At the end of class in traditional Shotokan Dojos, the “Dojo Kun” is recited in Japanese.
It’s a little like the words to the “Star Spangled Banner”, because the advanced students have it engraved on their spinal cords, and it bursts from their lips when they lead recitation.
The rest of us are sort of along for the ride, kinda like the folks at a ball game pretending to sing “The Star Spangled Banner”. Yeah, I know. You know several of the words.
No problem.
I’m still a baby Shodan, and even though I started training a very long time ago, I’m along for the ride when it’s time for the Dojo Kun.
Sensei has been having me repeat the kun after him at the end of my private classes, and now I’m so embarrassed at not knowing it by heart, I’ve printed the phonetic spelling if the Japanese words and stuck ‘em up on my home office desk, so I can repeat them in the morning when I’m waiting for my heart to start beating (caffeine is great stuff!).
As always, Rob Redmond has an interesting take on the Dojo Kun and it’s meaning on his great blog, which you must read to get a broader view of Shotokan Karate from multiple directions. You don’t have to buy his view, which is alternately loving and cynical, but you’ll have the benefit of a ton of vicarious experience without the bruises that went with the actual, factual experience if you read everything he’s written. And read every word, because it all has value.
Getting back to the Dojo Kun: it’s all over YouTube.com.
In a LOT of different accents. That is, it’s recited in Japanese by a lot of Japanese speakers, and by a lot of non-Japanese speakers. In India. In the United States. And from all over.
Which tells me that Gichen Funakoshi was a busy little guy during the period from the beginning of his real work (when he was only 77 years old, and was forced to start over) to his death at 88.
Turning an esoteric training discipline which had been outlawed and taught at night in secret to a very, very few people over a long period of time into an international phenom in the lifetime of just one man (it all happened during the lifetime of Funakoshi’s student, Nakayama, who was able to oversee the project of shipping karate missionaries from Japan to the rest of the world) was a remarkable achievement.
It is an interesting study to watch the discipline of Shotokan Karate, which was brought to Japan from Okinawa by one man (at first), and which was then spread during the tenure of one man (Sensei Nakayama) break into so many competing schools after the death of Sensei Nakayama.
But Shotokan, as codified in mainland Japan, has always been a series of exercises and training techniques. Those exercises and training techniques have been spread around the world, and now the world owns them.
Those techniques have been adapted, added onto, combined with other bodies of technique, and the overall goals of Shotokan and Gichen Funakoshi (including the export of Japanese Culture and the study of Zen, which is implicit in non-tournament-oriented Shotokan Karate) have been made manifest in places as disparate as Tokyo and, well, Phoenix, Arizona, United States of America.
Overall, I think that Sensei Funakoshi would be happy to see the wild and explosive growth of his child, Shotokan Karate.
He might have some reservations about Ninja Turtles, but perhaps not.
p.s. It’s almost funny to read about Sensei Kanazawa, who was formally cast out of the body of orthodoxy, when his training techniques came to include additional dimensions. Almost funny. Not actually funny, just almost.
p.p.s. For those of you who were just born to Shotokan, bear in mind that Sensei Kanazawa was the winner of the first big Japanese karate tournament, and held demi-god status in the karate universe for an extended period. Actually, he still does! And I’ve reviewed a three-dvd set by Sensei Kanazawa that you really need to get if you study Shotokan. And no, I don’t get a kickback.
Kickback is sort of a funny word in the context of karate, I suppose.
p.p.p.s. Shotokan groups that have broken away from the Mother Church have often suggested that Japanese Instructors have required excessive percentages of monies from examination fees, or dues, or similar funds. Or that non-Japanese Instructors were promoted more slowly or were otherwise treated poorly.
Fortunately for me, I don’t care! All I care about is getting to train with my Sensei, and the rest of the issues have little importance to me.
