ryu has Nekoashidachi (cat stance), the Shidokan version of the kata had Shikodachi (straddle leg stance). This in particular caused me to think about it while I was watching the higher ranks from our dojo perform their kata later in the night.

By the end of class, I had two theories.

1. Originally, the kata had these low stances, much similar to what is seen in many Shotokan kata, and in Matsubayashi-Ryu the stances were raised up in order to increase mobility.

   Of course, that would not explain why the moves are in Nekoashi dachi (cat stance) instead of Shizentai dachi (natural stance). So all that seemed left to me is that O-Sensei Nagamine (or his teachers) wanted to give beginning students a head start in learning to kick.

   The Nekoashi dachi is perfect for front leg kicks, since most (or all) of the weight is on the back leg, the front foot is practically begging to fly out and touch somebody. This also fits with the emphasis on tsumasaki (toe-point) geri (kick) that seemed prevalent in O-Sensei Nagamine’s book, The Essence of Okinawan Karate-Do.

2. The other main theory is that the cat stances were originally in the Shobayashi kata that the beginning kata were based upon, but were eliminated (since there are numerous cat stance techniques in the higher Shidokan kata, though I’m not sure if there were as many as there were in the higher Matsubayashi kata).

   This was probably for one or more of the following reasons:

   • Nekoashi dachi is a challenging stance for beginners;
   • Kicks are fairly advanced techniques that involve more whole-body coordination than a punch;
   • Low stances develop strength in the leg muscles for movement, stances, and kicks;
   • Finally (and perhaps most importantly, as this is a ‘real’ reason), it is possible that there is a greater emphasis on throwing and takedown techniques in Shidokan (also evidenced by the presence of Naihanchi-style Kansetsu geri even in the first two basic kata).

Of course, hybrids of these two theories (hybrid theory, perhaps?) are possible, too, but I wanted to keep the ideas separate so that I could think about them both. I’m sure there were many more subtleties that I missed, and I also cannot speak definitively as to whether or not these are the reasons for those differences; however, these explanations make sense to me, and it’s time to start applying them towards my kata practice.