The Old Ways   4/2014

This last week I’ve been in communication with a fellow Karate-ka from Europe.  We’ve been exchanging information and pictures about the history of Keishinkan and  Master Toyama, which has been a lot of fun.  It got me thinking about why we (the Karate nerds),  feel so connected to our lineage.  We want to know where our katas come from and who our teacher’s teachers were. I am certainly one of those who  tracks down all I can about our karate and where it came from.  But why?  Is it really so important?  When I look at modern boxing, the new champions don’t fight like they did 100 years ago, and they don’t seem to care about the old fighters’ training methods or who they learn their art from.  Same with baseball and football. While I’m sure the players respect and admire those who came before them, they don’t want to train or play like they did.  But the whole karate community places such a high importance in this. When new students come to the dojo for the first time we make a point of telling them how traditional we are and how we are following the footsteps of the old masters by keeping to the old ways. The students seem to like and appreciate learning this way and being part of this living history.

I guess it has something to do with Art and Sport.   What we do is Art and like great art it takes a lifetime to get it right so that it gets better with age.  If we think back to the time when the great artist da Vinci was alive,  his paintings didn’t sell for very much,  but after a few hundred years they sell for millions of dollars.  Artists say that their paintings are never finished, they just walk away from them-  kinda like our katas and how we keep working on them, always trying to do them right by making every move perfect, then we move on to the next one.  What this type of training and thinking does for us helps us mold ourselves.  Maybe this is the reason we put so much importance in our lineage.

So why are we trying to be like the old masters and to follow the old ways?  Is it because we are using them as a mold,  a standard by which we live our karate life?   What is common among the old masters is their will and mental toughness. I think this is what we should take from them, and not worry too much that we’re not doing a move like they did  or our kata is the same as theirs. What’s important is just the fact that we are still doing kata.

The internal respect we feel and the pride of belonging to something greater than our-self is what we  really are longing for.

See you in the dojo