Recently, we had two karateka pass 3rd kyu (brown belt) and I said to them,

'Congratulations on passing your brown belt, you are well on your way to black belt. Now your karate gets easier but it is harder and black belt is not important but it means everything!'

Many questions and emails later I decided to write this article, hopefully this will explain better, the point I was trying to get accross.

For a beginner to shotokan karate, it is all very confusing, both arms moving together as in gedan barai (downward block), one linear in movement and one circular, then both arms stopping at the same time, but one traveling more distance than the other, for someone new to karate, this alone, is a challenging exercise.

Written by a Japanese diplomat living in California 'Bushido, the Soul of Japan' is a study of Japanese life and culture at the end of the 19th century.
Bushido (often translated as "the way of the warrior") was originally the code of ethics followed by the Samurai class.
These ethics were adopted by the the early Karate masters in their Karate precepts and are still followed by Karate-ka today.
 

BUSHIDO
THE SOUL OF JAPAN

There are many reasons why people start karate, they may want to keep fit, they may be looking for a hobby, self defense, socialising, or they have simply been fascinated by the whole history and mysticism surrounding karate and the martial arts.

Most people, in my experience, are not very fit when they start karate, fitness seems to be one of the main attractions, for a lot of people.

When a karate-ka (a karate practitioner) has been training for a certain amount of time, they will sometimes, naturally, supplement their karate practice, it may be running, swimming, cycling, weight training, etc, etc. Of course, there will be senior karate-ka who only practice karate and nothing else. But these karate-ka are normally very serious and are practicing five and more classes each week. But what of the person who only trains once or twice each week?

There’s 8 million things to do!

So what do the majority of people do?

They do a bit of this and a bit of that, but not really a lot of anything.

So what do they get good at?

Well, they get quite good at this and quite good at that, but not really good at anything.

Not just in karate, but all martial arts, people will practice karate, enjoy it, but for some reason, stop.

There’s never a lack of excuses and stories as to why they had to stop, if you ask them, ‘did you enjoy karate?’ There normal reply (in my experience) is, ‘Oh yes, I really enjoyed karate’, they then go on to explain why they have had to stop, to busy with work, hurt my back, just no time, I have a bone in my leg! The following week, there they are, playing golf, tennis, soccer, football, etc, etc. On with the next thing.

Today’s society, is one of ‘instant gratification’, people want things NOW, not just food, everything. That includes karate, they want to be Bruce Lee TOMORROW!

I was introduced to an interesting karate-ka, at a karate seminar several years ago, we had an amazing chat in between classes.

He had us all enthralled, he said he had beaten this guy and that guy, he had been training ten times per week since he was 2 months old, we should do this, we should do that, he had fought Bruce Lee and won! Man, I was impressed, so impressed, I wanted to watch him train and partner up with him.

My dream, became a reality in the next class.

I turned to partner up and he was behind me, I thought to myself, I’m going to get my butt kicked from here (London), to the JKA honbu dojo in Tokyo, but I was still excited, this awesome karateka was going to show me how to train correctly, boy, was I in for a shock.