Hard Lines

Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)

To test in karate or martial disciplines you MUST have testable criteria and to do so with many students it must be consistently patterned and it must be static. What is meant to be fluid in karate or martial disciplines is then set in stone; unchangeable, immovable and lacking. In a system or systems meant to deal with chaos of life, especially violence and aggression, this is a stone cold killer of proficiency and effectiveness. 

Using karate kata as example, many sensei learned and teach that kata are set in stone putting specific moves, patterns and attitudes into their performance, for a performance it is and becomes. Even the bunkai, in many cases, are specific technique-based and tend to also be static. This pension for adhering to the exactness of the discipline is its downfall, one of them anyway, as a self-protection option even when it is sold as such. 

You already know and you can readily imagine how many feel about this declaration and I will tell you first and foremost that karate is valid and because it is valid it CAN be applied to self-protection. First, the above static teachings are necessary to learn the system AND because that is true it is necessary to KNOW that for it to transcend its novice basic form the process of teaching, learning and applying it MUST transcend basics and become fluid to meet the needs of a chaotic environment of aggression and violence. It requires a paradigm shift; it requires a modification of teaching; it requires the removal of the more test oriented grade or rank oriented test/status thinking. It requires one reduce and eliminate all those ancillary types of teachings and it requires us to take on a meaningful form of instruction most cannot and would not even attempt to learn, study and master. 

Look at it simplistically, it would REQUIRE everything that is currently taught to achieve all ranks from kyu’s to the dan’s to fill in as only that which is required for kyu grades. Only when one is able to transcend into the upper echelons of study that leaves the old behind can one achieve levels and expertise that denotes what a true dan-sha should, could and would be. 

Think about it; recognize the instant dissonance you are experiencing knowing this to be true; AND then realize your own dissonances and try to analyze them in a non-emotionally effected logical way to see past both dissonance and biases of self to see beyond the barriers into the truth of this. 

Then again…

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