I’m going to come back to this post and beat it up a bit.

But during training last night I realized that when I was doing a technique, it looked a little bit like Sensei Koyama doing a technique.

A little bit.

And then it occurred to me that I shouldn’t be very surprised by that; for many years, I’ve tried to imitate, without modification, exactly the way Sensei Koyama practices his technique.

Is that the best way to learn? Beats me.

But it works to some extent.

And Shotokan is, from one perspective, exactly a graded series of exercises of progressively greater difficulty.

Which is why some extraordinary athletes get frustrated with it, and those with exactly zero athletic ability (me, for instance) love it. The levels of progression are small enough that we have a chance to practice and get better.

Now, the reward for getting better isn’t getting a new belt, although that’s a side effect of getting better at the exercises.

The reward is that you get another series of exercises!