Those who can, spar. Those who can't, do kata - Part II

In the late 80s and first half of the 90s, I was one of the national coaches and co-chair of the National Coaches Education Committee, all under the USA Karate Federation (USAKF), then the official national governing body for karate competition under the U. S. Olympic Committee. Other designated coaches included Head Coach Don Madden (Tokey Hill’s instructor), Senior Coach Takayuki Mikami, and Ridgely Abele (who we sadly lost last year).

I normally only worked with the national kumite (sparring) team. Another group of coaches worked with our kata competitors. Since the kumite and kata athletes would assemble for training at the Olympic Training Center (OTC) in Colorado Springs at different times of the year, I was disappointed that I had never had an opportunity to see how top kata competitors trained.

But, in preparation for a major international tournament, Hanshi George Anderson, USAKF President, required both teams attend a joint training session at The Springs, enabling me to watch the kata team’s training sessions. And it was a great learning experience.

Hanshi Nakazato leads his students in kata. Kyoshi Hargrove is to the right.

I had always believed that fighters had to be at the top of the conditioning ladder. After all, they had to be prepared to fight one match after another, against tougher and tougher opponents, and with less and less rest in between. (In the 60s, I had a student who tired after winning 13 matches in a row at Ed Parker’s International Karate Championships and lost his 14^th, keeping him out of the finals. I came back and made sure that never happened again, that my fighters were far better conditioned.) Plus, karate matches are made up of a series of explosive, extremely high intensity actions, where energy stores are taxed to the maximum both anaerobically (utilized oxygen stored in muscles and expended first) and aerobically (utilizing oxygen you breath during the activity).

But the amount of conditioning done by the U.S. Women’s Team Kata Team was a revelation.

Our women’s team kata team was one of the best in the world at the time. They had placed 2^nd in the world at the WUKO/WKF World Karate Championships two or three times in a row in an extremely demanding and precise event, synchronized kata. The team was made up of the Tang sisters (Mimi and Debbie) and Melanie Genung and coached by former top world kata competitor Kathy Jones.

While we worked with the kumite team on one side of the large Olympic Training Center (OTC) gym, the kata coaches worked with their people on the other.

Much of their activities didn’t surprise me – repetitive kata practice, going over and over difficult moves, with a coach correcting the most minute of inaccuracies – in wrist position, foot placement, timing, and so on. This was standard procedure for kata competitors at all levels.

Several years ago, one of my young students won the gold medal in kumite, gold in kobudo, and silver in kata at the USAKF National Karate Championships. He was upset with himself for not winning three golds. So his mother spoke with the mother of the youngster whose performance of Bassai Dai relegated her son to second place. She asked how often her son trained. Twenty reps each day of Bassai Dai, she answered. In addition, he took two hours of private lessons each week to improve it. And he trained at the dojo five days per week. That’s over 500 reps per month. Most karate students don’t do 500 a year… and this was a seven year old.

As I said, what amazed me about our women’s team training session was the amount of conditioning they performed.

With Coach Jones monitoring their every rep (and the male kata competitors looked on), the three young ladies got down into a perfect push-up position. And in perfect unison, they did 150 push-ups. Then, they rolled over onto their backs and knocked off 150 sit-ups – also perfect in execution and unison.

The entire U.S. team (kata and kumite) was doing three workouts per day over several days. When the kata women returned for their midday workout that day, they did another 150 perfect push-ups and sit-ups before working on improving their kata performance. And, they came back for the late afternoon workout session and did the same. That obviously means they did 450 push-ups and sit-ups that day. (Plus, after the late afternoon workout, they went to the OTC’s extensive weight gym and worked out there.)

I was busy with the sparring team and didn’t get a chance to count the number of reps they performed the next couple of days. But the fact that they could do such a large number in any single day testified to their superb level of conditioning.

But it all made perfect sense. If we look at other athletes who have to have comparable control over their bodies – gymnasts, ice skaters, ballet dancers – their approach is much the same. In fact, Kathy Jones, before getting involved in karate, was reportedly a professional ballerina. So what she did with the team was apply the same demanding approach used to train top ballet dancers.

Well, I’ll stop here for this installment but will discuss my thoughts on the value of competitive kata as well as what I’ve learned about bunkai, kyusho, and tuite next time.

Again, thank for reading my humble ramblings.

Those who can, spar. Those who can't, do kata - Part I

In the old days, all I wanted to do was spar. It kept my eye sharp and my reflexes honed. We didn’t have much use for kata in the 60s. Real men sparred. The saying was “Those who can, spar. Those who can’t, do kata.” But as I got older, I came to appreciate the value of traditional Japanese/Okinawan kata, both for my own training and that of my students, and why the old masters held them in such high regard – and thankfully left them so their voices could still instruct us.

I practiced only Shotokan and Gosoku kata back then. (Gosoku Ryu is the style of my primary instructor, Soke Takayuki Kubota. He developed several unique kata – such as Tamashi, Denko Getsu, Rikyu, etc. – that contain very quick ashi and tai sabaki, which carries directly over into creating broken rhythm in fighting.) The Shotokan kata have become more refined over time, more precise. But back then, their actions were still large and full powered. Sensei Nakayama likened them to the explosion of a hand grenade – nothing and then in a split second bone crushing, brick breaking power is unleashed. And I liked that. Hit and penetrate.

One of my early black belt students, Mike Moti, scores an obvious point at the California State Championships.

Whereas the Gosoku kata were very practically oriented, the Shotokan bunkai back then was always a little suspect – spear hands to the solar plexus, and such, stuff you’d never use in a real fight. When I was flying back from the WUKO Championships in Cairo, Egypt, in 1988, I was fortunate to be seated next to the legendary Takayuki Mikami, one of the all-time Shotokan greats. (I was soon named one of the U.S. coaches and traveled often with him, as he was senior coach.) It was a long flight and we spoke about many things, including bunkai. He told me there wasn’t any real bunkai in Shotokan kata at that time, that to learn the true bunkai I’d have to look to Shorin Ryu or jujitsu, which I did.

For many years prior to and after that incident, I was very involved in competition – as a competitor, instructor to competitors, national coach, and Co-director of the National Coaches Education Committee. I found that side of karate very interesting and challenging – the personal preparation for competing myself, preparing my students to do well, preparing members of our national team to represent our country in international competition, and also preparing our coaches, kept me on my toes. (Often we took out an inexperienced U.S. team who had to fight tougher and far more experienced international fighters. So my goal was often to teach them neutralization techniques so they didn’t get killed.)

In the next couple of installments on this subject, I’ll get into something that surprised me about how top kata competitors trained and about the current focus on bunkai and kyusho and tuite (pressure point attacks and grappling).

Thanks again for reading my humble ramblings.

I Invented Karate!

The other day I was teaching a class of beginners at a local private elementary school. It was composed of kindergarten through 4^th grade students. The school has a high percentage of students of Indian and Chinese ancestry, many actually born in India or China.

I told them karate was believed to be over 2,000 years old. Then, I asked them if they knew who invented karate?

“You!”, one of the young girls blurted out.

I told them I was old but not that old.

So I asked them again. Most thought it came from Japan but a few offered China as its point of origin. I explained that they were all right. It had traveled to Japan from Okinawa. But before that, it had traveled to Okinawa from China. Everyone seemed satisfied with that.

“But do you know where it came from before China?” I asked.

They all shook their heads.

“India”, I told them, wanting our Indian boys and girls to take pride too in its evolution. I explained about Bodidharma and the Shaolin Temple.

I asked if any of them knew who Alexander the Great was. Several did. So I told them about the theory that it traveled to India via Alexander the Great, making my single Greek student smile.

I think even we in the arts forget our lineage and our debt to those who contributed to the body of knowledge we now take for granted. As with our genetic makeup, our arts and styles draw from all of our predecessors to be what they are today. There are great men and women in pretty much all arts and styles. We should treat each other with due respect as we are all brothers and sisters of the same lineage.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for reading my humble ramblings.

Great Books - Seven

I'm re-reading a great book by Thomas Cleary, The Japanese Art of War: Understanding the Culture of Strategy. In it, Cleary presents a very insightful and revealing discussion of Zen, unusual in its assessment of what is real and what is pseudo Zen. He discusses what Zen is and what it isn’t and how it applies to the martial arts, as seen through the eyes, minds, and writings of a major Zen Roshi – Takuan – and three major samurai – duelists Musashi and Yagyu and warrior Shosan, who fought in many major, pre-peace battles. He discusses Japanese fighting history and how the samurai used Zen in light of Buddhism's complete opposition to the taking of life. The chapters include A Martial History of Japan, Zen in Japanese History, Bushido and Martial Arts, The Way of the Zen Warrior, Schemes of the Samurai, etc. Cleary came to my dojo many years ago and spoke with my seniors. He’s a brilliant guy who has translated many major Asian religious and martial arts works – including Sun Tzu’s Art of War and Musashi’s Book of Five Rings (which he calls Book of Five Spheres).

First Living Martial Arts Treasure Recipient

I was asked to discuss our USNKA Living Martial Arts Treasure Award recipients and why they were selected. I'll occasionally post stories about each, starting here with our first.

Soke Tak Kubota (right) and student, actor James Caan (left)

Soke Takayuki Kubota, 10^th Dan, was the first to receive our award. I first met Soke at Ed Parker’s 1965 International Karate Championships in Long Beach. A few months later, I hosted the United States Karate Winter-National Championships in San Jose. He drove up with John Gelhsen and demonstrated (along with Bruce Lee), as he had at Parker’s. I soon began training with him at his LA IKA dojo (flying down on my one day off and returning that night). I consider myself his student to this day. He is one of our greatest fighting tacticians, has a great sense of humor, and is very down to earth.

Raised in Kyushu, the southern-most of the old Japanese islands (not counting Okinawa) during World War II, he began training at just four to defend his homeland. He said they didn’t train for form or physical fitness. They trained only to fight for their lives barehanded on the beaches – as there were no weapons or ammunition left at this point in the war. He describes the training as being “real kill karate”. So at this young age, he and the others trained with deadly seriousness each day, including punching the makiwara 500 times per day and kicking a bag filled with sand an equal number.

Japan was devastated from the constant bombings. So when an American bomber crash landed, the local people rushed out to vent their anger on the American crew, intending to lynch them. But Soke’s father, Denjiro, intervened. He made his neighbors take the crew to his small factory, where he locked them in a storage room. Three times each day, Soke would take the crew food prepared by his mother, Semo. After the war ended, the crew returned to thank his family for saving their lives and caring for them. They would return on occasion and bring Soke gum and candy and tell him about life in America.

Many Japanese were literally starving to death at the time. So, at thirteen, Soke made the difficult decision to move to Tokyo to find work and ease financial pressure on his family. But Tokyo was filled with people with the same goal. He was forced to eat out of garbage cans and sleep in the park until a police sergeant took him in, in return for him teaching the sergeant taiho jitsu, police defensive and restraining techniques. (Soke’s father had been a high ranking expert in the art and teacher to the Kumamoto police department.) In Tokyo, he trained directly under Gichin Funakoshi, and then 10^th Dan Kanken Toyama, direct student of legendary grandmasters Itosu and Higashionna. An article appeared in Black Belt Magazine about Soke’s work as a bodyguard for the American Ambassador to Japan. It also documented an event that occurred while he was working with the Tokyo police, in which he broke up a prison riot single handedly. I once asked him how he was able to stop so many people by himself. He basically said he had messed up the first guy so badly that no one wanted to be number two.

Like me, karateka Harvey Eubanks, training lieutenant for Los Angeles Police Department, read the article and arranged for Soke to come to the United States in 1965 to train their training personnel. They also helped get him the necessary papers to remain here. So, while training LAPD and the FBI, Soke opened a dojo here and taught his Gosoku (Hard and Fast) Ryu style of karate. Since then, he has trained some of this country’s top competitors. Tonny Tulleners and John Gehlsen were selected to represent the United States at the first WUKO World Karate Championships, held in Tokyo in 1970. There were no weight or belt divisions. Tulleners placed third in kumite, while Gehlsen received the Tamashii Award. Tulleners, Gehlsen, and George Byrd were selected to the U.S. team for the 2^nd championships, held in Paris in 1972. Val Mijailovic and Boban Petkovic have represented the U.S. very admirably in many championships over the years. (Chuck Norris also trained with Soke to learn hand techniques. Another big-name American martial artist wanted to train with him too but had such a bad attitude Soke refused him.)

I was fortunate to be allowed to study with many of the world's top martial artists over the years. But had I not, Soke Kubota would have been far more than enough.

Great Books - Six

One of my favorite novels of all time is James Clavell’s Shogun. It is the story of John Blackthorne, an English ship pilot who’s shipwrecked in feudal Japan in the 1600s, not long before the famous battle of Sekigahara. As Blackthorne struggles to survive in a very hostile, completely alien land, while picking up enough Japanese language and knowledge of their customs and etiquette to save himself and his crew, we also gain greater insights into Japan during this critical period in its history.

Clavell masterfully handles all of this, drawing us into the battles facing would-be shogun Toranaga in his attempt to unify Japan and become shogun. (Toranaga is fashioned after a real life shogun, Iyeasu Tokugawa.) The story is based on a true event, when William Adams, became the first Englishman to land in Japan and be named a samurai - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams_(sailor). The movie, The Last Samurai, borrowed heavily from it, but didn’t (in my estimation) achieve anywhere near the book’s drama and insights.

Once you get into the story, you won’t be able to put it down. I’ve read it three times over several years and enjoyed it each time. The first time, I was intimidated by its length, almost 1200 pages. But by the time I reached the end, I wished it was twice as long.

Again, clicking on the book name, Shogun, will take you to Amazon’s order page. I think all Japanese/Okinawan martial artists should read this book to better understand the culture from which our arts arose.

How would you answer this question?

How has your life changed for the better as a result of training in the martial arts?

I think it's an important question to ask yourself, as it often reveals far more benefits than you may have imagined.

This is also an important question to ask your students – and the parents of your young students – as it enables them to more clearly see the value of your program.

Give it a fair amount of consideration. Perhaps write all of the many benefits you've hopefully gained, as I have. It would be interesting to see what you guys come up with.