Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)
In a recent, and slowly fading blog site, article written at the Shinseidokan Dojo blog the blog author, Micheal Clarke Sensei, stated, “If you're not practicing <enter your style/system name here> the way we do it, then you're doing it all wrong!” Note: this quote is taken completely out of its intended intent in his article but I do this to express an opinion on JUST the QUOTE simply because I have heard this stated so many times it is no longer funny - especially in my core system of karate called Isshinryu.
As Clarke Sensei mentions, breathtaking level of arrogance, seems to fit regardless of whether I present his original articles intent or my own for there is no conceivable way that humans can stay in exact accordance with the way someone teaches and practices a karate style or system. Especially when a Sensei, used loosely as a term or title here, starts to nick-pick the way a practitioner is doing something such as basics.
Humans, according to the research I have studied on the brain and on how we use it and its memory processes, cannot truly record and regurgitate exactness, as in scientific forms of exactness, in either memory, spoken and performance of such things as karate. We can come pretty darn close but in truth that can always be contested. Our memories, regardless of what we think or believe, are not exact enough and for good reasons, it is how nature created our brains to work toward our survival. To become mired in exactness without some form or ongoing and instant creativeness when using such “Memories” we would still be on the plains of the Serengeti hunting and gathering in small tribes wearing close to nothing.
It is very ability to create from teachings through analysis, an individual effort, and then synthesis, an individual benefit, in creating what works for us and especially in applications that are the very reasons why I study, train and practice my karate. Even in a group, a dojo you can say, where the system or style is the same for all who enter the hall is always going to be influenced by each individual according to their cultural belief systems built over their lives that effect and influence how we learn and apply teachings such as karate.
The only way one can actually “make it work” in reality is to learn the fundamental principles underlying all the manifestations of basics, techniques, drills, etc., in a creative spontaneous way because adherence to a particular, one way only, of how one person does it kills the creative side because that person or persons become so entranced and enfolded in anothers dogmatic pedestal like group control dynamic they spend all their energy focused on the how of a singularly ineffective way of doing it “Right” over doing it effectively they get lost and suppress all creativity.
As to other reasons why this seems to be of great importance is control, someone or something or some group create this type of practice and training under the guise and heading of remaining true to the master syndrome that they create a model that they need so that they can control the tribe, the group or the “Kai,” so to speak. Note: this is not always true because there are those who work to teach the basics, etc. in a way that keeps the style or system stable while promoting and mentoring the student toward a more creative expression of their interpretations of the system or style because that is a true way to study, learn and apply karate, etc.
If I were looking for a dojo today regardless of the style or system I would look for one that fosters, promotes and encourages deviation from a rigid performance to a more chaotic creative free style form of application that depends on adherence to principles that are immovable yet pliable to the individual and their interpretations of karate, a living karate. Not a dead, plastic, controlled form of karate where any deviation is used to beat the practitioner down into submission in the name of staying true to a heritage that was not meant to be restricted, obscured or obfuscated, i.e., by its adherence to perceived clarity, complicated and honored adherence to one persons interpretation to the exclusion to all else, to the reality of karate practice.
In closing, again taken out of its original context, I quote Clarke Sensei, “You can't gain height by pulling others down. You can't claim authenticity if you're worried what others think. You can't apply karate if your head is full of techniques. You can't pretend to be a leader when you yourself are lost. You can't know the things you never struggled for long enough to learn. Short cuts lead to quick results, but none that last. Growing older is not the same as growing up!”
Hat tip (Ritsu-rei) to <Shinseidokan Dojo Blog by Michael Clarke Sensei> as the inspiration for this post.
The post in question I used can be read here: HERE
Bibliography (Click the link)
“In order for any life to matter, we all have to matter.” - Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal (ret)
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