Mario Higaonna Karada Kitae - A Traditional Practice

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In a recent posting on Facebook a concerned practitioner encountered a less than stellar review on the practice Higaonna Sensei uses, his personal practice not required by his students at least to the degree he goes, for hand and body conditioning. The end of the comment provided the following question, i.e., “Do you think that this kind of conditioning and other types of ‘extreme’ training have an added value for our modern time practice or should they be regarded only as a historic fact that is now practically useless.”

I find the question a good one and a question often answered according to individual cultural belief systems of individuals that answer it. I am no different, my answer would be thus, “It depends, it depends on the goals, desires and results each individual considers before walking a path of body conditioning at any level up to that of Higaonna Sense and those who practice systems like, Uechi-ryu.” 

If I were to be asked as to its benefits, overall I would say that it does have certain benefits such as learning how to endure and ignore pain, how to apply principles properly such as by use of the standing makiwara (Note: it ain’t about toughening the hands or callouses but proper application of principles for force and power, etc.) to demonstrate force and power through a proper structure, alignment and application of momentum to achieve force and power, etc.

Simple questions such as this often do not have what is desired, “Simple and concise answers,” because in such disciplines one question leads to another and another and another so that in the end you have to chain them together to make one whole, holistically wholehearted, answer that itself will float and flow chaotically dependent on situations as they arise. 


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