Fit to Explore

CrossFit conditioning has opened new vistas of shotokan challenges to me. I am so grateful to my son for getting his mother and me involved in CrossFit. It is fantastic.

With new strength comes new opportunities. The kata Chinte (go here to see a  JKA video clip of the kata being performed) has always baffled and intrigued me. What do some of the moves mean, besides the obvious ones like the eye-pokes?

During the next several weeks, I will explore the inner meaning of this kata Chinte and try to improve my performance of it. Thanks CrossFit (and my son!) for enabling new exploration. (Click on the image to the left for a larger version.)

Flexibility and Kata

My CrossFit coach Mateo is stressing flexibility and it is really helping my kata. As my body ages, joints become stiff, muscles and tendons lose range of motion. This can be countered I believe but requires that flexibility be an integral part of training.

Here's a good example of some standard crossfit warm up drills that help increase range of motion. Here's an example of a stretch sequence called dead bug which works the core beautifully. Finally, here is an entire sequence of really good range of motion boosters.

But being bendy needs purpose, and kata is a great purpose. Here is a good example of what flexible kata looks like. I love how Asai Sensei does the double palm heel strike in this wonderful kata. But to see the benefits of real flexibility, watch Asai Sensei, 'the thunderstorm,' in this clip! Inspirational.

Easter Renewal

I attended my first instructors' training session at the main JKA dojo in Phoenix yesterday. I met some great people and learned some new things about karate. For example, I was asked to perform a kata that I liked and I chose Jitte. My habit from Chicago days is to lock down on each technique and exhale loudly. Hhh-ut, contract core, show good kime.

In this region, the emphasis is on more subtle breathing, through the nose rather than the mouth. Not sure which is better right now, but I think it is possible to execute powerful kime using either breathing techniques. I must research this more.

I also learned that there is a kata review session at the main dojo every Saturday morning from 9 to 11am. They go through all 26 shotokan katas! That is great! I will definitely take advantage of this opportunity at least once a month.

I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Shojiro Koyama, a most remarkable man. He is a gold mine of information on karate and how to teach karate, and he is a true leader in the sense that he brings out a desire to be your best. At one point in the proceedings, he said, "My karate training is my happiness."

What a great thing to say.

Kamae and Good Friday

Kamae is Japanese and in kanji means "base." It refers to the posture of the entire body. But it also connotes the attitude of the being adopting the posture. It is a reflection of the inner state of the person assuming the stance. Proper kamae is an essential ingredient in shotokan. Correct alignment makes timing and distance drills easier to perform. Slouching weakens technique. Nishiyama Sensei used to emphasize "whole body action" and good kamae. He modeled good posture on and off the dojo floor. Training in CrossFit really improves core strength, a key to proper posture.

Today is Good Friday. Over one billion Catholics remember on this day the trial and execution of justice and mercy incarnate. It is the Triduum.

Today provides an opportunity to adopt the attitude of prayer, the kamae of respect for the love of our savior in freeing us for freedom's sake, as St. Paul put it.

Unsu-ed

One of the signature katas in shotokan karate is Unsu. It is a very athletic and flashy kata with its roundhouse kicks from the ground, a dramatic 360 degree turning jump, and my favorite sequence of circular blocks followed by double palm heal strikes in sanchin-dachi (hour glass) stance. An accomplished karateka can put on quite a show by performing it with technical expertise and personal passion, as in this clip of Mr. Yahara, who is famous for his beautiful, gravity-defying leap near the end. 


The clip shows three separate Unsus by Mr. Yahara. The second is probably the best filmed of the bunch. Notice the flawless four-point landing after the leap. Exquisite. Love it. Wanna jump up and do it right this minute!


There is an instructors' training clinic at the central dojo in Phoenix on April 3rd. Mr. Shojiro Koyama will be teaching Jitte and Unsu. My Jitte is fair, but my Unsu needs lots of work. Today is Saturday and so it's off to the dojo I go, with rolled up gi, ready, willing, and, thanks be to God, able to work on improving Unsu. I'm totally Unsu-ed.

Clean and Empi

One of the lifts I'm working on in CrossFit is the power clean. I love the transition of the elbows from straight to bent to receive the weight on the shoulders. This has to be quick and sharp, like the empi uchi technique in shotokan. Power cleans lead to powerful empi uchi. Powerful empi uchi lead to sharp elbow transitions in power cleans.

Zanshin and the Burpee

Last night Dave, my CrossFit Sensei, had us do 75 burpees for time with a 12 minute cutoff. He gave us a pep talk before in which he said because it was a simple own-body weight exercise, basically drop to the floor, do a pushup, hop up and clap hands over your head, there was absolutely no excuse for not maintaining continuous movement. Don't stop. Keep going. Don't hold back. All out. That is, zanshin.

It reminded me of lessons from three of my main karate influences, my Japanese teachers. I had the gift of learning the basics of shotokan from Shunsaku Koga, a graduate student in sports medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the late 1970s, now living in Japan with his fine family. We still communicate, thankfully. I remember during kumite drills Koga-san would assail his much larger opponents and literally explode through. The club of about 60 of us formed a circle for full speed free sparring on Friday nights. I still see the image of Koga after launching one of his utterly fearless but controlled attacks and rocket-propelled punches to the upper lip, which would have killed the target had it landed full force two or three inches further than allowed. The attack began, followed through and ended in a flash, a blink. His whole body would quake as the glass shattering kiai erupted. He was behind his opponent having gone through all blocks and evasions. It scared the crap out of me and I was sitting on the floor. The look on the face of his opponent is also unforgettable. Looked like a facial prayer. Thank you God for sparring me. From those days I saw zanshin in action. Go forward no matter what.

I heard the word itself in Sugiyama Sensei's Chicago dojo. He defined it in those hot, humid summer clinics in the 1980s and 1990s as mental determination, mental follow-through before, during, and after an attack. Koga-san. I imitated what I had seen Koga do in the Madison dojo and tried to apply what I was experiencing in Chicago. My kiai got louder. My techniques got focused. Confidence replaced fear.

Nishiyama Sensei taught follow-through too. I was always shocked at what he saw that I missed in people's kumite and kata. When two karateka performed the same kata side by side I always thought the more athletic kata was better. But Nishiyama looked for more. He looked for evidence of zanshin. Like in the duel scene between the samurai and villager Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. After that fight, the villager is still standing, dead, while the samurai stands behind him, calm, ready, balancing between mindfulness and mindlessness.

Thank you Koga-san. Thank you Sugiyama Sensei. Thank you Nishiyama Sensei. Dave Sensei, domo arigato senor roboto.

I did the 75 burpees in 6 minutes and 59 seconds.

Corruption and My Favorite Movie

The word corruption comes from a Latin root meaning "destroy," especially in the sense of ruining principle, integrity, or virtue. I wrote about the theology and economics of corruption in the Judas lesson of my high school Apostles and Markets curriculum. I described corruption as betrayal of benefactors' trust, as when Judas betrayed our ultimate benefactor Jesus Christ. The New Institutional Economics uses agency theory, problems between principals and their agents, to analyze corruption. Copying someone else's homework is often described as cheating. My lesson stresses that cheating is also a violation of an implied contractual agreement between student and teacher, between student and parents, and between student and school reputation.

One of my favorite depictions of corruption in film is the 1962 Japanese movie, Harakiri. This three minute trailer summaries the story line well and suggests how ugly is the hypocrisy of corruption in medieval Japan. The film builds tension by slowly revealing the story of a young samurai too poor to own real swords. His money-raising scam was to threaten clans with committing seppuku unless given money to leave. One clan calls his bluff and the poor man is forced to follow through with the ceremony. The rest of the story unveils how the young samurai's father extracts revenge on this clan by systematically challenging and defeating its top swordsmen. Tatsuya Nakadai, my favorite Japanese film star, plays the father.

The duel between the father and the clan's number one swordsman on the plains of Edo is unforgettable. The wind howls, the tall grass whips wildly as the samurai face each other. After the battle, and the father's work of exposing the clan's hypocrisy and cruelty is complete, the clan survivors try to cover up. There is a final scene that captures evil's desire to remain hidden, or at least to appear ordinary, normal. The stone pathways and gardens are raked smooth again, hiding the battle that took place there only moments ago.

And this just in!  I found a really good review of Harakiri on YouTube here. The author has a brilliant blog called Constantine in Tokyo. Her reviews are outstanding. Treat yourself to a visit!

Fighting Spirit

Last night we did a classic benchmark workout called "Fight Gone Bad." It was designed by Greg Glassman, founder of crossfit, to help prepare mixed martial artists for the intensity of a fight. It consists of three (sometimes five) rounds of five exercises; sumo deadlift high pull with 75 lbs., 20 lb. wall ball thrown 10' high, rowing for calories, push press with 75 lbs., and 20" box jumps. Athletes perform each exercise for one minute then move to the next station. Scores consist of the accumulated total of repetitions and calories burned rowing. My score was 191. The monster athletes in our gym racked up scores in the low 300s. There is a one minute rest between rounds.

Fight Gone Bad, or as I like to call it, Fight Gone in a Direction I Hadn't Quite Anticipated or Hoped For, is intense. I felt like my lungs were going to get up out of my chest, turn around and say, that's it, we're outta here.

Kumite matches in most shotokan tournaments are only two minutes long, with occasional overtime matches to settle ties. Fight Gone Bad would help train shotokan athletes for endurance. Kata training also is supposed to train fighting spirit. Fight Gone Bad has helped my kata tremendously.

Aristotle said virtue is the habitual practice of doing right. In a way, Fight Gone Bad and crossfit training is habitual expansion of ability, and shotokan is the physical, outward expression of doing things right.

Yahara. Yeah, Hara

Hara is a Japanese martial arts concept referring to the belly. I read that it can be translated from Chinese or Japanese into "red field," or "golden stove," and is considered the location of "ki" energy. It is located about three fingers below the navel and two fingers in.

Mikio Yahara (get it.... "Yeah, Hara"... uh boy) is one of the Japan Karate Association's most amazing athletes. Here he is as a young man, kickin' Japan Karate Ass'n.

And here, he is as an older man kickin' Japan Karate Ass'n.

I love to watch Yahara Sensei's spinning movements. Attack from this side, then like lightening attack from the other side. His techniques are quick and powerful because they come from hara, from the red field, golden stove, or just the core.

CrossFit strength and conditioning effects the hara area, the core. Many mixed martial artists love crossfit training for this reason.

I love crossfit. Love shotokan too. The two re-enforce each other multiplicatively. For a treat, watch this clip of Yahara's hara in action! Be sure to turn up the volume. If you aren't inspired to get right up and do kata or hit a heavy bag, check your pulse.