Spirit Training in Shotokan Karate

by Joseph C. McDaniel on June 22, 2009

Back when I started training in Shotokan, about 1968, before a decades-long interruption in my training, the training was a little different.

I already understood that progressive athletic training worked pretty well.

But back then there were training sessions that confused me. Because they had nothing to do with progressively training to achieve linear improvement in skill or strength or flexibility.

Instead the training sessions were apparently (to me) designed to take the students to complete muscular failure on a particular exercise.

There was a different design to that sort of training, and Sensei Koyama called it Spirit Training and I didn't understand it at the time.

Currently I've been doing ordinary technique training, and ordinary progressive athletic exercises including stretching.

And Sensei Koyama has apparently been mostly involved in teaching ordinary ol' information transfer, which has been fine with me.

Because I've got a lot to learn.

But I'll blog more about "spirit training" as we go forward.


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