Staying on the path

  “The Path of the Warrior Is Lifelong, and Mastery Is Often Simply Staying on the Path”

1. Strozzi

 

A few weeks ago I was contacted  by a person who was interested in training at the dojo. He wanted to work-out, but not really join or to learn our karate. Just to train and pick up what ever he could, so he can add karate to  his repertoire of fighting styles. It went like this “ I have a blue belt in TKD, a yellow sash in kung fu, I have done MMA and BJJ, so I would like to learn a little karate.

He seem to  think that by learning a little of each style it will come out as a black belt. It just doesn’t work that way.  While they might pick up some techniques they will never advance or grow as a martial artist.  What they are missing is the mental discipline of not quitting the daily training of basics. This is what makes your karate work. The tempering of the body is what makes the mind strong. Mastering a style is more often just mastering yourself and most of  that is just showing up at the dojo.  I have always believe that one style will teach you everything. When I first started I just did punches, blocks, and kicks,  as  the years went by I was introduce to grappling, throws, locks, ground fighting, all kinds of self defense techniques, vital point striking, even a jumping spinning back hook kick, all this from a traditional karate style. This is not to say that there isn’t  an advantage in training with other styles, (which there is)so you can enhance your style, but this should happen when you have a good foundation in your chosen art.

 “Never Stray From The Way”

Musashi

The reason I am a 5^th degree black belt is I never Quit.  It would have been easy to quit, there were/are a lot of reason to stop: my teacher moved back to Japan, we don’t have a dojo, I have to work, I’m lazy,  I want to party, and so on.  When I started  there were number of students who were very good and  higher ranks then me, but they never made black belt,  why…  they quit. I was one of the only students  to make black belt in our style ( in Idaho). I found the karate Way and just stuck to it. I was able to go to Japan to train, built the keishin kan dojo and just keep on going. Why do people move around so much in the marital arts?  I think that if it gets to hard or boring, or they just don’t want to spar, or practice kata or what ever, they move on to another style,  it’s not the style its you.

I gave up a lot  to keep on the Way, but I have gain so much more from it. I ran into a old dojo mate and friend who we trained  together between 1973-1978,  when I told him I was still add it and teaching 3 times a week, he really couldn’t  believe it.

He ask me how and why?

My answer was I still like it, it makes me feel good and I Never Quit!

 

 

See you in the dojo