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Thoughts
From Japan
Back to Basics
by Dr. David Hooper
Mondays
are my days for teaching English outside Tokyo,
in a small university in the neighboring prefecture.
I was sitting in the teacher' s room last week,
having just completed my first class of the day,
and enjoying a cup of green tea. I still had at
least ten minutes before my next class. An American
teacher was giving vent to his frustrations at the
adjacent table. The volume was sufficiently loud
as to make eavesdropping unavoidable. "They
just don't seem to understand," he was saying,
"that if they'd just do the homework and learn
the stuff, they might actually enjoy some of the
activities I plan for their class. As it is, they
all sit there like zombies, and half of them can't
even put a sentence together." His colleague
nodded in agreement and made a few sympathetic noises.
As I got up to leave, his following remark "If
they'd just get the basics under their belts, they'd
realize how much they've been missing" set
me thinking. I've met many people teaching karate
in the West who seem to spend much of their time
worrying about keeping their students interested.
Yet, in spite of their efforts, the drop out-rate
remains high, particularly around the level of shodan.
Of
course, there will always be those students who
realize early on that karate is not what they had
hoped, and these students rarely make it beyond
the first couple of gradings. Why should it be,
however, that such a large proportion of students
who train hard for two or three years suddenly canıt
be persuaded to continue? Many even take their shodan,
and then are rarely seen again. Part of the answer,
I believe, lies in the fundamentally different approach
to teaching karate adopted by such Westerners, compared
with the traditional JKA approach. One of the things
that epitomizes karate training, JKA style, is its
preoccupation with basics. From my first dayıs training
at the JKA Honbu in Tokyo, and later, perhaps even
more so, at Takushoku University, the format was
always the same: basics, basics and then more basics.
The more advanced the class became, the more basic
it became, an anomaly that I will subsequently explain.
Even the instructorsı class regularly began with
all the senior Japanese sensei performing sets of
repetitions of basic, fundamental techniques.
On
my initial return to the UK after my first couple
of years in Japan, one of the things that struck
me was how little emphasis was often placed on understanding
basics. Oh sure, clubs would inevitably start with
the students charging up and down the hall doing
"basics," and some would even limit these
to single techniques. The rest, however, would soon
progress on to long, complex combinations of a dozen
techniques or more. Considerable time would be spent
explaining the sequence of movement, and after perhaps
several practice attempts, the barrage of techniques
would be performed at "full speed and power."
Speed, spirit and aggression seemed to be the key
focuses of attention, attributes that certainly
weren't lacking in many of the clubs I later visited.
Teaching points, however, would often relate more
to these factors than to the finer points of technique.
This is not to suggest, of course, that things are
always any better in Japan. Indeed, the university
club where I often practise in Tokyo (not Takushoku,
I hasten to add), spends the major portion of each
training session on activities which it short-sightedly
believes will assure it success in the next competition
against its main rival club. The coach is forever
telling the students that it doesn't matter whether
their technique is good or bad, only that everything
must be performed with the correct attitude, by
which he means with spirit and aggression. Whilst
I agree that these things are extremely important,
I wonder when he imagines the students at the club
are actually going to learn karate. It's all very
well developing the correct attitude, but unless
the time is taken to gain a fundamental understanding
of karate, then there's going to be no real progress.
Perhaps he expects the students to do the real training
outside the dojo, in their spare time. Certainly,
with the amount of time that is wasted in the dojo
on superficial point-scoring strategies and competition
training, at the expense of karate, the students
will need to do something if they ever want to improve.
I do not want to give the impression that I'm against
competition, or indeed, specific training for competition.
Competition has its place in karate, and I fully
appreciate that university clubs in Japan gain their
recognition by being successful in competition.
It's a great pity, however, that not more clubs
treat competition in the way that Takushoku University
used to do, as a good excuse for extra training.
And it's no surprise (at least, to me) that they
were renowned for their success in competition.
What I do find astonishing is that other clubs donıt
stop to consider why it was that Takushokuıs students
were so much better than anyone else, and why so
few seem to make any attempt to imitate the way
they trained. I do not, however, want to get side-tracked
at this stage into a long discussion about the merits
of competition.
This
is a topic best dealt with in more depth at some
future time. What do I mean, then, by a fundamental
understanding of karate? I mean, quite simply, an
understanding of the principles of the basic movements.
This does not necessarily imply an understanding
at an intellectual level: oneıs body must learn
how to move. Eventually these natural basic movements
provide the foundation upon which everything else
is built. How is it that Yahara Sensei can spin
180s executing one technique in competition, and
then completely reverse the direction with another
technique, without losing his balance? How is it
that Kawasoe Sensei from Britain can generate such
incredible power in a combination of techniques
that flow so effortlessly together? How is it that
Osaka Sensei can perform the second downward block
of Heian Shodan (involving a 180s turn) with more
power, strength, speed and stability than most "advanced"
karate-ka can muster from the shizentai (natural
stance) position? It's no great secret, and it certainly
has nothing to do with the fact that they were all
born Japanese. It is simply that they have a thorough
working knowledge of basic, fundamental karate,
which has provided the foundation for every subsequent
level of performance. Yahara Sensei can perform
his spinning back-fist strike first one way and
then the other for exactly the same reason that
he can perform the spinning downward block in the
first of the Heian katas. The movement is fundamentally
the same.
Being
unable to perform the kata at any real level, by
definition, precludes the execution of such advanced
techniques in kumite. When Osaka Sensei tells his
Japanese students that there is no distinction to
be drawn between kata and kumite, he is not trying
to be deliberately esoteric or misleading. He's
simply pointing out what the JKA regards as an indisputable
fact, without an understanding of basics thereıs
no foundation upon which progress can be built.
It thus comes as no surprise to his students when
he spends more than half the time in his special
advanced kata class at the JKA referring back to
the five basic Heian katas. The spinning high outside
block in Jion Kata that finishes in back stance,
for example, is fundamentally the same movement
as the first spinning downward block in Heian Shodan.
If students can't do the latter, it should be no
surprise that the former seems so difficult. The
constant reference to basics can be somewhat misleading.
The word basic implies simplistic, easy, or elementary,
the very opposite of advanced or complex. Perhaps
it would be less confusing to substitute the Japanese
word kihon: the practice of kihon can be very advanced,
and is anything but easy. There are probably few
people reading this article who would argue that
kihon practice is unimportant. However, how many
people regularly practise kihon effectively? Repeatedly
performing incorrectly executed techniques, individually
or as combinations, does not make for better karate.
In fact, with time, ingrained habits (good or bad)
become increasingly difficult to eradicate. It is
important to understand that karate, JKA style,
is fundamentally simple. That's not to say that
it's easy, but that every subsequent movement is
based on a prior movement. One thing stems from
another. A misunderstanding at the basic level cannot
be corrected higher up the chain. Let me give a
specific example: (For those readers who are likely
to become bored with a foray into the more technical
aspects of technique, please feel free to skip the
following four paragraphs.)
The basic stepping punch oizuki relies first and
foremost on an understanding of the use of the hips
in chokuzuki, the straight punch from a natural
stance. When punching with the left hand, it is
the right hip initially rotating back
If shizentai is performed correctly, then zenkutsudachi
can be, too. Practising thrusting forward from shizentai
into zenkutsudachi, by bending the knees and then
driving off either the right or left leg, is an
excellent half-way measure to understanding the
feeling of moving forward in front stance. Feeling
the weight and force on the back heel and outside
of the back foot is something that takes a lot of
practice. Understanding the feeling in the rear
leg (which, incidentally, is not locked straight)
is only made possible if it has already been felt
in the correct execution of chokuzuki. The hip movement
in oizuki is essentially the same as that of chokuzuki.
It is, however, much easier to learn the movement
in the more basic of the two techniques before trying
to understand it in the advanced. This process of
continually referring back and studying the technique
in its most basic form, and thus at greater depth,
is essential to making progress. I have been in
numerous classes where senior grades, after watching
a lower grade perform a basic stepping punch, have
spent the next goodness-knows-how-long analyzing
the technique and criticizing the shoulder position,
the course of the punching hand, the extraneous
movements of the feet or the ineffectiveness of
the delivery. All these points may be valid to a
greater or lesser degree, but the problem that needs
to be addressed first is far more fundamental: the
hips aren't being used or, more likely, are not
correctly aligned. Everything is thus "put
out." All other errors spring from this. The
simple and correct solution is to make the correction
one stage back: correct the hip position in chokuzuki
and then affirm that it is correct in zenkutsudachi.
If those more basic techniques can't be performed,
then trying to make superficial changes to a more
advanced technique is like pumping up a tire on
a wheel that's buckled. Until the first thing is
sorted out, nothing else will, in the long term,
make much improvement in the ride. There is, then,
no short cut. Charging up and down the dojo doing
stepping punches accompanied by the most blood-curdling
kiais does not constitute practising kihon. Kihon
practice needs to be directed and focused: what
is the correct feeling in the back leg? Which muscles
actually tense, and when? How should one breathe?
What does Osaka Sensei mean about being rooted to
the ground at the end of the punch, with the weight
and force driving down on the heel of the back foot?
Finding the answers to these questions may take
many years of training, but the pay-off is worth
it.
Those
that take the time to practise kihon at an advanced
level develop their karate. The remainder, at best,
maintain a superficial level and inevitably have
trouble maintaining any enthusiasm; at worst, they
maintain a superficial level and then start to teach.
Karate is thus simple in the sense that there is
not much new in karate beyond that which must be
learned to perform the first kata, Heian Shodan,
at an advanced level. I remember a course a few
years ago in Britain to which Osaka Sensei had been
invited as a special guest instructor. He had spent
some time in the class on the kata Tekki Shodan.
I had been acting as a rather superfluous interpreter
A
second example perhaps illustrates this point of
simplicity and progression even better. I had been
training at Takushoku University for a few months
when an important championship was held in the Kanto
region of Japan. Takushoku met Kokushikan University
in the final. These rival universities both enjoy
formidable reputations that are well deserved. Takushoku
lost. At the following day's training, the assistant
coach spent at least twenty minutes bawling out
the students. Much of this tirade was lost on me.
The message, however, was abundantly clear. The
students weren't nearly as good as they thought
they were, and the reasons were quite evident in
their basics. The following week's training would
not be spent on more advanced sparring training.
On the contrary, each three-hour session would consist
of only kihon gohon kumite (basic five-step sparring).
Why? Because all their weaknesses could be spotted
in this basic practice. It was here that corrections
could
To
return, then, to my initial question: Why is it
that so many students give up in such a relatively
short time? Many start out open-minded, receptive
and enthusiastic, but quickly become disillusioned.
It soon becomes evident that the clubs they are
attending have little understanding at any depth
of the most basic of techniques. The whole practice
of karate thus becomes superficial. This superficiality
ensures that sooner, rather than later, the more
perceptive students come to the realization that
karate has little to offer. Despite a lot of hard
training, there's nothing to show at the end of
it. If you happen to be in the small minority who
are regularly winning trophies at competition, fine,
if not, then whereıs the motivation? If you are
already in your thirties, or even older (God forbid),
then itıs going to be downhill all the way, not
a very encouraging thought, and certainly not a
boost to motivation. In fact, by the time a student
has spent three years or more only playing at karate,
it amazes me that there are any at all who continue
to stick at it. Surely, there must be more exciting
ways of having fun? For other students who, perhaps
after years of training, suddenly encounter the
likes of Osaka Sensei, or one of Takushoku's Karate-bu's
students, the effect can be quite overwhelming.
A sudden realization that so much of your training
has been wasted can be devastating. Anger, despair,
even renewed enthusiasm and determination are emotions
that might surface. It does, however, take a special
kind of person who is prepared to start learning
again.
I remember talking to a karate instructor of quite
senior rank in the U.K. who said that he felt cheated
by the karate organization to which he had belonged
for so many years. We sat and watched one of their
professionally produced instructional videos in
which the first basic kata was being demonstrated.
As the first 180s turn was made for the second gedanbarai
to be performed, the heel of the demonstrator's
foot lifted from the floor until the movement was
completed. Now before everyone rushes for their
pens to write and tell me how trivial or nit-picking
this is, let me explain why it is so important.
In that ³simple² movement, it is precisely that
supporting leg which is so crucial. It is because
of the fact that the weight is transferred back
on to the leg and the back heel that it is referred
to as jikuashi (the supporting leg). As the body
turns, pivoting on the heel (not the ball of the
foot), it is from this movement that the following
techniques power is derived. Driving off the back
heel is the whole object of the movement, and it
is the use of the supporting leg, and the subsequent
tensing of the muscles in the back thigh, that enables
the power to be generated. The fact that a major
British karate organization can release a video
with such glaring faults still intact raises an
interesting question: is it that they do not have
a sufficient knowledge of basic karate to recognize
the fault, and this, from an organization who have
made it abundantly clear that they have nothing
more to learn from the Japanese, or do they recognize
the fact that the movement is wrong (or at best,
very poorly executed), but figure that people will
buy the video anyway, so what does it matter?
Whichever
is the case, it is ultimately the hundreds, if not
thousands, of students within the organization,
who suffer. I'm not suggesting that I would necessarily
do much better on such a video, but then again,
I wouldnıt make one especially not when Nakayama
Sensei, the former head of the JKA, had already
produced the definitive series (in English), with
the same kata superbly demonstrated by Osaka Sensei.
For all those people genuinely interested in JKA
karate, there are still many opportunities around
the world to train with people from the JKA who
are still learning and progressing, and thus have
something to pass on. Admittedly, here in Japan
things are a little easier, at least a dojo claiming
some affinity with the JKA here will have some direct
contact with a genuine instructor from the JKA.
In the end, however, one has to accept personal
responsibility for one's own training. If your own
training is focused and directed, then the most
basic of classes can be as advanced as you choose.
Is real karate "fun" or "enjoyable?"
I'm not sure that it is, nor necessarily should
be. It is, however, rewarding and addictive. Moreover,
the payoff is worth all the effort. Real karate
doesn't require justification. Those teachers who
compromise the art of karate in order to keep their
students interested will, in the long term, fail.
Those that concentrate on their own progress and
take their students along with them will not need
to resort to patronizing or superfluous gimmicks
to sell themselves. "So why do you do karate,
and what do you hope to achieve?" is a question
I'm often asked. The first part is difficult to
answer, but the latter part easy: like all the top
JKA instructors and the best of the competition
fighters in Japan, I too would like to be seen as
someone who was beginning to "get the basics
under his belt."
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