America - Land of the Sports Silos

In business, the term "silo" deals with business units, departments, or product lines that have been segmented apart from each other. It's not usually a good thing - there's little or no communications, knowledge-sharing, or exchange of resources across an organization that's been silo'd.

I'm not talking about business here, though. I think we're a culture of silos here in America - everything is "for ____________, not for ___________," For instance, baseball is for boys, not for girls. Actually, all but a handful of sports seems to fall into that pattern, and the ones that are open to girls... nobody seems to care about except for the players and their families. It's not just a gender issue, though. Since getting re-involved in the martial arts at Five Star Martial Arts, I've noticed that it transcends all aspects of our society. For example:

Karate is for little kids, not adults.
Yoga is for women, not men.
Tai Chi is for old people, not young people.
Zumba is for women, not men.

What's strange about all of these, is that they're demonstrably, historically both untrue and actually backwards. Karate, for instance, was practiced exclusively by adults (primarily men) for most of the last 100 years. In some dojos, and especially in Japan, no one under 16 can even achieve a full black belt rank. Yet in the U.S., Karate is seen as being for little kids, and adults seem to dismiss it as something to keep the kids entertained rather than a true combat art.

Yoga has been around for hundreds of years, and throughout that entire time, the leading practitioners, teachers, and masters of Yoga have been... say it with me... MEN! That's right, Indian guys were the creators of Yoga and its primary practitioners for centuries.

Tai Chi is, of course, Chinese. And in China, freaking EVERYBODY does it. Young or old, male or female, it makes no difference. In China, 1.35 billion people all recognize the benefits of Tai Chi, but in the U.S. I've literally see classes where nobody under the age of 50 was welcome. Seriously? What the hell!?!

Oh, and Zumba? Zumba's easy. It was created by Alberto "Beto" Perez, and the company's senior managers are all guys.

I was a teen when I started karate - so was my wife. Now I'm middle-aged, and I'm back at it harder than ever. I'm getting a lot of benefit out of Yoga practice, too. I'd love to learn Tai Chi as well, and hope to at some point. What I don't get is how to break down the silos? How do you convince Americans - who love to engage in the game of "it's for ____________ not ___________" - that they're missing out on some amazing fitness because they perceive it as being for some other demographic group? I'll have to work on that one. And I'll rely on all my various fitness options to help put me in the proper frame of mind to figure it out.

My First Seminar

On Saturday, June 11th, I attended my first martial arts seminar. The key word there is "my." I've attended lots of seminars, especially when I've trained at Aikido of Central New York, both now and in the past. I love seminars - so much knowledge and training packed into a few hours. But Saturday was the first seminar that I was personally responsible for. I proposed it to my Senseis at Five Star Martial Arts. And to their credit, they gave me the go-ahead, even though they really didn't know much about Aikido. I then made the arrangements with Yousuf Mehter Sensei at Aikido of CNY, who was extremely gracious to such a young dojo that had never done anything like a guest seminar before. I scheduled everything, created all of the marketing materials, and promoted the seminar for the better part of a month. At the seminar, I greeted all of the attendees, checked everyone in at the front desk, and showed our guests around the dojo. My Senseis even kindly allowed me to make the opening introductory remarks and kick off the day's training. This was my baby - something I'd never done before.

I confess, I was a bit nervous leading up to this. I take a lot of pride in doing a good job, in being successful, and in serving with quality and distinction whenever I take on a task. I wanted this to be a big success, for many reasons. Of course, my own personal credibility was on the line. It would have been very embarrassing to me and to my dojo if nobody showed up for this seminar. As it was, we had to shift the children's class into the main adult seminar because only a handful of kids signed up (and most of them were mine). But more than that, this was the very first guest seminar at my home dojo, and its success or failure could easily have an impact on the future of seminars at our school.

I believe martial arts seminars are important. Learning from different instructors who are recognized as experts in their style is truly valuable. More, I think that exposure to different styles is useful to the martial artist who wants to be well-rounded and to understand all ways that different styles approach movement, strikes, blocks, stances, grappling, and all of the other aspects of hand-to-hand combat, fitness, training methodology, and martial arts theory. I also like the way seminars can bring people together from different dojos to meet, train with each other, and form part of a larger martial arts community.

As such, I sincerely want seminars to be available as a regular, ongoing part of the training for Five Star's Karate students. And the only way that's likely to happen is if they're successful, well-attended, and well-regarded by the students, the Senseis, and the other martial artists in the area. So when I say that Saturday's seminar could easily have had a long-term impact - positive or negative - on the future of seminars at Five Star, it's not difficult to believe.

Fortunately, it was a huge hit. We had about 20 total participants, including some senior students from Aikido of CNY who were extremely helpful to the Aikido novices at Five Star.  Sensei Mehter spent two solid hours teaching us a series of techniques that all built on the basics of the style - notably Ikkyo, Nikyo, and Sankyo. He was a terrific instructor as always, and really great with the six kids and pre-teens who attended. In between techniques, he would call the children up to the front to show what they'd learned, which they all seemed to really enjoy. And so did everyone else. The look of wonder on everyone's face was incredibly gratifying. The awe and amazement they expressed at what we were learning sent my spirit soaring. THIS is exactly how a seminar is supposed to be - enthusiastic martial artists being blown out of the dogis by the fantastic new knowledge they're learning that's different from anything they've trained in before.

I got to make the rounds a lot, working with everyone and lending the benefits of my limited experience to those with even less than I have. I got to experience their joy up close. Now looking back on it a couple of days later, I'm filled with gratitude to everyone who helped bring the seminar together and make it a success - to Mehter Sensei, to Senseis Pastore and Napoli, to the attendees from Aikido of CNY and the Oswego Aikido Club, and to the student participants from Five Star Martial Arts. The bar has been set and set high - our next seminar will have to be outstanding to compare with this one, but at least everybody will know that a Five Star Seminar means the best in quality martial arts instruction. People will talk, word will get out, and the next time Mehter Sensei comes and teaches for us (if he graciously agrees to return in a year or so, perhaps), I fully expect to have twice as many people on the floor, eager to see why everyone raved about this seminar so much. I know I'll be there!

[Karate] Yoga and the Severely Inflexible

My body doesn't particularly like to stretch or twist. I suspect part of this may just be how I'm built - I've never been very flexible, even when I was much younger. I know I have a deformity in my wrist bones (specifically the ulna bone in my left forearm, and probably my right) that caused me to need surgery about 20 years ago. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the source of my hip pain and general leg inflexibility is of a similar nature. My mother pointed out to me after my last post that when I was very young, I'd needed corrective shoes to address a misalignment in my hips that was affecting my walk (making me pigeon-toed). So now I'm left to wonder - is my hip pain and my inability to gain significant flexibility in my upper legs caused by that same defect? Or did the process of correcting my walk cause my hips to twist into a position that ultimately causes me other problems? I may have to talk to my doctor about it at some point soon. My hip pain isn't constant, but it's bad enough that, for instance, I have to play my electric guitar standing up, because having it rest on my leg hurts now.

Meanwhile, I'm addressing my flexibility issues as directly as I know how - through Yoga. Suami Michael Smith recently started offering Yoga classes at Five Star Martial Arts and I've attended them all. Mike's approach is pretty cool. He's very comfortable with beginners, taking time with each new student to show them the details of the poses and techniques, and then continuing to offer tips and encouragement as we progress. He also teaches a class that's a great blend of stretching, breathing, and strength-building. For instance, he taught us a plank modification the other day that involved a push-up, and we did an ab-building exercise that left me sore for days. Finally, I like the way Suami Michael blends hints of karate into his Yoga. From stances to movement, his background in the martial arts makes the class very relevant to me.

It wouldn't be accurate to say that I've seen no improvement in my flexibility in the year that I've been studying the martial arts. It's just that it's not enough, and in particular my kicks suffer quite a bit because I can't get them up where they need to be. I'm not significantly closer to doing a split than I was a year ago, which means my side kicks, hook kicks, and roundhouse kicks just don't get up where I want them. But in just a handful of Yoga classes, I've seem some flexibility improvement already. I figured if anything could help, it would be Yoga.

So I'm now addressing my breathing through Aikido and Yoga classes. I'm working on my balance through Iaido and Yoga. And I'm working on my flexibility through Karate and Yoga. Hey, I see a common thread there! I admit, I went into Yoga as a fairly blank slate and as open a mind as I could manage, but I wasn't necessarily sure I was going to stick with it. Now, I'm sold. I'm in for the long haul, I think. And I look forward to using good balance and proper breathing... as I kick people in the head!!!

[Karate] Overdoing It

Sometimes, we definitely can push too hard. That's all too easy to do when you're training often, as I am. Beyond that, on Thursday and Friday, I trained in Aikido, Iaido, Yoga, and Kenpo. I'm in much better shape than a year ago, but that's still pretty intense. Thursday's Aikido class was particularly punishing. I had my elbow wrenched to the side - the same elbow that someone had landed on at the seminar I attended two months ago. The pain's pretty well gone now, in fact after a good Aikido workout it felt better than it had since I'd first hurt it, though afterward it ached for a couple of days. For whatever reason, I chose that same session to try my first hardfall in about 18 years. Successfully, as it turns out, but it put a kink into my lower flank that followed me into the weekend.

It's also not uncommon for workouts to make my hip(s) hurt. I'm not sure if it's the butterfly stretch or the split (well, what I do doesn't much resemble a split, truth be told) or throwing sidekicks, but it puts a nice searing hot thorn into my hip joint for me. It's far from constant and usually little more than an annoyance, but naturally it raised its ugly, um, head after two rough days of falling (on purpose), stretching, twisting, and kicking.

The result was a couple days of soreness and aches - not the kind of muscle aches you expect from a good workout. Not even the hobble-inducing soreness I used to get in my quadriceps when I'd spend too much time in seiza. Thankfully, that seems to be largely a thing of the past. No, this was joint pain - joints and bones and tendons all scolding me for overdoing it. It's over now, and it should become less prevalent with time as I continue to train, but it's certainly a cautionary tale - it's possible to do too much, push too hard, and your body will let you know when that's happened.

Iaido for Real

Last Saturday was a terrific day for me. I had the great privilege of attending an Iaido seminar that was, in reality, a five-hour-long private lesson. Absolutely amazing!

On Saturday morning, I hopped in my car with my bag of clothes, my sword, my passport, and some bottled water. Two hours later, I was at Tallack Martial Arts in Kingston, Ontario. It's a really, really nice place to train. I can't tell whether it was originally a home or whether they built it specifically for their needs, but it's got two great training floors with tatami mats, plus a third room that's all bamboo laminate which is nothing short of gorgeous. If I'm ever involved in designing a dojo, I'll definitely look to incorporate some of what they've done at Tallack's.

Anyway, I met one other fellow - Brian, from Perth - in the parking lot on the way in. He also had a weapon bag with the distinctive shape of a katana. We knew right away that we were both there for the same thing.

I put on my full regalia. I'd picked up a traditional-style keikogi top in dark blue, and a hakama of the same color, as well as a wide, thin Iaido obi. I've been using them the last several weeks to train and it really made a huge difference in the feel of the techniques not to have my sword slapping around all over the place because my narrow karate belt couldn't hold it in place properly.

My biggest concern going into this seminar was that I'd taught myself some bad habits over the last two months. I've diligently practiced what I could remember from my first three-hour-long seminar, but I knew I'd forgotten some things and mis-remembered others. I would find those concerns justified. I'd forgotten quite a bit, as it turns out, and there was a fair amount that I was doing wrong.

It didn't really matter, however. Davis Sensei started us right at the beginning, basically as if we'd never learned any Iaido at all before. Which, really, we hadn't. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, three hours is negligible.

He began with how to walk into the room - how to hold the sword, where to bow, and where to go with the sword to set it down while warming up. He taught us the proper way to kneel down and set the sword by the correct wall. It's all very precise, very formal, very proper. In fact, that describes all aspects of Iaido - precise, formal, proper. Not to mention detailed and efficient.

That describes the next five hours, in fact - precise and detailed. We worked stances. We worked movement. We practiced drawing and sheathing our swords over and over and over again (a tiny, miniscule taste of the amount of practice it will take to do it correctly), focusing on the movement in a way Davis Sensei hadn't even attempted to convey to the full group at the first seminar I'd attended. Back and forth across the floor we'd walk in small gliding steps or shuffling half-steps. Back and forth we'd turn, again and again - a quick, efficient turn that kept you in line with enemies on both sides. In and out our blades would slide, snicking out of the saya (the scabbard) and back in again.

Later we worked some waza (techniques, sort of like kata. Actually, I'm not clear what the difference is between a waza and a kata. I need to look that up.), both standing and kneeling. I fear I don't remember them all fully. That's okay, though. I could easily spend the next month or two just practicing my stances, my movement, and the drawing of the blade and feel that I've spent my time productively. Those are, after all, the foundation on which the rest of Iaido is built.

Next year around this time, Davis Sensei has said that the Japanese masters will be coming to Ontario for the annual Canadian Iaido Association seminar and grading. According to their website, it takes one year of training to test for shodan. If Davis Sensei believes I'm ready, I'd like nothing better than to test at that time. And if I'm not... well, then I'm not. But I'll know a year's worth of Iaido that I don't know today, and that's enough for me right now.

[Karate] Aikido Seminar #2

Technically, I don't know what number Aikido seminar this was for me - I'm positive I went to at least four of them back in the early 1990s because I can remember training with Sugano Sensei (Sugano Shihan at the time of his very sad passing last year) twice, Yamada Shihan at least once, and a big guy with a mustache whose name I've forgotten. I suspect there were as many as two other seminars I attended and have simply forgotten, but those four I remember for sure.

To digress further, I think I've mentioned before that I'm baffled when I try to remember how long I spent training in Aikido. It seems like it was around a year, which would be consistent with having attended that number of seminars. Yet I only tested a single time - for 5th Kyu - and that test is usually administered after about 60 days of training, which would be around 6-7 months. Even assuming I was a terrible student (which would hurt my pride deeply, but wouldn't actually surprise me), I should have been ready to test around then, since I often went to class quite a bit more often than twice per week. So how freaking long DID I train for?? I just don't recall.

Well, it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that I was able to attend Collins Smith Sensei's seminar last November, and then on Saturday I attended Irvin Faust Sensei's seminar as well. And if that weren't enough, I've also taken two actual Aikido classes in the last few weeks as well.

Saturday's seminar was really unique. Well, it was for me, anyway.  I don't know - maybe Faust Sensei teaches like this all the time. You see, in Aikido you typically take turns with your partner, each of you performing a technique four times as the Nage, then receiving those same four techniques as the Uke. The Uke's job is to be a reasonably compliant partner, providing just enough resistance for the technique to be properly executed. The Nage's job is to do the technique without injuring the Uke or throwing them where another Uke is about to fall. Only one technique is generally performed at a time.

Faust Sensei mixed this up, though. For the first hour, we performed variations on a series of techniques. The Nage would begin with Nikyo, then move on to Sankyo, followed by Kotegaeshi, and ending with Shihonage. Actually, it didn't always end with Shihonage - after a while we added an Iriminage throw as the final technique. So that's four - or five! - techniques all done together, one after the next, alternating hands. The Uke's job was just to reach toward the Nage as fast as they could after each technique so the Nage could perform the next one in the series.

It was actually a really great way to practice these fundamental Aikido techniques, it was just unlike anything I'd ever seen done before outside of Rondori (where multiple attackers act as Uke to a single Nage, taking turns attacking with whatever attack they desire while the Nage adapts and selects a suitable response).

Faust Sensei was throwing all kinds of stuff at us that I'd never seen or just didn't remember. I admit, I was confused and frustrated - not so much at my inability to execute the techniques (I give myself a pass since I'm way beyond rusty), but at my sheer bafflement when I tried to comprehend them. I would watch him do the technique and come away utterly confused. Sometimes I'd even practice it for a while and still be utterly confused. It was a very humbling experience, and I'm not a big fan of being humbled and frustrated. When that happens, my gut instinct is to give up. I felt those rumblings stirring within me on Saturday. "This is too hard. I don't get it. I should go sit and watch instead of bumbling around here looking - and feeling - like a fool." It was REALLY tempting to just give up. I'm awesome at giving up. I wonder sometimes if I'm part French (Je plaisante!). I didn't, though. I stuck it out. I stayed with it. After a while, Faust Sensei changed the format and then things did get somewhat easier.

You see, for at least the fourth and final hour, he had us in lines, with a single Nage and everyone else taking turns as Uke. It was a constant barrage of attacks - each Nage got to perform the technique around ten times in rapid succession. I still frequently found that after those ten times, I was no closer to mastering the technique or even being sure I was doing it kind of correctly. Being the guy up there facing that whole line of Aikidoka was fairly intimidating, but it was actually better than being one-on-one. Plus you got to rest while standing in line, which was really welcome after several hours of near-continuous Aikido.

That was another big plus for me - in the past, I've left seminars and even classes feeling completely drained and ready to collapse. Then I've gone home, stiffened up, and literally spent the next four or five days barely able to walk, hobbling around grunting and occasionally crying out in pain. I remember when Collins Smith Sensei's seminar was done, I collapsed flat-out on the mat and just lay there for a while. Several people even came over to see if I was okay.

This seminar, however, I completely lost track of time. I literally misplaced an entire hour, so that when the seminar was finished and we were lined up, kneeling in seiza for Faust Sensei to say goodbye, I was sure we still had another whole session still to go. And I was looking forward to it! I was ready for more, and a bit disappointed to find that there wasn't any. I remember that feeling. It's the feeling I USED to get back in the old days, when I was a young, fit, enthusiastic college kid instead of an old, flabby, worn out man. It's the feeling I'd get when I'd attend a seminar with Sugano or Yamada Shihan back in 1991 at the OLD Erie Boulevard dojo. Maybe I was channeling my Ki or just catching a second wind, but it felt damn good. I'm looking forward to more.

[Karate] Five Star Martial Arts 2.0!

For the last month, I've been intensely focused on helping my good friends at Five Star Martial Arts take their business to the next level. It's incredible how much we've gotten done in just a few short weeks, and today is the official launch of Phase Two of their awesome Karate and fitness school.

One key component of Five Star 2.0 is that they now have an official website! They've wanted one for a long time, but getting the right team in place to create it and developing a cohesive vision that really captured their desire for a centralized web presence can be a little tricky. In the end, my lovely wife developed the site from soup to nuts, based only on a static mock-up in Photoshop, including some graphic design, photo editing, CSS, PHP scripting, server administration, and HTML. I had the job of writing all the copy. Luckily for us, we both had some solid background in our respective tasks, though it was the first time we'd worked together to build a commercial site from the ground up without a team of IT and Marketing departments at our backs. It was pretty cool, and everybody's super-happy with how it turned out!

Another aspect of Five Star 2.0 is the addition of two new fitness programs. Five Star now offers both Hatha Yoga as well as the ONLY Certified Russian Kettlebell classes in the whole Central New York region! Again, this took a while to pull together. We started reaching out to and interviewing Yoga instructors months ago, but it took time to find just the right fit. Meanwhile, I was contacting instructors in other fitness styles, and had the great good fortune to connect with the ONLY HKC-Certified Russian Kettlebell instructor within 40 miles! Russian Kettlebell is a hit all over the world for a fast, intense workout that combines strength-training and cardio in one workout. Plus, my wife loves it so I've gotten to see first-hand how quickly you can see the benefits.

On top of that, there's been a ton of search-engine optimization (more to come), Facebook improvements (we now have all the features of a "Place" page right on our Facebook "Business" page, including a check-in deal!), an active Twitter account that's already over 30 followers in just a couple weeks (not so hot if you're a bigtime Hollywood celebrity, but not bad for a little dojo in North Syracuse!!), and so much more I can't remember it all.

Plus, I set up our domain, including web-hosting and various email addresses, meaning that Five Star's owners and employees can finally have their own custom email addresses. It's not really a big deal, but it's not something anybody had even told them was possible and one more item on a fairly lengthy checklist for the month of April.

On top of all of that, we've got our first LivingSocial deal going live today, too! After the way our Groupon deal went completely ballistic, it'll be interesting to see what happens with this one. It's sure to be a smaller response, but we're anxious to see it. It's also one of the first (possibly THE first) LivingSocial Family deals offered in Syracuse.

Next up - Seminars! I'm making arrangements to bring some fantastic seminars to our dojo this summer and fall and I can't wait to announce them. I'm very much hoping to connect our school to the rest of the CNY martial arts community, make some great friendships, and share some knowledge.

I'm frankly amazed at how much we've accomplished so quickly. Of course, I've hardly seen my wife this month, but it's going to be an awesome thing when we start seeing the response. If you haven't already, definitely pop over to Five Star Martial Arts and let me know what you think. The "News and Events" page goes into more detail about some of what we're rolling out.

Now, off to work on more great stuff!

[Karate] Ipponme Mae

First off, before anybody freaks out, I'm continuing to categorize my Iaido studies under "Karate" for no particular reason other than that I've been classifying all of my martial arts articles under that category. I suppose I could have used a broader category like [Martial Arts], but at the time I started writing about the subject I was really only focused on Kenpo and Goju-Ryu styles, so [Karate] seemed appropriate. I have, however, recently added labels to my blog, so if you're looking for particular subject matter, you can drill down by selecting the link for "Iaido" or "Aikido," or you can see all of my martial arts related articles by clicking "karate." So that's all it is - just a category for the convenience of people trying to sort through my articles (which cover a wide array of topics. Probably too many for most people). It doesn't reflect my opinion or definition of what constitutes "karate" or any other style of martial arts.

Regular readers will recall that I traveled to Ottawa last month for a seminar in Musō Jikiden Eishin-ryū conducted by Sensei Robert Davis. The wonderful thing about seminars, for me, has always been the exposure to new information, things I'd never seen or done before, or just differences in how the knowledge is taught. Sometimes, as with Iaido, the skills are all new. Other times, as with some of the Aikido seminars I attended years ago, it was a chance to practice familiar techniques with different people, or to gain insights into them simply because they were being taught by somebody different.

The one thing I hate about seminars is that afterward I feel the new knowledge I've learned - skills that seemed natural and obvious to me at the time - quickly leaking out of my mind and fading away. Aaaargh, I hate that so much. I want that knowledge. I want to keep it. I want to use it to refine and perfect my technique. I want to have it to use. Losing it really aggravates me.

For that reason, I've begun to think that it might have been for the best that this first Iaido seminar was only three hours long. We learned a lot in that short time, but not so much as to be completely overwhelming. I wish I could tell you the techniques we learned, but my auditory memory is terrible and without seeing them written down, the names flitted away, lost to me. I remember the techniques, though. Or at least I think I do.

We started with some basic stances, the drawing of the sword, the resheathing of the sword, and chiburi, which is the shaking off of blood from the blade. Then we learned two standing waza. In the first, we'd take three steps forward, stopping with the left foot in a half-step before taking a full step forward with the right foot as you draw and make the initial cut with the blade. In the second, the left foot continues on through, and the initial strike is made with the left foot forward. Both follow the first (horizontal) strike with an overhead strike (we used to call the barehanded overhead chop a "shomenuchi" in Aikido. I'm betting it has a different name when performed with a sword, but I don't know what the proper term is, so we'll just stick to English), then a chuburi, and a resheathing of the sword.

I'm not certain I'm doing these techniques 100% perfectly. Well, let me rephrase that - I'm positive that I'm NOT doing them 100% perfectly. Probably more like 10% if I'm lucky, at least in terms of the details that are so important to proper Iaido. What I mean is that I may be making gross mistakes. For instance, I know that in some of the waza we practiced, we dropped a knee as we resheathed the sword. I'm positive we did that in the techniques that started in seiza (kneeling) posture. But I cannot remember whether we also did it when the technique was entirely standing. So for now I'm only bending the knee on seiza-based techniques like Ipponme Mae.

Which brings me to the other set of waza we learned - four different techniques all performed from the seiza position. Each of the four is performed facing a different direction to begin with, but you always end up attacking a target who is to the front. Which is to say, in those positions where you're facing left, right, or to the rear, you must turn yourself because the enemy is always in the same place.

Now I'm not sure if ALL of these variations count as ipponme mae, but I think they might. Regardless, the front-facing waza performed from seiza is definitely ipponme mae. I like ipponme mae quite a bit, and I read somewhere that "all of Iaido is contained in Ipponme Mae." I don't know whether that's true, but it surely seems like a great place to start. I've also read that many Iaido students learn and perform nothing but Ipponme Mae for months when they first begin to learn the art.

I've taken down the cheap piece of crap decorative samurai sword from the rack over my writing computer. It's a poor-quality replica of a real sword, and I noticed after using it for a bit that the whole thing has a bit of a rightward curve from the handle to the tip of the blade. But it's roughly the weight and feel of a proper Iaito blade, and it has a saya (sheath), so I've put it to work. At least three or four times a week, I take that sword to the dojo and I practice what little I know of Iaido. It's my sincere hope that I'm not setting too many bad habits in stone that will need to be chipped away later on, but I'm determined to keep as much of that knowledge as I possibly can. When it's time to learn more Iaido, I hope to be ready to correct some of my errors and absorb more of this precious and all-too-rare knowledge.

[Karate] In-House Tournament

Last Saturday, Five Star Martial Arts held its first in-house tournament. By the time all was done, we were there for over eight hours, but everybody seemed to have a great time.

I've never been to a tournament before, in-house or otherwise. They used to be really big back in the day. When my wife and her mom were doing karate in the 1980s, there were several of them a year in this area, and the Tearney's and the LaVallee's camps would square off against each other at all of them. Sometime in the 1990s, tournaments became far less common in Central New York. One theory I've heard is that everybody decided they could make more money hosting their own events than by sending their students to somebody else's tournament. I don't know whether that's the case or not, but our Senseis at Five Star have indicated that they're looking to try to arrange for tournament opportunities for their students and for others in the area. I spoke to Carlos Tearney last month, and he said the same thing. I think that's cool.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not interested in competing myself, and I don't really care much whether my kids do. But if they want to, I'd like them to have the opportunity. But I think the real value is in breaking out of this mindset here in Central New York where each school does their own thing, by themselves, with no integration with others. That's a real shame - I think there's huge value in martial artists getting to see what else is out there. Getting to see that other styles do things differently, and getting a sense of how those differences manifest. I know there have been a handful of seminars here in the last year, too, and I think that's even better - a chance to really learn something new and different than what's taught at your school daily, either because of the content or just because it's being taught by someone new. Local schools like Aikido of CNY, Tai Kai Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and Syracuse Martial Arts Academy are more than willing to hold seminars that are open to any and all. I know Five Star wants to do the same.

So it's begun with the first small steps - an in-house tournament to get Five Star's students familiar with and comfortable with the whole idea of tournaments. I'm looking forward to seeing what's to come.

[Karate] Iaido at Last!

This weekend was insane, and this morning totally snuck up on me. Let me tell you a bit about my weekend.

The core of it was my trip to Ottawa on Saturday. I went with Dave Oddy of Syracuse Jundokan, and we drove up to Mike Sywyk's East Wind Budo Life Center. It was a bit of a hike - almost three hours each way - but it was totally worth it. I was going to a martial arts seminar. At long last, I was actually going to learn Iaido.

Granted, I wasn't going to learn MUCH Iaido - it was only a 3-hour seminar, after all. But it was absolutely jam-packed. We did Iaido the entire time, with no breaks. It was glorious!

Regular readers may remember when I wrote about not being able to find an Iaido teacher in or near Syracuse. So when Dave saw that there was a seminar on the style being held at one of his sister dojos (East Wind also connects up to the main Jundokan dojo in Okinawa, home to Goju-Ryu karate), he made sure to give me a shout.

The seminar was taught by Robert Davis of the IaidoEast dojo. His knowledge of Musō Jikiden Eishin-ryū Iaido, and his thirty years of experience practicing and teaching this ancient art, were extremely evident. Granted, I wouldn't know good Iaido from bad (I mean, I would probably intuitively recognize really incompetent Iaido, but any shades of grey would surely be lost on me), but Sensei Davis's quiet competence was really inspiring and just incredible to watch.

For three solid hours, we drew the sword (in my case a wooden bokken practice sword), cut down our imagined enemies, shook our blades clean, and returned them to the sheath. We did it standing. We did it walking. We did it kneeling (in four different directions). Oh, it was glorious!

I paid for it on Sunday. My quadriceps have never been very flexible, which means three hours of kneeling left me in extreme discomfort and nearly unable to walk, but I don't care. It was totally worth it. I'm deeply grateful to Sensei Oddy, Sensei Sywyk, and Sensei Davis for exposing me at long last to this 500+ - year-old martial art. It was every bit as precise, as focused, as meditative, and as graceful as I'd anticipated. Now I just have to find a way to become a regular student of Sensei Davis.

The Quest for Iaido

It shouldn't be this hard. I live in a pretty good-sized city. It's not huge, but neither is it small. That's one of the things I've always liked about Syracuse - it's small enough that it doesn't have issues like traffic jams and the like, but it's big enough to (usually) have most of the services, entertainment, and businesses I want. Certain martial arts are a notable exception, however.

In Syracuse, you can train in a few different flavors of Goju-Ryu karate, from the traditional flavor of Syracuse Jundokan to the more Americanized version you'd find at Greg Tearney's. You can train in Kenpo at FiveStar Martial Arts, but it's pretty different from what you'd find at an Ed Parker-logo'd school. There's also Duncan's Chinese Kenpo, which is also its own animal (no pun intended). Sun Chong teaches Tae Kwon Do. There are at least two kung-fu schools - Syracuse Kung Fu and White Crane - both on the East side of town. Likewise, Aikido of CNY is over in that area, too. There's Tai Kai if you want Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And there's more MMA than you can shake a stick at, from LaVallee's to Carlos Tearney's Champions MMA to Curtis Tillman's and many, many others.

But that's pretty much it. If you're interested in other styles of martial arts, you're out of luck. There's no Shotokan Karate here. No Israeli Krav Maga. No Russian Systema. No Filipino Arnis or Escrima. And no Kendo or Iaido (much less the rarer Kenjutsu or Iaijutsu). In fact, the closest that you can find any of these is Rochester or Utica, and the latter city is a fraction the size of Syracuse.

I'm not going to try to guess why the Syracuse martial arts community isn't more diverse. It seems that a few schools in particular have been extraordinarily successful here - Tearney's and LaVallee's in particular - and it may be that that has something to do with it. I don't really know. I do know that I want to learn Iaido, and I'm having a hell of a time finding a local teacher. I followed a couple of local leads, but they dead-ended. That leaves me with a really solid teacher in Utica who isn't accepting new students at the moment, and another in Rochester about whom I don't really know much.

That's a shame, because I think Iaido is an absolutely beautiful, elegant art. It's the closest martial art to the practices of the Japanese Samurai, who were a unique and fascinating warrior class noted for the graceful strength of their swords.Iaido has no person-to-person combat, no sparring. From what I've seen, it's not much of a workout. Instead, it focuses intensely on the precise control and movements of the katana sword - drawing, striking, and resheathing the blade according to prescribed sets of movements. It takes the weapons of war and makes them beautiful. It takes the legacy of the Samurai, which was at times brutal, even monstrous (just as European knights weren't all chivalric protectors of the downtrodden) and makes it pure and clean. If I ever have the money, I'd love to own a high-quality katana someday, but if I were to do so, I'd also want to know how to hold it and use it properly (just as I wouldn't want to own a Ferrari if I didn't know how to drive). I want to embrace this ancient weapon of war and the movements that go with it. I want to feel the power of battle transformed into a quiet, meditative, even artistic act. I want to, and perhaps I will. But I probably won't be learning it in Syracuse.

[Karate] Halfway to the Beginning

Last night, my family and I earned our blue belts at karate. As Sensei Oddy says, we all look like "karate smurfs" now with our blue gis and blue belts.

So that means we're halfway to earning our black belts - at least in terms of the number of belts between white and black. Chronologically, we're probably more like a third of the way there at best. "There" being the storied "black belt" that so many people, in the U.S. anyway, associate with mastery of a martial art. It's really a beginning, though. Just as you have to "master" the elementary concepts of gradeschool before going on to high school and college to really learn useful skills like critical thinking, you have to know your basics in karate before you can fully understand the underlying concepts.

Which doesn't make us any less thrilled to have earned our blue belts. As awkward as I often still feel, I've definitely improved in balance, strength, power, and endurance in the last year. My stances are still sloppy, but less sloppy than they used to be. I'm working hard to be sure I generate power from my hips, not just my shoulders, and I think I've made progress there as well.

Better still, I get to watch my kids in action, which is awesome. My boys tend to be kind of half-assed unless they're really motivated, but even with them I've seen progress. My daughter, though, has grown tremendously in coordination and self-confidence, and it's great to share her enthusiasm and excitement.

There's an awful lot left to learn, and a lot of work remaining to forge our bodies into the kind of tools we want them to be. But forging takes heat and hammering, and there's a lot of that left to do. Progress is good though, and it feels great to have met another milestone in our lifelong journey.

Next stop - green belt! The expectations get higher, the techniques and kata get tougher, and hopefully the kicks get higher and stronger. Woo hoo!

[Karate] My Family Performs Live!

We did it! Yesterday we appeared live on 9WSYR's Bridge Street morning show as part of their segment with Five Star Martial Arts. Check it out here:



Pretty sweet, huh? What a blast! It's been a couple of years since I've been on live TV or on a TV set, so it was super cool to be back at it again, even just for a few minutes. Even better, this was of course a marketing opportunity for Five Star, and I thought it really hit the mark.

Five Star's prime emphasis is on training families, and it's been an amazing success. Something like 60% of their students are families - parents and kids, brothers and sisters, all spending quality time together working out, getting fit, and building confidence (when they could just as easily be munching on a bag of chips in front of the boob tube!). I think that's terrific, and it comes across in that segment loud and clear.

The funny thing - and this is a manifestation of live TV that's unscripted and generally unplanned - is that we only did about half of what we'd intended. We had a whole kata ready to go that there just wasn't time to get to. But instead, they really drilled in on the qualities that make Five Star great, which was even better.

Best of all, we went for pizza at Pavone's Pizza afterward, pretty much my favorite pizza joint on the planet. Yeah, I ate way too much pizza, but I don't care. I only get to Pavone's a couple times a year, so I make the best of it when I do.

2010 Year in Review

Yeah, I know, it's mid-February. This is one of those articles I started working on and then got distracted, but 2010 was ultimately a pretty decent year, and one that I still felt deserved to be summarized.

The year 2010 wasn't just a sort of crummy follow-up to the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. Oh no, it was an actual collection of months (twelve of them by my count) in which various and sundry stuff happened. Some of that stuff happened to me. That's mostly what I care about, so I won't belabor the natural disasters, celebrity goings-on, political turmoil and other junk. John Steward and Stephen Colbert already covered those much more humorously than I ever could. I'm just going to focus on myself.

2010 was the year I started to get back into shape. I used to be in shape. And yeah, I know "round is a shape," but that's not what I mean. I mean I was in great shape back when I met my wife. I was hitting the Aikido dojo sometimes three hours a night, and usually four or five days a week. I was lifting weights, jogging, doing calisthenics, and there's no doubt that I was absolutely in the best shape of my life. Of course, I didn't have a girlfriend or much of anything to do, so I had lots of time for working out. Once that changed - I got engaged, finished college and got a job - I found I didn't have nearly as much time for fitness anymore. Plus, let's be honest, I never liked exercise all that much (Aikido was the exception - I loved that), and I was only doing it because I really, really wanted a girl to call my own. Once I had one, some of that motivation dissipated.

Regardless of the rhyme or reason, I definitely fell off the wagon there. I ate and drank a lot of calories and didn't do much to burn them off, to the point where by around 2000 I had swollen to 225 pounds. I stayed at that weight for around 10 years. I tried to get fit every so often. I bought a treadmill. That didn't help. Then I tried using the treadmill, but surprisingly that didn't really help, either. Which was discouraging. I counted calories, but that didn't help. Counting them wasn't my problem - eating them was the problem. 2010 changed all of that at last. I started karate in the spring, and started controlling my calories during the summer. By fall, I had lost 10 pounds, and by the end of the year I was up to 15! By mid-February, I'm actually brushing the edges of 25, which is awesome, but that'll have to wait for some other article, because it wasn't cool enough to have happened in 2010.

While I'm on the subject, 2010 was also the year I started my third or, arguably, fourth style of martial art. I did Tae Kwon Do for about a year as a kid under Albert Fortunato. I quit because I was a teenager who couldn't decide what he really wanted, and because being lazy is easier than doing Tae Kwon Do. Then as a college student I trained in Aikido for about a year at Aikido of Central New York. Which was awesome, but
I quit that, too, because I was poor and really needed to focus on starting my career. Which are also excuses, sort of, but they're true as well.

My wife, being a second-degree black belt in Goju-Ryu karate, was able to train me for a bit in her style, and then I also trained in it for two months under David Oddy in 2010, but there's no denying I'm a raw novice at that style. But 2010 was the year that I started training in Kenpo at Five Star Martial Arts, and it's my intention to stick with it for the long haul. If nothing else, it's been a huge help to me in getting back into shape and dropping all this weight.

But my past training also factored in to the year 2010. As I mentioned above, I got in those two months of Goju Ryu, where believe it or not I actually learned a lot in a very short time. But in addition, I actually attended my first Aikido training in over eighteen years, when Aikido of CNY hosted a seminar with a Sensei from Bermuda. It was great, and really reminded me how much I'd loved Aikido. I got to see some old, familiar faces and meet some new people.

2010 was also the year that I really got working on my novel - to the tune of a prologue and sixteen whole chapters written. That's less than half the total novel, which sucks because my original timeline over-optimistically called for me to finish the book by May of 2010. But it's a significant chunk of work, anyway, and I'm really proud of it. I'll be prouder when the damn thing's done, of course.

I wrote a short story, too. About a wizard. It was okay - I didn't really love it, but it was tailored to a particular anthology I was trying to get into. I actually came up with a huge list of "wizard-oriented" short stories that I may have to write up some day. I was quite taken with a few of them.

In the year 2009, I started learning to play the guitar. But in the year 2010, I gave my first semi-public guitar performance. Which is crazy, I know. And it wasn't very good, but it wasn't all that bad, either. I'm pretty proud of that. It would have been easy enough to utterly suck, but I didn't. I played for about three hours, through around eighteen different tunes plus some aimless strumming while people ate and chatted. That was pretty cool, but I'm not in any rush to play my next gig.

On a related note, no pun intended, 2010 was also the year I started playing the electric guitar. Which is really great, because it opens up a whole different sound and a wealth of different tunes I can play. My kids were busy, too - they started three new instruments: flute, piano and tin whistle. Aren't they cute?

As with most years, in 2010 I read a couple dozen books (at least). Some of them were really good.

In 2010, my family went to the Renaissance Faire twice in one season. For me, it was the first time in over fifteen years that I'd done that, and I don't think any of the rest of us ever had. I love the Renaissance Faire, and being able to play a dozen or so different faire tunes on my guitar gave me profound joy.

Lastly, but by no means least, 2010 was the year we adopted our cat. That's related to the fact that 2010 was the year I began my allergy shots. They're both expected to last for many years. I enjoy the cat quite a bit more.

All of that - and more - packed into twelve measly months.

Book Analysis: Ed Parker's Kenpo Karate Part II

Yesterday I introduced the first work of American Kenpo Grandmaster Ed Parker: Kenpo Karate, the Law of the Fist and the Empty Hand. The book is divided into two courses. Course 1 covers basics from the wearing of the uniform to exercises and conditioning to basic strikes with hands and feet. Course 2 is an in-depth examination of specific responses to a wide range of attack scenarios.

Grandmaster Parker begins with a look at the theory about speed, power, accuracy, and distance. Parker writes about how all work together to make an effective strike, and that lacking certain ones - particularly distance, can make even the best attack fail.

Beyond that, the remainder of the book is a series of self-defense techniques. I found these very interesting both for what was and was not there. Let me digress for a moment.

As best as I can ascertain, the style of Kenpo I'm currently learning follows a lineage as so:

1. Grandmaster Parker trained Al Tracy and his brothers throughout the 1960s.
2. Al Tracy trained Lee Thompson, who opened a "Tracy Kenpo" school in Liverpool, NY.
3. That school was eventually transferred to Steve LaVallee, who would change the name to Steve LaVallee's Sport Karate and later to LaVallee's East Coast Karate and LaVallee's USA Black Belt Champions.
4. LaVallee operated the school along with Rick Iannuzzo, who I've been told was primarily responsible for curriculum content and direct instruction. Eventually (in the early 1990s, I think) Iannuzzo would open his own school, and LaVallee went on to open more than a dozen facilities in Upstate NY and Florida.
5. In 2010, FiveStar Martial Arts opens in North Syracuse, NY, under the instruction of Paul Napoli and Curtis Pastore. Both studied in the 1990s under Steve LaVallee and Rick Iannuzzo, then trained independently while pursuing their education.

You'll note that I'm not citing sources for this information. That's a topic for another article - it hasn't been easy to track down and the sources I've found haven't been easy to authenticate and verify with what I'd consider to be a high degree of journalistic or academic accuracy. My gut tells me that this is in the ballpark, however, which will have to be good enough for now.

Sometime after the departure of Napoli and Pastore from LaVallees around 2000, LaVallee's moved, at least in spirit, completely away from their Kenpo roots and adopted a Mixed (or blended, depending on who you ask) Martial Arts curriculum that also included some heavily-modified Kenpo kata and self-defense techniques. But what Napoli and Pastore teach is, at least ostensibly, Kenpo.

It's just not the same Kenpo you'd see at a modern Tracy-style or Parker-style karate dojo, however. At least, not from the evidence I've found online. And it's the changes, the metamorphosis of the style and the techniques over the years, that fascinate me. Who decided to do a certain technique this way rather than that other way? Who decided to change a particular kata to eliminate certain moves and modify others to the point where it's only superficially similar to its original form? And, most importantly, why were those changes made? Were they deliberate efforts to water down a challenging curriculum to make it more accessible to younger students? Or were they carefully-considered decisions about body mechanics, force, and the need to develop certain skills? Or some combination of both? Or something else completely?

This information is particularly difficult to pin down, because even the originators of the style - Parker and the Tracy brothers - made their own modifications over the years, both before and after they trained together as well as before and after they taught people like Lee Thompson. So the differences I'm seeing between modern-day Parker Kenpo and modern-day FiveStar Kenpo could have been introduced by any of at least six different people (Parker, Tracy, Thompson, LaVallee, Iannuzzo and/or Napoli/Pastore (who for the purposes of this exercise count as one entity)) at any point in the last thirty to forty years.

For instance, who decided that the makiwara (or the striking board) and the buckets of flour used to condition the fingertips were no longer necessary? You won't find either at the FiveStar dojo, nor did I ever see them at LaVallee's. Did Parker himself move away from them? Did the Tracys decide they preferred more modern equipment? Thompson? LaVallee? Iannuzzo? I have no idea, but they're definitely there in Parker's first book and they're entirely missing from the dojos I've trained at in 2010 and 2011. The Okinawan "Hojo Undo" training equipment and techniques didn't just disappear from Kenpo, either - they tend to be largely absent from nearly all western martial arts dojos.

At some point, both the Parker and Tracy styles of Kenpo developed a complex series of named techniques, using fanciful terms for everything from a left-handed attack to a ridgehand (or sword-hand) strike to a grab of the hair. You'd end up with technique names including (and these are actual Parker Kenpo techniques) delayed sword, mace of aggression, and captured twigs. These technique names, at least, are entirely missing from LaVallee and FiveStar kenpo. Why? Were they invented after Thompson finished his training under Tracy (I'm almost certain they were not), or did LaVallee or Iannuzzo decide to change them? I suspect the techniques - most of them, anyway - are still around in some form or another, but the colorful names have been simplified to "two-handed wrist grab" instead of "captured twigs." Again, who decided that and why?

So to bring that lengthy digression back around, one of the things I looked for in Parker's first book were similarities and differences between the defense techniques he presented and the ones I'm learning now. What's interesting is that I saw both.

For example, the two-handed wrist grab (which in this early book is called simply that - nothing colorful or fanciful) is actually very similar to how I've been taught it at FiveStar (and quite different from the same technique as it was taught to me at LaVallee's). Likewise, the cross-hand wrist grab is extremely similar to how I've been taught it at FiveStar, though a bit more detailed. It's also very much in line with a technique used in the Short 3 kata as I've been taught it at FiveStar.

There's a defense technique against a side-shoulder grab that's entirely different than the one I've learned at FiveStar. Nothing too surprising about that, as the bulk of the techniques from Parker's book are more different than similar. But what's fascinating to me is that the technique shown in the book is completely in line with yet another movement in the Short 3 kata. So while it's different in one portion of the curriculum, it's the same somewhere else. Furthermore, Sensei Napoli explained that the more advanced version of that side-shoulder-grab defense is actually very much like what's shown in the book, I'm just not far enough along in my training to have seen it yet.

Other than those techniques, the other dozen or so are all completely different than what I'd seen at either of the two dojos I've trained at. Could it be that there will be more similarities at more senior ranks? Or could it be that, like the colorful names, but techniques themselves have changed over the years as different instructors each put their own spin on them? Heck, it isn't as if there's only one way to defend against these attacks. I have to constantly resist the habits I developed studying Aikido, which also had very effective defenses against these sorts of assaults.

Overall, I found Parker's book a fascinating window into the origins of this most American (or Americanized, if you will) of martial arts styles. I found that much of what Parker espoused, from breathing to conditioning to specific strikes, was covered in much greater depth and detail than I've seen in my training. Again, that could be because I still have much to learn, or it may simply be that some of Parker's original message and philosophy wasn't carried on through the entire forty year journey to today's practice of the style he practiced. As I continue my own training, I'll be looking for more hints of Parker's influence (or lack thereof) and seeking a greater understanding of the skills I'm being taught, as well as the changes introduced over the years that affected how those specific skills are practiced today. But I certainly would recommend Parker's book to anyone who wants a first-hand look at the origins of Kenpo Karate in America.

Book Analysis: Ed Parker's Kenpo Karate

The Law of the Fist and the Empty Hand

This was the first of many books that Kenpo Grandmaster Ed Parker wrote on the subject of karate. It's written as an introduction to the history and specific techniques of the style he popularized, and forms the foundation for the style he would create and refine throughout his life.The book itself is split into two main sections - a beginner's course and an intermediate course. They were very different and each warrant their own analysis.

Course 1:

After the introduction, where Parker shares some of the history of the style and some basic precepts, he covers in extraordinary detail one item that is surprising both in the amount of space he dedicates to it and the extent to which it seems to have been largely lost by modern western martial artists (and, as far as I can tell, Asian ones as well). That item: the proper folding of the dogi karate uniform. Given that the uniform was not generally familiar to a western readership back in the 1960s, it's not surprising that he would cover how to wear and tie both the dogi and the obi, or belt. But he spends a surprising amount of time in both words and pictures detailing how to fold the dogi trousers and jacket, ultimately folding them inside each other and wrapping the entire package in the obi (belt). It's a fascinating insight into what Parker was taught and considered important at that time, and how much things have changed in the U.S. martial arts since.

Another interesting section focuses on breathing. Parker goes into considerable depth about inhalation, exhalation, and the effect of breathing on the power of your attack and defense. It was information I had learned back when I was first training in Tae Kwon Do, and again while training in Aikido, but interestingly it wasn't really something I heard in nearly as much depth while training in Kenpo. Which may have been coincidence that I just missed those particular lectures or perhaps I wasn't paying good enough attention, but Parker certainly was. I thought it was an excellent section that did a really good job of underscoring the effect that breathing has on physical activity, especially hand-to-hand combat.

The section after went into quite a bit of depth about training and conditioning equipment. Without using the Japanese terminology, Parker writes at length about the Makiwara striking board, including very specific directions about how to build one. He also discusses a wide array of other calisthenics, stretches, and methods for conditioning the hands, limbs and feet. These tools and techniques - called Hojo Undo by the Okinawans - have never seemed to be popular or well-known in the western practice of karate, so I found it fascinating that Parker was not only intimately familiar with them, but actually included them in his book.

Another topic that Parker investigated in detail in his book was human anatomy. He includes detailed anatomy charts that actually highlight those areas most likely to cause death. He discusses the anatomy of the martial artist's body weapons - punches, kicks, and other strikes - as well as opponent targets.

Out of all of that, however, the most fascinating thing about Course 1, for me, was that all of the movements that I've always seen taught as blocks (with one exception, below) are in this book clearly taught as strikes. This includes all four of the primary "blocks" typically taught in the west - the inward and outward block, the upward block and the downward block. In Parker's novel, these are all strikes. I learned them as blocks in Tae Kwon Do. I learned them as blocks in both forms of Kenpo and Kenpo-derived MMA I've been studying for the last year. My wife learned them as blocks in the style of Goju-Ryu karate she trained in for many years. In fact, the only time I'd ever considered that they could be strikes was when I was training at Syracuse Jundokan under David Oddy. Clearly the karate that Parker learned in the 1950s and wrote about in his book is closer to traditional Okinawan karate than what's been taught in my neck of the woods over the last twenty years or more. Amazing!

Now, to be fair, the book goes on to explain how those same strikes can be used as blocks, but it's clearly not their primary function. They're actually closer to the atemi I learned in Aikido - painful, distracting blows to the nerve centers that punish an immobilize an attacker - than simple blocks meant to ward off an opponent's attack.

So to summarize course 1 - wow, how things have changed over the last fifty years. The karate Parker learned and wrote about in his book barely resembles what I've seen and been taught over the years. Tomorrow - course 2!

A Five-Year Mission

Americans are huge fans of instant gratification. They don't like being told that it takes years of intensive practice to finally be good enough to qualify as a beginner. I'm as guilty of this as anyone. I've been playing the guitar for less than two years and I'm continually frustrated that I don't sound anything like Eddie Van Halen, Richie Sambora, or Eric Clapton. And you see it all the time in the martial arts.

You very rarely hear in the U.S. that achieving one's black belt is a sign of finally being ready to truly learn. Quite the opposite - many modern karate schools often bombard their students with the black belt as a goal. A finish-line. The end. And for many students, that's exactly what it is. They get their black belts and they're done - game over.

Karate can be (and many would argue should be) a lifelong pursuit of excellence, of knowledge, of technical perfection. But in the U.S., it's often seen as a quick way to make a buck - pull in a bunch of little kids, get them hooked into the program for 5-7 years till they get their black belts, and then turn them over and bring in a new batch.

I recently looked into training in Tai Chi, and had a somewhat surprising conversation with the Sifu running the program. I'd done some amount of research, and found it was somewhat common for Tai Chi programs to advertise that new students could learn the basics of their form in as little as four months. The Sifu I talked to was having none of that. He told me that authentic, traditional Tai Chi - like the form he teaches - is the hardest, most challenging martial art he's ever studied. And students should expect to be beginners for at least five years, assuming they practiced diligently. It wasn't a very good sales pitch (and I'm sure he knew that), but it was extremely refreshing to hear from an American instructor.

I actually think this process is one of the things that attracts me about the martial arts. As much as I'm anxious to learn more and I look forward to one day earning my black belt, I can see a progression of improvement over many, many years ahead of me. I don't want it to be something I hop into and finish a short time later. I want to challenge myself to be better. I want to reshape myself physically and mentally. Even more, I want my kids to see the long-term benefits of the martial arts. I can't know whether they'll stick with it for life, but I can influence them while they're here with me and as long as I can afford it (which is always a challenge when you have five people training) I'm going to strongly encourage them to continue to learn, to improve. I want the martial arts to infuse them with strength of arm and strength of spirit. I'd like them to feel the connection to hundreds of years of history - of meditation, contemplation, sweat and blood and exertion to the point where it feels like you must break, but then you somehow push just a little further. You don't get there on the five-year plan.

I know the dojo we're training at now embraces these sentiments, which is obviously important since we plan to be with them for the long haul. I also think that American martial arts is poised for an overhaul. I think the churn of little kids into and back out of the program - that's been going on for a good 20 years - may be susceptible to competition from dojos that embrace both traditional martial arts values (and knowledge and training) as well as the modern business practices that have helped make "Americanized" schools successful. I think that would be a huge benefit to all concerned. Well, except for those "Americanized" schools that refuse to adapt and embrace their roots, I suppose. But that's the nature of business, isn't it? Those same schools re-wrote the rules when they adapted adult-focused karate training into programs aimed at children. Now they'll just need to do it again.

Testimonial

I thought I'd share the testimonial we wrote for FiveStar Martial Arts:

Training at FiveStar Martial Arts has been terrific for our family. We’ve gotten to watch our kids increase their coordination and flexibility while learning discipline and respect. Their focus and concentration have really improved, and they love learning and practicing the techniques. We’ve seen huge gains in our own cardiovascular health, endurance, strength, and fitness. Best of all, Mike’s lost over 20 pounds since he started training in karate! The dojo offers a warm, inviting atmosphere for our family to learn and train together. Sensei Napoli and Sensei Pastore offer an outstanding learning environment for us that’s fun and keeps us fit. We’re so glad to be a part of the FiveStar Family!

Mike and Karen De Lucia

We mean every word of it, too. They're off to a fantastic start and we're really getting a lot out of our training. Great job, FiveStar!

Less of Me to Love

After 15+ years of weight-gain and generally being significantly overweight, 2010 was the year that I finally started moving in the other direction. It's been going on since April or so, so I figure it's past the point of being a fluke or a temporary thing. I really am on my way down at long last. I figured it was time for a little retrospective analysis.

As a kid, I was as skinny as they came. I remember my pediatrician telling me, "eat something!" I never thought much about food, really. I was a somewhat picky eater, but nothing compared to my own kids. I ate all sorts of pasta, burgers, hot dogs, meats, cheeses, soups, even a few vegetables. As long as it was reasonably American, I ate it. I just didn't gain weight.

Until I hit puberty. Then I slowed down and bulked out. I didn't play outside nearly as much, preferring instead to hang out in my basement eating Pringles and reading comic books. I started to put on weight to the point of being chunky if not outright fat. I started to suffer some self-esteem issues, but I didn't really know what to do about them and I apparently wasn't sufficiently motivated to figure it out.

By the time I started college, I'd decided I'd really like to try one of those "girlfriends" I'd been hearing so much about. And to my credit, by the time I was 20 I'd gotten myself into pretty good shape. It took me about a year of weightlifting, ab workouts, pushups, and regular cardio on a Nordictrack, but I definitely pulled it off. I got my weight under control and put on a fair amount of muscle. It worked, too - I met my one-day wife when I was about 21. She was pretty fit, we even started running together as she trained for her nidan (second-degree black belt) in Goju-Ryu karate. One of our favorite workouts was to put on the gloves and spar together, which we did for several years. I was also practicing Aikido at the time. Aikido classes don't have much of the "aerobics-style" activity of many karate schools, but the practice itself is so intense that it's a pretty awesome workout, anyway.

Sadly, I didn't stick with any of it. I got married, started a career, and moved into apartments where the sort of workout I was used to wasn't practical. I was just plain busier than I had been as a college student. And, let's face it, I was no longer missing the female companionship that had been a major motivator for me. It was all a recipe for sloth, and slothful I was. Starting around 1994, I gained quite a bit of weight, climbing from a "fit-peak" of about 170 to a high of 225 over the next ten years, and then staying there until early in 2010.

I did make a few abortive attempts to get my weight under control between 2004 and 2010. I bought a treadmill at one point, and used it religiously, 20-30 minutes a day for a couple of months. I literally didn't lose a pound. Haven't touched it since. There's $1,000 down the drain, but then spending money always was easier than working out. I tried prescription Meridia, too, but it didn't do squat for me. It's supposed to be an appetite suppressant, but I found that I'd lose 5 lbs of water-weight and then that was it. Again, I didn't lose another pound, and once I quit taking the Meridia, it came right back. The stuff wasn't covered by my insurance anyway, so I bagged the whole idea of better weight-control through pharmaceuticals. I tried calorie-counting a couple of years ago, but it didn't really help, either. I probably did eat less, but without some exercise it wasn't enough less to make any difference.

And that was it until 2010. In April, my whole family started to practice the martial arts together. I was getting high-energy workouts 2-3 times a week. I also started trying to "eat healthy," which didn't necessarily reduce my calories or intake by much, but at least substituted nutritious foods for the junk I'd been eating before. Finally, I started counting calories again and this time it made a big difference for me. I wasn't just counting them this time, I was using the process for portion-control. The karate alone moved me from 225 to 215 lbs between April and September. Since then, I've used calorie-counting and portion control to drop below 210 for the first time in about ten years. Apparently I've found the combination I really needed to be successful - the regular, intense exercise several times a week combined with controlling my diet. The holiday season is going to be really tough (freaking fudge has 135 calories in each little stinking piece!!), but I'm finally moving in the right direction after so many years. There will no doubt be challenges and I may very well level off a lot sooner than I'd like. It would be intensely frustrating, for example, to hit 195 and then get stuck there no matter what I did. My supposedly "optimal" weight is something like 150, which is laughable. I'd look like a hospice patient if I weighed 150 lbs. I think if I were a healthy, reasonably-muscular 170 that would be absolutely awesome, so that's my tentative goal. I'll see how I look and feel when I get down around 175 or 180 and reassess then.

Regardless of my "final" weight, which will of course fluctuate somewhat for the rest of my life, I'm sure, the upshot is that the results of my bloodwork at my last regular check-up in September were amazing. Easily the best they've been in the last ten years - cholesterol, triglycerides - you name it - all were right where they're supposed to be in a perfectly healthy person. THAT's the sort of thing that will help ensure I'm around to play with my grandkids some day. I'm looking forward to 2011 and the continued improvement in my health and weight. There will be less of me to love, and I love it.

(Note: that picture of me was artificially fattened by the latest computer technology.)

[Karate] Purple Belts!

When my family started training at Fivestar Martial Arts, they allowed us to wear the orange belts that we'd just earned the week before at LaVallee's. So the first thing we needed to do was learn all the things that an orange belt was expected to know at Fivestar, but which wasn't part of the LaVallee's curriculum. This included the Fivestar version of 1-6 count kicking (which we only ever did once at LaVallee's). It included First Series, which is a set of blocks and strikes meant to be done with a partner - sort of a very simple form of bunkai. It also included Basic Combinations, a formalized series of punches and kicks. And we had to re-learn every self-defense technique, because they were all different at Fivestar. Once that was all done, we had to continue on to learn the new content that an orange belt was expected to master to progress. It's taken almost four months for our family to catch up to the standard of what we needed to know and then proceed on to the material for our next belt, but last night we finally made it!

We got an awesome workout, demonstrated what we'd learned, and at the end of the night we got to remove our orange belts, bow over them, and then tie on our brand-new, crisp purple belts. Yeah!