The Inevitable Hiatus

In our dojo, we run three scheduled classes per week, plus the occasional workshops or seminars.  I certainly encourage everyone to attend every class, but I realize that is not possible.  With the kids in soccer, swimming, piano, and school sports it isn’t reasonable to expect 100% attendance.  Factor in vacations, illness, and the “I just can’t motivate myself to get in the car” days, and it is pretty rare for some to even make it at all!

There is a price to pay for not showing up though:

The warm-up is a bit harder for you.  The basics seem more difficult than usual.  Everybody else seems to grasp the concepts and combinations quicker.  Forget about kata.  You have a tough time remembering which foot goes where.  The instructor has a hard time getting the group into a ‘flow’, and the class isn’t as good as it could be.

The scenario above might be a bit extreme, but the person who only shows up once a week is going to progress at very different pace than the student who comes to the majority of classes!  Just writing that down seems to make such obvious sense; why does it elude so many?  In the past, I have seen many of the most advanced in our group come back after a hiatus.  Each time it takes them weeks of dedicated hard work to get back what they lost.  If that’s what happens to someone with 10 or 15 years of training behind them, what happens with a new person? 

When you show up now and again, you spend most of your focus on simply catching up.  You cannot expect to absorb new concepts, because the basic building blocks need to be reviewed and re-taught.  Even the most talented fall behind.  Then they get frustrated.  When they get frustrated they are less motivated to show up, and miss more time.  Vicious circle!

A bit of advice.  Make every effort to go.  Only miss classes when you have no options.  Karate is an art, and like any art it demands constant practice.  Nobody would expect to be a great guitarist if you only went to the music studio 3 times a month. 

Rant over!

Under Pressure

I keep getting pressured by the better half to get some advertising on the side of our vehicles for the Karate dojo.  

“Everybody else is doing it.  Why can’t you?"

“Maybe because I don’t want to be everybody else” is my standard reply, which usually puts me in the freeze zone.

I guess I don’t want to be ‘that guy’.  You know him. We all see him at tournaments, or at the Safeway parking lot.   He’s driving that 2006 Dodge Caravan with the “Little Dragon’s” advert plastered down the side.  Guess what?  That guy is super successful, and probably has a dojo packed with little screamers.  The parents love him, even though his pony tail does look a bit dated, and the red pants on his Gi are getting a bit tight.  His school is adorned with trophies from every competition between here and Broken Plow, Saskatchewan.

I am not that guy.  All my karate-ka friends, across multiple disciplines, are not that guy either.  Does that make us better than van-driving, partially balding, pony tail guy?  No.  We just aren’t wired to be self promoters.  We tend to let our actions, or better yet, word of mouth get our message out there.  Some of us have web sites, and a couple even print up flyers now and again, but nobody is making a fortune teaching Karate.  Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a packed Dojo with dozens of adoring fans looking at me for my Mr. Miyagi guidance.  Instead, I have my core fanatics, looking to see if today is the day they can hit me at will.

But I can park at Walmart without anybody noticing.

The Question

Not long ago, I was asked what makes our style of Karate different than any of the others.  For years, my standard response was to explain how Renbukai was not like Shotokan or Kyokushin or any of the rest.

I started to think that through.  I wouldn’t describe my house the same way.  “It isn’t a double-wide trailer” or “I don’t have vast front lawn that needs a riding tractor in the summer” doesn’t seem get the idea across!

So, what is it?

In my view, Renbukai is a loose collective of Karate schools that agree (mainly) on one thing: full contact fighting in protective armour.  There are a number of other groups that use very similar gear (Chito-Ryu and Koshiki come to mind), so the armour itself doesn’t make Renbukai unique.  It is the way this type of fighting permeates its’ way into everything we do.  

Rather than keep with a syllabus, or guide from a single point authority, Renbukai has adopted a very Darwinian approach to fighting. Renbukai dojos have kept what works, and discard the rest.  This is why everything is focused on a balance between power and speed.  Techniques are built to achieve the maximum damage with the fastest delivery time.  But the best part is that you get to actually see if it works.  I am certain that someone somewhere was teaching their students some flipping high wheel kick (probably with a half twist for style).  That kick looked fantastic, and was unstoppable in non-contact sparring, and won the student a 3 foot high trophy from the All Area Open Challenge.  

But when tried in the armor, when your opponent is looking to knock your block off, it’s not so good.  Too risky, and even if it does actually hit, it doesn’t deliver that ‘crack’ you’re looking for!  It just makes the other person mad.

So that kick was dropped.  So was anything that has “snap” in the name.  If it don’t work, don’t do it.  Renbukai should adopt the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) motto in our official letterhead.

Next time you’re training, ask yourself if the technique has the potential to be both fast and punishing.  Can you make the shield or the bag “pop”?  When you see the advanced students, do they use it?  

Best of all, when you use it against a quality opponent, does she laugh?