In my last post I talked about the ills of belt systems.

But, here's the thing...

Sensei recently asked me to sit for a grading and I’d be lying if I said part of me didn’t get a little excited.

In truth, I'd love some more time. But, I do feel incredibly privileged to have been asked to grade under Sensei. It’s an amazing opportunity and one I know I just can't turn down.

So, while it’s easy to sit here and claim that grades aren’t important, it’s obvious that there’s still something in it.

Perhaps it’s not so much the dan-grade but the grading process that makes it special. For me, gradings have always been something very different to competition or competitive sport. In my teens I raced nationally in triathlon and cross-country running but these events never really compared to the physical and mental ordeal of our gradings. And, while puking and being pummeled isn’t everyone’s idea of a fun time, there really is ‘something’ in being booted right out of your comfort zone and pushed to your absolute limits.

I remember having the odd experience once amid countless repetitions of push-ups at the end of a grading where for a brief moment, the pain disappeared, my head cleared, and everything became effortless. Unfortunately it didn’t last long. But, I felt that for a brief moment at least, I had clarity. Maybe it was just the endorphins. But then, it’s always possible I caught a small glimpse of what some might call ‘satori’ – a ‘little awakening’, one of those brief moments of enlightenment you occasionally hear talked about in training.

Whatever it was, I’ve always felt that the physical, emotional and spiritual trial of gradings has forced me to grow as a person (if only in growing my pain threshold). And through them, I’ve come to learn a little about myself that I didn’t know. In the end, pass or fail, the mere fact I survived and gave it everything is I think what makes it special.

Recently I heard a friend say, “it’s up to you how hard you push yourself”. Very true. I suppose the next stage is to learn how to give everything in normal training. Gradings are great challenges but maybe the greater challenge is fighting the urge to tune out and go through the motions. Imagine how much we’d improve if we treated all trainings like gradings.

I still remember the first night I turned up at training in a crisp new karate gi. The thick canvas felt so bunchy and uncomfortable and my stiff new white belt stuck out at odd angles like a badly behaved bowtie. It was as if my new outfit was insistent on making me look as stupid and awkward in training as I felt.

I remember watching my seniors that night completely inspired by the way they moved and I thought to myself, ‘one day if I can get to black belt maybe I can look like that too…’. At the time, it really did seem a bit of a pipe dream, and the aged and frayed state of everyone’s belts was just a reminder of how far I had to go…

It’s funny looking back on things now. Belts and grades have since come to mean a lot less to me. These days there seems to be such an obsession with qualifications and ranks. With McDojos popping up everywhere, it seems like every man and his dog has a black belt. Now the latest craze seems to be accumulating black belts in as many styles as possible – qualifications worn like little badges of honour on martial arts CVs. The irony here is that black belt is really just the beginning. A sign that you've mastered the basics and you're ready to start your real training.
Back in the days of Chojun Miyagi’s garden dojo no one wore belts. In fact, everyone just trained in their underwear. Apparently coloured belts weren’t introduced into martial arts until judo adopted them and Chojun Miyagi was always against them. Higaonna-Sensei told us he was graded to sandan (3rd dan) at his first grading in December 1960, but even then he rarely wore his belt.

Higaonna-Sensei made his views clear in interview he gave with Dragon Times:

“I agree that for students they are a way of measuring progress but at a high price. They cause discontent, squabbles, and lead to excessive pride in self, which is the opposite of what martial arts training, should develop in a student. Every one has different standards so, inevitably there are differences between the level of students from different dojos even when they have the same grade, and then the politics start. I believe that there should be black belts and white belts only, and that the focus should be on training, not on accumulating rank." (Morio Higaonna Sensei, Dragon-Times, Issue 10).

Maybe we’d all benefit from going back to the basics. Should we lose the belts and train in our knickers like in the good ol’ days?

These days, traditional karate doesn’t often make it into the movies. I suppose our simplistic style of fighting doesn’t compare that favourably to our more 'impressive looking' Kung Fu cousins. Add to that the whole principal of ‘ending a fight immediately’ and I guess you haven’t got much material for long action-packed fight scenes.

A little while ago I did see a flick however that managed to make realistic traditional karate work on screen. The film’s called Kuro Obi (Black Belt).

Like all good martial arts movies, the plot’s a little melodramatic in parts but the fight scenes are pretty great. Simple. Realistic. And, I think pretty true of traditional karate. It really comes as no surprise that two of the main characters Akihito Yagi (who plays Giryu) and Tatsuya Naka (who plays Taikan) and are 5th and 6th dan karate instructors. As an interesting side note, Sensei Yagi (pictured above) is President of the International Meibukan Gojyu Ryu Karate Association and actually teaches at a dojo in Naha’s Kume district (barely 10 minutes away by bike). The martial arts world really is a small place.

In any case, I've included a few clips from one of the earlier fight scenes below and short video with some behind-the-scenes footage. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a peak – especially for anyone interested in traditional karate, what it looks like, and how it differs from other more cinematic styles of fighting. After all, there’s nothing like a good martial arts movie to get you fired up for some training.


Fight Scene Part 1


Fight Scene Part 2


And some behind the scenes...

Following on from my last post, I wanted to talk a little more about moving from the hips (koshi) or perhaps more appropriately, moving from ones tanden. The importance of the tanden seems a favorite subject of Yamashiro-Sensei’s, and while the 7th dan instructor claims not to speak much English, he certainly has a way with the words he knows…

A few nights ago Brent and I stayed late to practice sanchin kata after training and we were lucky enough to have Yamashiro-Sensei pop into the dojo. He sat and watched us for a while before coming over and correcting our posture and body alignment. One thing he said really stayed with me:

“Tanden wa (king), ashi (legs/feet) wa soldiers. King tells soldiers – Go!"

What I like most about this analogy is that it captures the subtle difference between initiating movement from the tanden and over exaggerated ‘leading with the hips’ – maybe a bit like a King charging out ahead of his army. In this sense, the tanden shouldn’t so much move before the body, as with it, while giving the orders.

By pulling slightly on my belt, Yamashiro Sensei showed me how to initiate movements without the obvious weight shift involved in stepping. This enabled me to slide forward more easily without telegraphing my movements by keeping my head and upper body aligned and still.

Replicating the movement without Sensei’s help is another matter – it’s much harder pulling yourself around by your own belt! But, so far the imagery has proved useful in training and hopefully with enough practice King Koshi will get better at commanding the troops.

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