Rooting

Konpon [根本]

The act and concept of rooting in karate is to have a stable and grounded body, both physical and mental. The foundation on which all movement and methods are built through proper applicable ability of principled stable movement (methodologies).

 

Mind

To root the mind is to create emotional maturity along with solid knowledge, understanding and applicability of mind-state so high stressors are suppressed so one remains positively relaxed and fluid and stable and most of all calm.

Look at mind stability or root the mind as how you create a strong psychological state that you root your spirit to, especially in high risk stressful and dangerous situations.

No matter how stable you physically set your body, if the mind is not rooted in spirit (spirit/earth concept) then the body will become unbalanced as if weighted down till it’s useless when you need it most.

Build your mental/psychological grounding through increasing confidence through continuous regular training and practices, specifically a reality-based system.

Once you achieve a baseline, let it infiltrate your every day living.

Body

To root the body involves more than achieving a solid stance where you connect your hara through legs and soles of the feet to terra-firma. 

This is critical taking precedence over strength and mass, proprioception. Proprioception is our ability to know the exact position, speed, and rotation of all parts of our body without conscious effort.

Everything else builds on our ability because in “the fight (defense),” we are in a constant state of fluidity where everything changes on a dime(root the mind addresses the ability to change quickly and efficiently feeding proprioception.

Think rooting the body as in its parts building a whole; fingers root to the hands: hands root to the wrist/forearm: rooting to the upper arm: rooting to the shoulder girdle, and so on (think the old song, hand bone connected to the …).

Note: the reason I’m ignoring karate’s tendency to take a stance then applying methods is because in conflict and violence seldom is that an opportunity yet as I’m intimating one must root in motion. Setting a stance, rooting stances, also wastes energy and telegraphs to an attacker, you have to “shorten the line,” or better get through the OODA loop faster than your attacker.

Remember, “free the mind, freeing the body, freeing the mind-state! (Mind, Body, Spirit)

https://tinyurl.com/3cjxw8cz

Calm Before the Storm

Arashi no mae no shizukesa [嵐の前の静けさ]

Calm is relaxed and relaxed is smooth and smooth is fast. Calmness is a concept, a philosophy, taught for dealing with stresses and stressful things including dealing with conflict and violence.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast as a concept is awesome but few teach outright that to be fast deals with being relaxed and being relaxed means being calm. Calm in mind means calm in body means being relaxed meaning being fast and energy efficient.

It helps to know and understand that once the mind goes on a monkey dance, calm will disappear and this means tension meaning loss of efficiency and fast energy loss or depletion and loss of any advantages given by calm relaxation.

So, when you lose your calmness … 🌀 

Language

Gengo [言語]

When we speak of language, we have to think about how that influences others. In short, we’re talking about the power of suggestion.

It is clear that using certain terminology and phrasing can influence the direction someone might be thinking.

For those who take self-defense, especially martial arts, you have to consider how you use terminologies to explain the methodologies being used in a defense situation.

This becomes extremely critical when dealing with a legal system because terminology used on the dojo floor to explain how things are done and why they’re done will come back to haunt you , as a prosecutor starts picking your story apart to convict you and put a win tick in the win column.

Chaos/Calm

Konton [混沌]/Aiai [藹々]

Ki/Ai or Kiai or Ka-ai! You cannot manifest applicable karate without kiai, i.e., ki/yang and ai/yin.

Kiai is the ability to manifest karate through application of fundamental principles, i.e., https://fundamentalprinciplesofkarate.blogspot.com/?m=1

Kiai [気合] fighting spirit; Ki [気] spirit, mind, mood and Air; Ai [合] Combination, fit, suit or join; karate air or principled diaphragmatic breathing coupled with applied fundamental principles to manifest tactical superiority over a predatory attcker. Breathing and principles create energy that will maximize efficient methods and methodologies best suited in dealing with conflict and violence.

Kiai is not the yell but a training and practice tool to convey to the student the concepts to learn and apply principles.

The hara is merely a reference to diaphragmatic breathing processes. If the body is utilized efficiently and effectively then true kiai is achieved.

The proverbial kiai yell is a product of the ancient times of development of karate used to unbalance the uninitiated adversary’s of said times. 

The kiai vocalization is not a necessity of applied karate methods. Proper application of fundamental principles is an absolute of karate methodologies in highly charged stressful environments.

http://the-martial-way.com/what-is-kiai/

Read also

https://isshindo.blogspot.com/2014/02/koshi-and-gamaku-hara-and-chinkuchi.html?m=1

https://isshindo.blogspot.com/2011/07/kiai-revisited-posted-long-ago-far-far.html?m=1

https://isshindo.blogspot.com/2011/07/importance-of-hara.html?m=1

https://isshindo.blogspot.com/2013/08/manifesting-chinkuchiprinciples.html?m=1

https://isshindo.blogspot.com/search?q=Hara&m=1

Look to kiai as a teach basic so the student can grasp yin/yang-ki/ai concepts that open one’s eyes to principles.

Kiai is a reversal that allows one to understand balance of the many such as the unified application of physiokinetic principles that produce things like applied chinkuchi, etc.

Floating ground work is a method that grounding achieves which is a similar concept to kiai. We teach stepping and achieving a solid stance then we begin to feel how transitory that process is as well as inefficient for defense thus enters floating grounding that leads to achievable power and force in movement, i.e., power and force when neither leg of foot can achieve a sold grounding to the earth as taught to novice karate-ka.

Kiai, like being taught the vertical fist is a very basic concept that opens the pathways to principles such as physiokinetics.

To be continued …

Tsudzuku [つづく]

6 “F’s”

In the most extreme situations, you might have lapses of memory or “lost time.” Schauer & Elbert (2010) refer to the stages of trauma responses as the 6 “F”s: Freeze, Flight, Fight, Fright, Flag, and Faint. Let’s take a closer look at their model:

• Freeze: The initial stage of responding to potential danger involves freeze. Like a deer caught in the headlights, freeze involves the orienting reflex, an inborn impulse to turn your sensory organs towards a source of stimulation. Here the goal is to “stop, look, and listen” to better understand the situation and to determine if there is a threat. Your pupils will dilate as you turn your head towards the sound or sights that sparked your interest or concern. Most importantly, freeze occurs in preparation for action and is short lived.
• Flight and Fight: The second and third stages of responding are maintained by the sympathetic nervous system in which you are mobilized into flight or fight responses. This process involves initial attempts to flee danger; however, if it is impossible to escape you will resort to fight. The sympathetic nervous system increases blood flow to the heart and muscles of the arms and legs accompanied by faster and deeper breathing. Simultaneously, skin will grow cold and digestion is inhibited.
• Fright: As we look further into the progression of trauma responses, we see that the fourth stage sets in when flight or fight do not restore safety. When there is no escape a “fright” takes over with feelings of panic dizziness, nausea, lightheadedness, tingling, and numbing. According to Schauer & Elbert (2010), this stage is considered to have “dual autonomic activation” seen in abrupt and disjointed alternations between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system actions. It is in this stage that we see the initial symptoms of dissociation.
• Flag: If there is still no resolution of the threatening situation you will progress into the fifth stage, “flag,” which is the collapse, helplessness, and despair that signals parasympathetic based nervous system shut-down and immobilization. Dissociative reactions dominate this phase. Voluntary movements including speech become more difficult, sounds become distant, vision blurs, and numbness prevails. The heart rate and blood pressure drop, sometimes rapidly, which in some cases leads to the sixth stage, “faint.”
• Faint: The “faint” response appears to serve several purposes from an evolutionary and survival perspective. When the body succumbs to a horizontal position blood supply increases to the brain. Furthermore, fainting is connected to disgust; an emotional response which rejects toxic or poisonous material. According to Schauer & Elbert, experiencing or even witnessing horrific events such as forced physical or sexual violence can trigger vasovagal syncope (vagus nerve dysregulation) which promotes nausea, loss of bowel control, vomiting, and fainting.

https://tinyurl.com/59np2v6x

Kata, My Early Years

Kata, watashi no shoki no koro [カタ、私の初期の頃]

I arrived on Okinawa and met my Sensei, who happy to be my Company First Sergeant and thus began my journey in, “Isshinryu.” I say this because my respect for the First Sergeant was positive and that helped me accept that certain aspects and concepts on karate and its combative’s were incorrect or, “just plain wrong!” 

This shift in my belief’s didn’t set in immediately and yet as I progressed along the path, I kept discovering things that helped me to change the core of my, “Martial Beliefs.”

As the years passed I found differences in how I was taught, practiced and created methods and methodologies for the civil self defenses I study.

Like, seisan kata, as I was originally taught turned out was not the “natural way” I kept hearing preached by my seniors and after a few years of research, study and practice ended up adjusting things which, by the way continued on for years after bringing me to a more fluid, flexible and creative way that followed my beliefs as to what karate is as a defense against violence, predatory and social.

I was wrong and as I study in these winter years I find more things: ideas, concepts and methodologies, that need modifications and I feel this a good thing!

Today, metaphorically speaking, I discovered a source that put labels and explanations on an ability that I strongly believe, if embraced and applied, can lead us on a path to true expertise.

Grant, Adam. “Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know.” Viking Press. 2021.

The prologue alone is chock full of thoughts, ideas and concepts that may feed your desire to pursue more.

Because this changed the very core of my karate, kata, it provided me multiple paths that enriched my studies, practices, teaching and methodologies it helped me be “flexible and creative” in my karate 🥋!

“Tweak your mind; tweak your body; tweak your spirit and you may discover a whole new way that will take you beyond the moon and deep into the heavens filled with opportunities and growth outnumbering the stars in the cosmos!” - cejames, Sensei seeker of the Tao of karate-jutsu