Currently we are arranging the final figures for the Development Champs… WOW I have never have had so many issues from parents & karateka alike.
We give a package deal, but people will continuously ask for special arrangements. It is about now I flash back to where I started training & touring… “ITS MY WAY OR NO WAY” was the conditions my instructor used… I miss those days!
Every one is a special person, in our creator’s eyes & in the eyes of our loved ones, but for pees sake just do what is on offer. I mean if Pick ‘n Pay has a sale of 2 toilet rolls for the price of one, then you can not go & change it to suite yourself to make it one toilet roll & a small box of tissues for the price of one toilet roll.
Now as we go further into karate, we find many instructors leading their schools / associations into a dark whole. They have their own ideas of what is going on & then make their interpretation the only way. I have heard many instructors over the last four years claiming that they are better than the Japanese.
Ha ha ha… But then I never see them train with Japanese who are the best. Not by age or by name, just the best by their ability! The latest statement I have heard from a senior karate practitioner is “No normal human being can possibly train with Yahara”. That is because you think you are the best thing since karate hit the western world & when you did train with Yahara Sensei, you could not take the pace.
Where has the budo essence gone?
Nidan, Sandan & Yondan karateka who actually think they are something of importance to the karate world. This is why many people believe karate is a circus show. Why are there so many egos floating around the karate world?
We really need to keep to our roots; otherwise the parents (clients in the case of a dojo being run as a business) will take over. To be honest, why did they join your dojo in the first place? To be dictators? NOPE, just so that their child can learn karate. Well this thought should be reiterated throughout the karateka’s career.
Discipline is not only the ability to control one’s emotions on the tatami or in a confrontation, it includes etiquette, also keeping ego at bay. What is most important is to understand that karate is karate & trying to be involved because you think you are important, well then that is not karate at all.
The KWF says it the best in their philosophy
“Why is it that humans have a sense of awe and respect for a power that can deprive them of their lives in an instant, and also at the same perhaps see a sense of beauty in this power?
If we define Karatedo as a martial art of the single finishing blow, those who pursue this path must train themselves to learn technique so that each and every punch or kick, brimming with energy, bristles with the danger of the finishing blow.
We must live to respect every moment of our life, which is always on the border between life and death.
This is where we will see the beauty in our spirit and karate technique. We must refine our technique, spirit and even our everyday’ simple actions until beauty takes root in the demeanor in our life.
The path of Karate is an act of art, as we as humans, bring ourselves to the creation of beauty in our nature.
Let us walk the path of KARATE together”
Now let us train proper karate for the proper reasons… if you are not willing to do so, well then please do not disgrace those who do want & stop using the name of karate.
