MAKE YOUR OWN DISTANCE

Aiko San used to often tell me: "when you find your own distance no one can touch you".
I ponder a lot on this, I knew that if Aiko san repeats it so much it must be crucial, when she talked about karate even Sensei Nishiyama knew there was always substance there.

Many people are not considering the distance and rush into engaging with the opponent, in karate but even more so in MMA fights,. When one does not consider maai (effective distance) the fight depends on speed, power and luck, and sometimes you randomly will get hit even if you are faster and stronger.
If you control the distance and rhythm there should be no randomness, you will be able to avoid the opponent range and hit them in the proper timing.

In some Tai Chi book I read something that influence my outlook on distance a lot: "always make the opponent feel as if he is too far to attack, yet too close to escape".
That is beautiful but need a lot of practice, we must bring those important concepts to life, through training and self reflection, otherwise the concepts will stay theory.

Always try to understand your own technique distance, your opponent distance and use the interaction of these distances as base of your strategy.
In basic distance I make my own territory, where I know that I can hit the opponent with one foot action and I can avoid his/her attack if I move slightly out.
Than we, of course, can change strategy and distance, depend on my skill level comparing to opponent, opponent tall or short, how explosive he is, and how I read opponent's intentions.

The idea again is to never fight by power, catch the opponent at the time and space they cannot use their power.
Any strong technique is useless if maai is not used effectively.

ONCE YOU GO, DON'T STOP TILL FINISH.

Sensei Nishiyama used to tell us that often when we spar: "Once you go, give everything, don't stop till finish".

I think that because we focus so much on finishing technique (todome), karate people have tendency to stop after one technique, but it is not always possible to catch the opponent with one action.

Sometimes I will do one technique to close the distance without giving space for counter, in order to make the right distance for finish technique, and sometimes I will execute the first technique to create reaction from the opponent, and to open the door for finish technique using his reaction to my first attack.

Here I am mostly referring to the case that you have the intention to make todome (finish technique), you give everything and either miss or the opponent blocks or shift. The fact that you give everything, should not limit your ability to transition smoothly and powerfully to next technique, on the contrary, because you give everything mentally, your mind should be empty and therefore free to smoothly, without delay, without recalculation, make next action as reaction to the opponent’s reaction to you.

Because you give everything physically, you have more pressure to floor, and the reaction of this pressure plus the momentum from previous technique, should be used to next technique, that is if you don’t cut the breath and momentum.

Point is don’t recalculate between techniques, you will miss the chance; use your breath to make adjustments once you start your attack, not your brain.

Many times we miss the first attack and the opponent is still behind rhythm, if we stop, or make extra action between, or recalculate, the opponent will recover and maybe even have space for counterattack.

We should know to distinguish between times that we must continue attack, or if the chance is not big enough, keep the pressure on the opponent to create chance, or if we are in same rhythm with opponent just keep Zanshin to not give chance for opponent counter.

Once you go, give everything (Ho shin), don’t stop until finish.

karate competition and judging

Kata

Look inside and not to the outside, of course, the outside form should be correct, but people have different body types, and the point is not to judge how fancy and beautiful but rather how effectively one uses their bodies, how the whole body cooperates into one purpose, using ground reaction, proper body action and muscle action, and transferring this energy to the technique.

Judges should learn to see how well ones uses whole body snap, make strong and proper kime, pressure to floor and sharp total body contraction to line of technique.

In kata, one should project strong feeling and intention, but not make a show out of it, the purpose is knock down technique, so tensing the face and make all kind of expressions is not productive, keep the intention coming from your center.

Sensei Nishiyama warned me against over motion in technique, which is common in sport karate and is the opposite of budo principles. Kata should be like kumite, without spaces for the opponent to attack, without disconnections, which make the technique weak. Actually, our goal is to remove unnecessary movement, make more pure efficient technique.

Sensei Nishiyama told me that some people are great actors; they have good sense of movement and can imitate very well, but don’t have the inside.

Sometimes I will see a kata that look pretty, the person is busy thinking of what he looks like rather than have feeling of application. This kind of kata usually gets high score in our competition, it should not.

Sensei Nishiyama always told me: “don’t look inside, look outside to opponent” (when doing kata).

If you put a mask on Master Funakoshi or Master Nishiyama and put them in competition, they will probably receive the lowest score, since their movement is very simple, yet the quality of their movement is close to perfection.

I remember that once a sport scientist attached all kinds of wires to Sensei Nishiyama, and measured his efficiency in movement with some specialized software that is used to give feedback to athletes, he could not find any flows in Sensei Nishiyama’s techniques.

I wonder if it is possible to train judges to see deep as it is possible to train gymnastics judges. I believe that judges have to train properly first, they have to be there first, therefore every judges seminar should be accompanied by actual training digesting principles of technique, and also some discussions and constructive reflection on how one make decisions.

Kumite

Scoring Ippon techniques should have 3 components, must be todome waza (finish technique), proper timing and proper distance, and if any of those elements is lacking slightly it can be wazari.

For todome waza total momentum has to go through target, must be pressure to floor at impact and must be zanshin, keeping mind, awareness of the opponent and situation, not giving chance after kime.

Snap back technique cannot score since energy is divided in two directions and it is qio. If no pressure no score, since only momentum is used, and no acceleration by reaction from floor.

Judges must be trained to see when the momentum stops, when the distance is controlled by technique arm or leg, which stops the momentum. The breath and feet should control the distance.

This can only be understood by actual training, and than one can judge.

Learning the procedures and all the signals is the easy part, but what really important is to train to see.

Judging karate competition is not easy, but if we want karate competition to be in line with budo karate and to be a mean of developing budo karate, we must make the effort. Other wise, competition will cause the opposite it will deteriorate karate and make it shallow.

We also owe it to the athletes who train hard and deserve good judging where there is common standard.

Thoughts about traditional karate.

Embracing the old as a foundation from which to seek unlimited, infinite growth and development.

This is what traditional is to me, the word “traditional” might imply to some people stagnation, sticking rigidly to some meaningless rituals and kata, so maybe I don’t love the word traditional but I don’t have any other.

But to me traditional karate is using the kata as a vehicle to understand timeless principles that were discovered through many generations, and building on top of that.

Sensei Nishiyama used to stress that kata gives us many examples and through those examples we must find out the underlying principles, kata is symbol of principles.  

We want to take advantage of wisdom accumulated through generations of experience, trial and error, as a launching pad. Traditional karate people are always asking questions, not just accepting, they are seekers. We don’t just come to karate class to get a workout and to spar a little and have fun, even though we do work out hard and have fun, we constantly seeking to understand the many physical and mental aspects of karate deeper, and through that expand our limitation as human beings.

I think of my own experience, before I came to Sensei Nishiyama, I trained hard 3 hours a day, I made 300 repetition a day of at least 4 to 5 basic techniques, I sparred a lot, and than when I arrived at Sensei Nishiyama I am thankful to him that after the first class he handed me a white belt and told me “step by step, understand”. I realized that all this hard training acquired me lots of bad habits. In the first year at Sensei’s dojo, I trained 5,6 hours a day only to undo my bad habits. Now I understand that without Sensei Nishiyama guidance I would not discover karate principles even in 5 life times.

We are lucky that each generation can be fed with the experience of previous generations and build upon it to further levels. We must be willing and patience and open up to receive.

Poland Instructors and Black belts seminar

Last Saturday and Sunday (12, 13 of May), I was teaching the annual black belts and instructors seminar in Dojo Stara Wiez, Poland, there were over 300 participants, it was  an amazing spirit and energy.

I had a real joy teaching this group, imagine 300 people working and putting their energy for the same purpose, really trying to understand the subtleties of Nishiyama’s karate. In this group there were all levels, from world champions to young coming up athletes to long time practitioners who just want to keep bettering themselves.

It is thanks to Vodek who for 20 years share the passion and vision of karate with the Polish people, Vodek works tirelessly to inspire and motivate the Polish karate people with great results.

We were working on Posture and its affects on optimizing karate technique, understanding stance and its principles, and we cover many fundamentals but mainly we went deep into Kime and its many angles.

As far as kumite, we worked on Oji Waza (response technique) in the first day, understanding the footwork, the breath and the mental state.

In the second day we focused on Shikake Waza (set up techniques), estimating the opponent, making optimal distance for our strategy, we talked about reacting to the opponent reaction to your set up, rather than mechanically doing the footwork, and doing so with your breath rather than with your brain.

And we always reflect from kumite to kata and vice versa, recognizing how the kata gives us the tools for effective kumite, and it is through the kata that we digest kumite principles into our nervous system, so when we do kumite we are free to apply our strategy and timing and our bodies know what and how to do.

Thank you all for the spirit and great enthusiasm, I felt elevated, it was fun.

FIGHTING FROM THE INSIDE

At high level when 2 people are facing each other, there is no random movement, everything is purposeful.

Not only there are no random techniques but there is no unnecessary movement in the interaction.

When we are advanced it is not only that the technique is stronger and one can produce more force with less action, but that we become more sensitive to the opponent’s movement and intention.

Our ki energy can be projected to the opponent so we need less movement to give threat and break the opponent’s rhythm and the same ki energy serves as our antenna, perceiving the opponent’s energy. At this level we fake or project our energy at the right moment when the opponent has to react, or we can remove, not show our energy, to create emptiness at the opponent and than attack.

I use to spend a lot of time sparring with sensei Nishiyama and sometimes Aiko San without technique, only breathing and feet. This kind of sparring might seem strange at first, but it has amazing benefits. If you wonder, I could never beat neither sensei Nishiyama nor Aiko San, not even one out of ten, but I learned a lot.

One learns to close the gaps and remove spaces in one’s own movement, while learning to detect and anticipate even smallest spaces.

Kumite becomes subtler, and one learns to appreciate the importance of breath in reacting, initiating technique, make fake or set up, and seal spaces in our movement.

One learns that to truly be able to use the breath to do all of what mentioned above, we have to go back to the basics and kata and polish the interaction, of breath muscles and technique.

This kind of training also eliminate end gaining, since there is no technique and you don’t really get each other, it teaches one to be in the moment, and in addition not to rely on quick arm or leg but rather on perfect time and than speed is addition.

Keep in mind, the goal in karate is to remove unnecessary action, make movement more pure, this is true as far as technique and as far  as moving with an opponent, therefore learn to move from the inside, fight from the inside.

The difference is in the small details

We tend to focus on what can easily be seen, like speed and power, but if we pay more attention to the small details, speed and power will come more effortlessly.

Take for example the postural direction of “eyes back”, a very simple and subtle direction that has many implications.

We say “eyes back” which is not a physical movement but rather a prevention of head forward posture that is so common, and allowing the spinal muscles to extend the spine and head up against gravity as 5 yrs old naturally does.

With the eyes back and the spine extended, body action, such as rotation, is effortless and has more range.

The back muscles, thoracic extensors and scapula adductors are at optimal length for function, and therefore force from the feet can transfer through the sacrum and than the thoracic spine using those upper back muscles. If the head is forward top power using the shoulders in isolation is likely.

When the head is aligned properly the weight of the head assist with using ground reaction, more pressure to back foot is available.
With head forward the weight of the head will make the front leg heavy.

Eyes back allow for holistic view, and the mind can be calm, and we can talk about breath reaction and breath initiating the technique, rather than analyzing and than moving.

Head forward posture will reverse the thoracic curvature, with time the shoulders migrate forward and movement at the shoulder will not be at optimal axis of rotation, which wears out the shoulder.

The more the head shifts forward the more lever arm and stress on the lumbar spine.

Now this is just one example, there are countless examples of small details that appear not so important but make a world of difference when they all come together, those small points make the difference between efficient movement of an expert, and novice techniques that are strength dependent.

This is the beauty of karate, what makes it an endless, unlimited journey, where one can keep getting better and better even at the age when physical strength is declined.