Posture actually changes your physiology.

In karate we know how important posture is for effective movement, and that posture has psychological effect as well.

When In good posture, it is easy to control body dynamics, transfer ground reaction forces through body center to technique, all muscles are in optimal length for function, and have full potential for contraction/expansion.

In good posture one can be more relaxed, perceived the whole picture rather than being stuck in details and be more mentally responsive and flexible.

A good or bad posture influences how people perceive you and how you perceive yourself.

We know that a posture shows many things about a person, but does it work the other way? can improving posture affect your personality?

A new study demonstrates that a good posture, which is expansive rather than contractive, cause physiological and hormonal beneficial changes as well.

Humans and other animals express power through open, expansive postures, and they express powerlessness through closed, contractive postures. But can these postures actually cause power? The results of this study confirmed the prediction that being in postures that are expansive and open would cause neuroendocrine and behavioral changes for both male and female participants: High-power posers experienced elevations in testosterone, which increases confidence and dominance, decreases in cortisol (stress hormone) and therefore response to stress more calmly, and increased feelings of power and tolerance for risk; people who had contractive postures exhibited the opposite pattern. In short, posing in displays of power caused advantaged and adaptive psychological, physiological, and behavioral changes, and these findings suggest that embodiment extends beyond mere thinking and feeling, to physiology and subsequent behavioral choices. The study shows that being in open, power postures for even 2 minutes, embody power and instantly cause one to be more powerful, it causes real-world, actionable implications.

Power determines greater access to resources (de Waal, 1998; Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003); higher levels of control over a person’s own body, mind, and positive feelings (Keltner et al., 2003); and enhanced cognitive function (Smith, Jostmann, Galinsky, & van Dijk, 2008). Powerful individuals (compared with powerless individuals) demonstrate greater willingness to engage in action (Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee, 2003; Keltner et al., 2003) and often show increased risk-taking behavior. (e.g., Anderson & Galinsky, 2006).

The neuroendocrine profiles of the powerful differentiate them from the powerless, on two key hormones—testosterone and cortisol. In humans and other animals, testosterone levels both reflect and reinforce dispositional and situational status and dominance; internal and external cues cause testosterone to rise, increasing dominant behaviors, and these behaviors can elevate testosterone even further (Archer, 2006; Mazur &

Next time you go to karate class, treat your posture even more carefully.

ISKA Masters seminar in San Francisco Nov 9, 10.

That was a great seminar with great people, why do I say that it was great? because when I teach and feel that I can go through the small details of Sensei Nishiyama's teachings, and people are attentive and interested, people are absorbed and absorbing the details, than it is a great sign, than we are really learning and not just working out.
When the details and principles are digested, the flashy stuff is easy, and when we push and work hard training is effective, but if the focus is on the flashy, than we are limited to the external and to athletic ability and we are likely to develop bad habits as well.
Thank you guys for such great effort and feedback.

Austria Annual Seminar last weekend November 8-10

Austria seminar took place last weekend, November 8-10, this is the 19th year that I am teaching in Austria.
By now, the town of Vienna Neustadt feels like coming home, same cozy hotel and the same person who receives me each year, there is a barber shop by the hotel, where I go to get a haircut every year.

And most important dedicated karate people that keep searching and improving their karate day by day, it is not their profession but it is their passion.

We had participants from Germany, Czech Republic, Russia and of course Austria.
We spend significant time practicing details of Kanku Dai as Sensei Nishiyama was teaching it, it was my kata as a brown belt and i used to practice Kanku Dai at least 2 hours a day.
I used Kanku Dai to explain body dynamics, body snap, pressure to floor at kime, and how to make proper contraction at kime and many other fundamentals.
Than we explained footwork of Oji Waza (response timing) and Shikake Waza (set up timing), with focus  on Sasoi (invite), Koroshi Waza (cut, kill opponent potential action) and combinations.

I had a lot of fun sharing karate and good time with my friends.

Sensei Nishiyama the practical and the philosopher

Next week, on November 8, it will be 5 years to the passing of my teacher, Sensei Nishiyama. He was like a second father to me since we spent most of our days together.
Sensei Nishiyama was very pragmatic and a philosopher at same time.

His greatness was that he merged the old wisdom of Okinawa karate, with the old traditions of Japanese Budo (martial arts) and with latest sport science.

In his teaching he was very methodical and scientific, and every detail had a reason and had to work and be part of the whole picture.
His karate was no nonsense, everything was for application, and every detail meant for more efficiency.

Over the years he created a clear system that meant to bring the full mental and physical potential of the karateka.

When I first came to LA at 1981, I expected hard training, but I also expected karate to be spiritual, and I remember that after my first class, it was the Friday noon class, Sensei told me "put white belt on, step by step, understand?" Only that I did not understand any of that. Sensei "understand" sounded to me like "Zen" and I was walking around all day wondering what words of wisdom did I miss.

Later I realized, that the philosophy that Sensei was taught was in the action, in doing, not in words.

As realistic as he was, he understood that just because we cannot see or prove something it does not mean it is not true, and as much as science proves many karate concepts, there are concepts that we know to be true from experience, and science cannot yet prove. He taught concepts that were intangible such as "don't use eyes", "think by heart, act by ki", "condense ki energy to body center and than give ki energy from center through contact area".

Sensei Nishiyama did not spend a lot of time talking philosophy, for him it was through action that one applies philosophy, he summed his philosophy in few words such as "keep trying", "only dead no come to training", "always do your best", "target is self", "best fight is no fight".

If someone talked and didn't do, Sensei would call it "kuchi Waza" (mouth technique), or he would tell me: "when the body does not move, dreams move".

 He cared about how you bow, because doing it right meant dignity and thanking your partner for being your teacher, being humble, doing it sloppy meant every thing you do follows the manners and will be sloppy.

One night he made bow for 15 minutes till he was satisfied.
He cared that you always respect your opponent in kumite, and never be sloppy "Karate is fighting with dignity, like a samurai, not like Yakuza".
He appeared rigid at times, but in a long run he was usually correct, and had reasons, for example one day he came to my dojo, and in the kids class one of the students dropped the belt on the floor. Sensei Nishiyama was upset at that and kept reminding me of the incident for few months, at first I did not understand why he was so stubborn about that belt, but later I understood the importance of that.
It is the small details and the way you manage yourself outside of class that will influence how precise and attentive to details you will be in training.

Sometimes after 5 hours training I was exhausted and slouched and he used to sneak behind me in the hallway and hit my back really hard explaining that I must keep good posture all the time, he said training is only few hours a day, but rest of life is much longer and therefore have much more influence on developing good or bad habits.

When I was sparring it was not the results that mattered to him, sometimes when I felt that I was doing good, he was not pleased at all "don't do it the convenient way, do it the right way", and that was one of the great lessons in my life, don't look at the results, but rather did you use the right means to achieve the desired result.
It is easy to fall into habits, especially when you are advanced and things work for you the way you do them over a long time, but don't be satisfied with that, keep reflecting on yourself and do not lose the fundamental principles to achieve temperory results.
It is better to lose in the short term and develop in the right direction than to win and create bad habits along the way.

I hear his voice every day in my training, and I actually miss the strictness and the shinai chasing me.
Sensei Nishiyama taught me much more than how to fight and be a technician, but he gave me guidelines of how to live my life according to karate principles.

First Instructors Only Seminar in Czech Republic

Last weekend, October 11-13, we had 3 amazing days of deep karate training, about 15 top instructors from Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Germany, Austria and Czech Republic participated.
The idea was to keep a small group of high level instructors so we can work on small details, and dive into depth of karate giving attention and correction to each individual.
Sensei Nishiyama had this idea, of teaching small groups of instructors in depth, so they can teach on in their own dojos.
We decided to keep doing this instructors only seminar once a year, and limit it to 25 participants.
We worked for a long time on Tekki San Dan, which is one of Sensei Nishiyama favorite katas, how the inside move and the outside follows, and we applied this idea later to kumite.
We worked to details on Ni Ju Shi Ho, another of Sensei Nishiyama favorites,  we worked on details of the outside form, this is a great kata to work on smoothness between techniques, and having no gaps between actions.
We also worked on Chin-Te, with its unusual type of techniques, which is a chance to work on same basic principles in variety of directions, and making our movement vocabulary richer, and enable our nervous system to keep the sequencing in movement even if it is unusual movement.
We spend substantial amount of time working on many variations of Shikake Waza (set up strategies), how to estimate the opponent, bring opponent into your rhythm, and create and seize the chance without space of time.
We went into how to use the distance within each strategy, how to stay calm and sensitive to opponent while setting up. It was lots of fun.

We plan the next year instructors seminar in Sweden, in the beautiful town of Sigtuna, only a few minutes away from the airport.

I am so happy that we have such dedicated, passionate instructors, this is how we will keep Nishiyama karate and bring the level up.

What feels powerful is not necessary powerful.

Butch Harmon was chosen as world best golf instructor since 2003 and he said "for longer drives, forget what feels powerful".
I thought that this is really cool, he said the instinct to try to pound the ball of the tee result in what is known as "hitting from the top", which is a power killer because it disrupts the natural sequence of motion.
He said: "if you cannot hold your finish, have a balanced finish, you are going at a speed your body cannot support. Try to go at 70, 80% of your max speed - and get your downswing sequence right, that will give you more distance for sure."
To me this is so simple yet so impressive.
Sensei Nishiyama used to tell us over and over not to use "top power", get the sequence right, each segment from the ground up accumulates maximum energy and transfer it to next segment, to produce maximum total amount of force, the arms and legs of the technique should be merely an extension, making direction, tools of contact and of course the add some to the total chain of energy.
Sensei Nishiyama used to say over and over that what feels strong is not necessary strong.
Go at slower speeds that you can handle to develop proper sequence and than increase speed gradually, do not go faster than your stance could handle.

Bud Winter was the best sprint coach in US history and he said that he tells his athletes to run at 80 to 90 percent of their maximum speed, and they always ended up running their fastest when they thought this way. Bud Winter was a big fan of relaxing, he requested from his sprinters to relax their facial muscles while they sprint, so the effort is only where needs to be.

Avoid lapse in attentiveness

The other day my student Brian Palmer and I were sparring for about 20 minutes. Afterward Brian, who is one of the smartest people I know (and therefore, I always listen to his comments carefully), told me that he feels that karate is a great way to learn to keep his attention and focus, when we spar for 20 minutes, the moment he has lapse in his attention, that is when he will make a mistake and I would get him.
In karate, when sparring, more than anything else I know, if you lose attention, you get immediate feedback.

But to keep your attention for 20 minutes or more it cannot be forced, it cannot be an attention with effort, than one will get exhausted and momentarily lose of focus is inevitable.

Focus has to be relaxed and effortless, I am just “present” and my body will do what it needs to do.

How do we do that? How do we develop that kind of attentive, present mind?

We say “as if your eyes are behind you over viewing”, “don’t use eyes”, bypass the brain”, “don’t look to opponent’s outside (details), but rather look to the breath and eventually to the heart”, “allow the feet to catch the rhythm and control own movement, feet are the boss”.
All those directions over time will allow us not only to see the small details without lose of the whole, but also to keep our attention for long periods, since we spend minimum amount of mental energy.