Czech Seminar

Just finish teaching seminar in Czech Republic, it was great, 90 participants, from Austria, Germany, Lithuania, Poland and of course Czech.

Everyone was passionate, spirited with will to get better.

It is so good to see that we are keeping the beautiful karate system Nishiyama Sensei taught us alive and flourishing.

It is not an easy system to learn and not for everyone, it is a very intricate system, and there is a lot of confusion in ITKF about what is Nishiyama Budo karate.

Those who are willing to truly learn this karate will benefit greatly.

We are going to keep a clear direction and the purity of our karate.

We worked on fundamentals, such as posture, using stance and ground reaction, coordinating the breath with body dynamics, muscle action and the use of the feet, maximizing impact power to make todome by using snap, pressure to floor and total body contraction in shortest time to line of technique.

We used Niju Shi Ho kata as a vehicle to understand some of the fundamentals, and to use full range of muscle action, and smoothness between techniques without compromising kime.

We spend a lot of time understanding and practicing footwork of Oji Waza (response timing) and a lot of time doing Shikake Waza (set up and strategy), especially combination attacks, and how to set the right situation and timing for combinations.

Thank you for your passion and hard work all participants, lets keep getting better and better, infinitely.

Feed forward Mechanism –sport research. “Inside body move first than technique starts”, Sensei Nishiyama.

What is “Feed forward mechnizm”?

Australian researchers (1988) discovered that the smaller, inner, stabilizer muscles, those closer to the spine, in a healthy person, are firing 30-50 milliseconds before arm movement and 110-130 milliseconds before leg movement.

This activation meant to stabilize the spine and alleviate stresses from the spine, and at the same time to allow the stable spine to provide a base from which the bigger, outer muscles can generate more force and be more effective.

This research is what started the “core” craze in the fitness industry.

In karate we understand this sequence and teach people how to move this way for many generation. This knowledge resulted from experience without high tech.

Both karate, sport research and physical therapy professionals can learn from each other.

I incorporate many physical therapy exercises to enhance people “feed forward” function, and moving out of optimal postures. No one can teach a person how to move from the center out and integrating the whole body to one direction as a good karate teacher.

In karate we talk about moving from the center, but if this center is not stable, we cannot drive a strong technique from the center, and the tendency will be to use top power.

Sensei Nishiyama explained, imagination that inside technique already finish, than breathing activate the inside muscles direction of technique, than muscles around spine move and in a ripple effect, outer muscles join and than extremities (technique).

The research shows that in people with back pain this activation is delayed, in other words, the spinal activation starts after the arm or leg movement, and therefore the spine is not stable against the forces created by those movements.

How can one move from the center if the center is not stable and cannot provide a foundation for movement.

This inner muscle activation does not need to be strong, and actually a too rigid torso wills interfere with performance.

This activation is movement specific, and being successful in lying positions on the floor does not carry over to pushing, pulling and rotation standing.

Many people with strong abdominals still have back pains since it is not the strength but rather sequence of activation that is important.

One of the reasons we lose this activation is bad posture, in which the inner, small, slow twitch muscles begin to act as fast twitch muscles, which are not suited for stability tasks.

In karate many generations ago, before we had high tech, we said, “Inside body moves first, than technique.”

This of course is hard to explain in writing and has to be demonstrated, and it was one of the main subjects of training in Sensei Nishiyama last 2 years of teaching.

“Make a mistake, we need mistake”

Sensei Nishiyama repeated that sentence many times, at least once a week. It was enlightening for me, I always try to be perfect and now he tells me to make mistakes, at first it seem contradictory to the concept of “always do your best, as if last chance of your life”.

But in reality you can never do your best if you do not accept mistake, you will always be inhibited, will confirm, will do things carefully and will not be able to give your whole being into the technique.
Sensei used to say: “Once you go, only god knows win or lose”, "don’t worry about results".

Only when we accept mistake we can go into unknown areas, away from the habitual and convenient.

Welcoming mistakes and correcting them, this humility is the only path for true learning.

"Do every technique as if it is last chance of your life"

"Do every technique as if it is last chance of your life".

Sensei Nishiyama told us many times.

This is the seriousness we want in training, since karate is not a basketball game that you can lose points and make up for it and gain points later.

Train as if your life will depend on it the next day.

This is not easy to do, because thankfully, we don’t have this kind of danger in our lives, and in the dojo everyone is friends and no one intend of hurting someone else, which is how it should be of course.

In order to develop real sharp mind and reflexes, avoid sloppiness and avoid unneeded movement and gaps of intention, we must imagine our opponent have knife.

Keep the friendliness in dojo, and we help each other learn and develop, but at the same time keep the seriousness.

Sensei Nishiyama used to get upset at me if I smiled to my partner doing sparring, he wanted total seriousness, and of course he wanted us to respect each other and not to hurt each other.

He hated sloppiness and bad manners.

“Always do your best” he used to tell us, in karate and life.

Kime and footwork

Heaviness and lightness, solid and fluid, firmness and pliability, giving the mind away yet the mind is full.

In the last 2 years of Sensei Nishiyama’s life almost every day and every class, we practiced 2 subjects, todome Waza (finishing technique) and Unsoku (footwork).

Those are two sides of the coin, which allow us to be effective in application, using minimum force and resistance.

At the peak of kime-focus of energy at impact (and even just before), one can become soft and adapt to the opponent instantly, and at any instant when moving with the opponent, one can apply kime.

In the last two years of Sensei’s Nishiyama’s teaching, we spent many hours understanding how to make strongest Kime, shocking power, how to use the breath to make pressure to floor, to create maximum acceleration at impact, and allow for full delivery of momentum plus reaction from pressure to floor into target and how to make total body musculature contraction in shortest time to like of technique for maximum shocking power.

Shortly, we were “seeking the beauty of one finishing blow technique”, that is one side of the coin.

The other side of the coin is footwork, we must be able to change position and distance or initiate technique as smoothly or quickly as possible without back motion.

In good footwork the body center using the breath “suspends” the legs (ukimi) as if one is floating, and at an instant one can become heavy and solid into the technique, and within this heaviness there must be suspension and potential action.

Footwork allows us to have the right distance and timing.

The right distance and timing so I don’t have to fight the opponent’s power, so I can apply my power when he cannot apply his/her, at the “off” moment in the opponent, and this chance is so slim that if you realized it in your brain you are too late.
Good footwork allows me to engage on my terms, not on the opponent’s terms.

When using footwork, one should not be rigid, neither collapsed relaxed, one should be relaxed but elastic, so the breath can catch and dictate the opponent’s rhythm and at same time can apply pressure to either foot to initiate technique.

Also being soft between allows us to be sensitive to the opponent movement, energy and intention.

One should be able to switch instantly from kime to softness, and changing distance and position, and from smooth footwork to kime.

We use the feet to initiate a technique, we react to the chance with the feet, and we fake and set up to create a chance with the feet.

Having the strongest technique and kime is useless without good footwork and having the best footwork is useless without strong kime.

All this strange concepts need lots of detailed, deep training till they are not strange anymore but natural to our body, engrained in our nervous system.

First whole body cooperation – than learn to mentally give everything In karate technique the whole body has to cooperate into one direction and deli

In karate technique the whole body has to cooperate into one direction and deliver force in the shortest amount of time in precise line of energy.

Use of external force has to be maximized, and all segments have to increase energy in proper sequence, with each joint serving as cardinal point for next segment, body action and technique has be utilized fully, timed and connect properly to technique and match the line of technique, muscle activation has to be in the right amount in the right time, so the full potential of muscle contraction/expansion is utilized.

Just imagine how learning this skill can help a person in any sport and general everyday life activities and movement.

My teacher, Sensei Nishiyama, used to say: “you don’t need to be Popai to be good at karate, just learn how to use what you have”.

Or he used to say: "what is the point of having 8 cylinders if one uses only two cylinders”.

There are many small details that have to be digested and mastered to the point that it all happens subconsciously and becomes nervous system patterns.

The mind is most important source of power.

At same time we say that "there is no mind in the technique".

For one to apply his/her full potentials in the technique the most important element is the mind, in karate one learns to give everything, to have full commitment in every action, the Japanese term is Ho-Shin.

On the one hand one must have strong intention, and on the other there should be no analyzing or conscious control of the technique while executed.

It is like shooting an arrow, once you release the arrow you don't push and pull it, you don't control its direction.

We learn to have full intention, the breath follows the intention, and the muscles follow the breath.

The breath is the link between the mental and physical,it allows us on the one hand to mentally give everything without inhibitions, and on the other hand to control muscle action and sequencing.

Most of us have some inhibition, some holding back in every thing we do and therefore we do not use our full potentials.

Those inhibitions are because of past traumas or as protection mechanism, but in karate as we learn to have good form and sequencing, develop spine and joint stability, and learn to use the breath to apply ourselves fully, we learn to use our full potentials and do it safely.

Note: some people are able to naturally give everything, but the risk of injury is greater because there will be compensations and stress on structures and the musculoskeletal system is not conditioned for this kind of forces. With proper training, the muscles and tendons are strengthened, good form and sequencing with proper stabilizations, allow for more force production with least stress on spine and joints.

GERMANY SEMINAR

We had 3 great days here in Bavaria, great spirit, groups from Austria, Czech Republic and many cities in Germany. Everyone is eager to learn and get better, it cannot be more fun to teach.

On Friday we cover posture, using ground reaction and body dynamics and timing of sen including Zanshin.

Yesterday, Saturday, we went through Kitei kata, which was composed by Master Nishiyama with assitance of Goju master Kisak and Shito Master Mabuni. There are a lot of misinterpretations in this kata so I tried to clear them out, and used this kata as a vehicle to understand karate fundamental principles. Later we covered making shocking power or making Todome (finish technique), and as far as timing we covered footwork of Oji Waza (response techniques) and some ideas of Shikake Waza (strategy for set up techniques).

Today we reviewed Kitei and went deeper into Kime waza, and spen a lot of time with variations of Nagaashi Uke (sweeping blocks) which I believe increase the sensitivity to opponent rhythm, range and direction of attack, and can contribute to better kumite.

It was cold, minus 10, but real fun.