Dojo Etiquette
by Master Teruyuki Okazaki

In the last Spotlight , I finished Master Funakoshi's Niju Kun and now it is time to discuss rei gi saho, or dojo etiquette. As Master Funakoshi states, "Without courtesy you cannot practice Karate-do."

This applies not only to our training but to life in general.

The word "dojo" is actually two words. "do" which means "the way" or "the path" and ‘jo’ which means ‘the place’. When the two words are combined it means "the place where the way is studied’. The dojo is the place where we learn to live together as human beings. This is a serious subject and therefore we must always follow dojo etiquette.

This is the first step to practicing Karate-do.

Upon entering the doorway of the dojo, face shomen side, and bow. This is called ritsu-rei and shows deep respect to the teachings of Master Funakoshi as well as the seriousness of your study. Always try to arrive to class 10-15 minutes early so you have time to stretch and practice.

When the instructor says line up, move as fast as possible to form the line. Remember, more than two steps, you must run.

When making seiza, always go down left knee first, then the right knee. The hands should rest comfortably on the thighs. Sitting in seiza is much more than just kneeling. Historically, the samurai always had to be ready to defend themselves at any time. Since the sword was always carried on the left hip, the left knee went down first so they could draw the sword without injuring themselves. Always keep both balls of the feet in contact with the floor when kneeling down or rising to the standing position. If your posture is not straight and your feet not gripping the floor, then it is almost impossible to effectively defend against an opponent. Try this for yourself. After making seiza, then you must close your eyes in mokuso. This term means to cleanse or make blank your mind to prepare for training. You have to forget all your thoughts and concentrate only on what the instructor is trying to convey. By only existing in the moment can you really learn.

After the command mokuso yame, open your eyes. Shomen ni rei- bow to the shomen side, Sensei ni rei, bow to the instructor. Every time you bow push your ego further down and become as empty as possible. Next issue we will discuss dojo manners during class.

SAFETY FIRST.
No horse play.
Practice good distance and control with your partner.
Notify the instructor of any injury or illness.
Keep toe and finger nails short.
No jewelry.
No gum, candy, or food during training.
Drink water.

RESPECT ALWAYS.
Arrive on time in a clean body and gi; be prepared to train.
Bow before entering the training floor.
Bow when facing/leaving a partner.
Train with enthusiasm and strong spirit.
Do not disrupt the class by talking.
Do not delay class: move to a new position quickly; ask only brief questions.
Maintain good posture with hands at your sides; do not lean or lounge.
Turn away from shomen (front of training area) or your partner when making adjustments to your gi, sneezing, coughing, etc.
Notify the instructor of extended absence.
Keep your dojo clean.

THE FOUR CORNERSTONES
The building blocks of karate
As with anything of substance Shotokan karate is based upon a strong foundation.

Like a forty-two story office building standing tall and proud, Shotokan karate is supported by four cornerstones without which it could not have stood the test of time. These four building blocks are: a proper stance, proper posture, proper balance and proper "kime" or focus.

Without these four basic building blocks working in harmony with each other, equally weighted, and equally given their due, you will never learn to develop your techniques to their full potential, and thus you will never have any hope of truly understanding let alone mastering, the art of Shotokan karate.

STANCE
Your stance is the platform upon which everything else is built.
It is the beginning, middle, and end of all that you will do as a Shotokan karate-ka. More than any other style of karate Shotokan is noted for it’s long low stances which, when practiced correctly, are very effective at creating a low centre of gravity, promoting good stability, and fostering strong muscular development.

Early on in your karate training you will quickly be made aware of the fact that landing in a poor stance, however momentarily, will create a level of instability that will prevent you from making any effective defensive or offensive movements, while at the same time you will be leaving yourself open to a successfully attack or counter attack from your opponent.

Given such an opening even a junior belt properly trained will seize upon the moment and may be virtually assured of victory due to your lack of stability and strength.

Without a proper stance nothing else is possible.

POSTURE
Your posture says it all.
From walking down the street, to sitting in a business meeting, or simply driving in your car. In your daily life how you carry yourself says a lot about who you are. Throughout our early childhood we were all told to sit up straight, to stand up properly, to keep our head up, and to watch where we were going. Today how you personally hold yourself, how you carry yourself when you move, and how you focus on your surroundings, depends largely on how well you have taken these early lessons to heart.

In Shotokan karate it is vital that you learn to always center your torso over your hips when you move. If you can remain conscious of this fact, especially when shifting from one stance to another, then by combining good hip movement with proper posture and balance you will create a strong vertical center, thus making smooth rapid movements possible and effective.

The hips should be considered the steering wheel of your body.

You will quickly come to learn that poor posture equates to poor everything else.

BALANCE
Good balance is the result of a proper thought.
In karate from the moment you start to move from one stance to another, or from one technique to another, you are essentially risking all that you have in the hope of achieving something better. This period of transition often lasts for less than a split second of time, a time in which balance plays the role of the sun, acting as the center of your universe around which all of your other actions must revolve. Without proper balance a successful out come in anything karate related is virtually impossible.

Balance, however, can never be achieved unless the scales are even. While your technique and skill will weigh heavily on one side of the scale, they must in turn be equally balanced by the mental and spiritual side of your being. In karate trying to perform any movement or technique requires a level playing field, one in which each function must be awarded just the right amount of concentrated effort necessary to make the whole thing work as you intended it to.

Balance is the sum of all movement added together.

Only when the body, mind, and spirit are in complete harmony can proper balance be achieved.

KIME
Kime is the sum of all your efforts.
The concentrated focus of all your physical, mental, and spiritual actions combined at a specific moment and place in time is called kime. The moment you make any kind of movement in karate your true level of kime will be reflected in the accuracy and quality of your techniques and any errors in judgement will then be clearly visible for everyone else to see. If your kime is found lacking then in effect nothing you just did should be considered real. No amount of strength, no amount of speed, and no amount of kiai can ever make up for a lack of kime.

In your training you must believe in what you are doing, and that belief must have a definitive beginning and ending, an ending that you will find you can only reach by putting all of your other thoughts aside and focusing for as long as it takes to achieve your goal. Without this all encompassing belief in the success of what you are attempting to do your techniques will become nothing more than physical actions without any mental substance, in a world where mental substance is often the difference between victory or defeat.

Without kime your karate has no value.

Kime is only effective when nothing else matters.
So there you have it, the four basic fundamentals without which your karate will not develop properly.

So train hard, train often, and make these fundamentals the basis for everything you do in the dojo.


Remember - Stance, posture, balance, and kime,
are the foundation upon which you must build.

Flexibility is very important to all sports including karate. There are a number of very important reasons to include regular stretching into your fitness routine.

Injury prevention:

By lengthening the muscle you are decreasing the risk of tears and strains, as the muscle will be better able to cope with stresses over a larger range of movement.

Increased skill level: Your joints will be freer making it easier to focus your technique in the correct position.

Increased speed: Longer muscles means less resistance to the technique, especially for those high kicks.

Increased strength: Due to the length tension relationship, as the length of the muscle increases so to does its strength over a fuller range of motion.

Each stretch should be held for at least 30 seconds on each side. You may want to repeat the individual sequences a number of times to get the maximum benefit. The secret to getting results is consistency. If you spend half an hour, three times a week stretching, then you should begin seeing improvements very quickly. Give yourself a day to recover after a heavy stretching session to allow the muscles to grow and lengthen.

What's the benefit of practicing Kata?

There are a number of benefits that directly relate to the practice of kata. Some of these benefits are:

1. Self defence lessons
2. Learning and remembering your kata
3. Reinforcing basics
4. Physical fitness
5. Improving your concentration and focus
6. Improving your coordination
7. Relaxation and enjoyment

When practicing kata your opponent must be real in your mind.

You must block his attacks strongly and you must destroy him with your counter attack. This is the only way to get true self defence value from kata.

Rote learning is a learning technique which avoids understanding of a subject and instead focuses on memorization. The major practice involved in rote learning is learning by repetition. The idea is that one will be able to quickly recall the meaning of the material the more one repeats it.

Rote learning of kata teaches the pattern and the basic movements that are required to perform the kata. Continued repetition refines your techniques.

Kata is full of basic techniques. Applying basics in a self defensive situation needs to just happen. The only way it can “just happen” is to teach the subconscious what to do in times of stress. The only way to do that effectively is through repetition of the basic techniques.

To build cardio vascular fitness you only need to practice your kata. Practice kata, three hard with full speed and power and then one soft to catch your breath and relax. By performing the kata softly I mean performing the kata with little or no power but still performing the kata technically correct.

Concentration and focus is improved by your having to remember and correctly perform the kata. Only practice can achieve this.

Your coordination is improved by your brain having to continually make you use both sides of your body to perform intricate movements which become more and more complex with each kata we learn.
You should enjoy performing kata. Do not see the performance of a kata as a task so much, but rather an opportunity to immerse yourself in the deeper meaning of the kata from a meditation perspective. You become the kata and the kata becomes you in your performance.

You will get to a point in your pursuit of Karate-Do where you move beyond the physical in the performance of your kata. Seeing the beauty within the kata is a personal progression where mind and body become truly one, and the performance of the kata is art in itself.

Speed, Speed, Speed…
Power that is instantaneous and formidable!

In a decisive technique, there is a power that is instantaneous and formidable. The basic techniques of Karate are influenced to a very great extent by speed. It may be a bit of an exaggeration to that in training in techniques, speed is first in importance and second in importance, but it is no exaggeration to say that the objective if basic training is maximizing speed.

Since the body is organized in thee basic parts, power comes from increasing speed in all of them. If the muscles involved are contracted as fast as possible, then the power that reaches the hand in punching, in order to take advantage of the pairing of forces that comes from withdrawing the other arm, it must be with drawn as fast as possible.

Speed is dependant, for one thing, on muscle control. When certain muscles contract, other muscles expand. In punching, for example, the triceps expand while the biceps strong contract. If proper coordination between the expansion and contraction is lacking, then the movement of the arm will not be smooth and an effective punching technique is not possible.

Beginners have a tendency to use unnecessary muscles. As a student, you must accept guidance and, according to your training, learn to control your muscles.

Do You Hit Things?
As karate is primarily a striking art, it is important to hit things like a punch bag, focus pad, kick shield and makiwara, training. One objective of a new and experienced karateka, is to encourage them to hit fast and hard.

Not only is this an essential part of a striking art, such as karate, it's also good fun!

A striking bag can be used to practice ground striking. It can be punched, kicked, kneed and elbowed. Used correctly it can improve the power of your striking and gives a great cardio workout as well, but if used improperly it can cause injuries. Make sure you use proper fists that are tight so you don't hurt your hands.

Avoiding bad practice
Often when people train on a bag their proper technique goes out the window. Feet come off the ground, the body is badly aligned, they wind up their strikes like a baseball pitcher. Don't exaggerate your movements and keep your techniques correct. Apart from the risk of injuries, your practising of these bad techniques will result in incorrect 'muscle memory' and so when you use your techniques against a real opponent, you will leave yourself open to counter attack.

Telegraphing of your techniques
Telegraphing means you make obvious preparations to throw a technique, cocking your fist back before throwing a punch is a good example. As the bag doesn't fight back people often forget the importance of being able to strike your opponent without signalling your intention to do so.

THE DOJO KUN

Should be spoken with pride!

The purpose of the Dojo Kun is to remind all of the students in the dojo, regardless of their rank, that the physical, mental, and overall growth that they enjoy as a by product of their karate training, must also extend beyond the dojo's walls.

SEEK PERFECTION OF CHARACTER
BE FAITHFUL
ENDEAVOUR
RESPECT OTHERS
REFRAIN FROM VIOLENT BEHAVIOUR

Character
This means that the art of karate is more than just physical. All beginners, especially the young, should be taught the importance of character building through discipline and rigorous training. For the beginner, the character building process begins with perfecting techniques through repetition. The spirit to fight will be achieved as one gains more confidence through development of stronger techniques. Train to bring out the spirit, not only to fight but to overcome personal problems especially in times of sickness, domestic crisis or business problems. It is a long path to develop these values but once the concept is understood and experienced it will provide a lifetime benefit of inner strength and peace.

What do you mean a good foundation?

When you were a baby there were certain milestones that you had to achieve in order to progress along the road in life. You had to crawl before you stood, stand before you walked, and walk before you ran. Karate is a lot like that.

Like a building you need a good foundation or you will topple to the ground. All right go ahead and ask what do you mean a good foundation. For those wondering what a building’s foundation and Karate stances have in common, it is balance. Balance is needed for everything from walking, to executing a throw even throwing an effective punch.

The ways that we form a good foundation are our stances.

One of the first things any student learns when they walk on the dojo floor is how to stand. It is the basis of all Martial Arts and probably one of the most important lessons a student will ever learn. And it is one of the aspects of training that is most overlooked by beginning students.

When we refer to stance, we're talking about a few concepts:

• Where the feet are positioned
• How far apart are your legs
• What is the weight distribution between your two sides

As a Martial Arts student, stance defines your balance and root. Too often in classes, students first focus on the hands. What is that technique the sensei is doing? Did he just punch with the fist down or up?

What needs to be focused on instead... is what are the sensei's feet doing?

In principle, even if a technique (a punch or strike) is delivered wrong, if the stance is solid it will be very difficult for an opponent to dislodge and gain advantage. Once an opponent is off balance, it is easy to take that person to the ground, toss them around, and have control of the situation

Longer, lower, get down, get a good foundation, make your stance strong!

Speed and Power...
why train at that level?

Be "Cobra Like" in your attacks!

Speed and power are extremely important if your goal is to end a fight quickly. One goal of the warrior is to learn to end the fight with a single blow! That's exactly where speed and power come in! Basically the more you practice your particular techniques, the more your nervous system becomes familiar and you will naturally get faster.

When you train at home, it's a really good idea to use mirrors because you can self-coach, so to say, and strip away wasted movements as well as to learn to utilize power centers (like the hips and legs). Very occassionally, we will train using video tape of your kata and basics. Then, you will see how much power you use and how good your stance and techniques are. Mirrors and video tape are only a snap shot of where you're at in your training. What is important is regular attendance, hard training, and improving difficult moves, or techniques in the dojo and at home.

As an example of speed and power training, you can immediately make your punch twice as powerful by springing off the slightly bent legs when you execute. BUT DON'T SLIDE... SPRING OFF YOUR BACK LEG, STAY ROOTED AND SOLID IN YOUR STANCE. Think of your body like a coiled up snake about to strike!

Sounds simple... but when you start thinking you are fast... you will actually start moving faster!

Get over any thought limitations you may have thinking you're slow. Keep the thought of speed on the forefront of your mind.

As you train at the dojo, to do those skills you wish to be faster and stronger at, make a conscious effort to do them with your best speed and power efforts all the time! Don't cheat yourself, by "dogging" it.... train hard for the hour you're at the dojo and improve at home on your own.

Time yourself. Count down how many strikes, front kicks or roundhouse kicks you can land on a target or heavy bag in a 10 second period. Seek to improve your numbers every session when you train at home.1965 JKA-USA(AAKF) Championships. Kenneth Funakoshi. Hawaii (left) meets James Yabe.JKA (center), 1962, 1963 and 1964 AAKF Grand Champion, in the semi-finals match. Funakoshi won the match with two mae geri's. Referee is Sensei Teruyuki Okazaki (right), )KA Chief Instructor for lTKF.

A big congratulations goes out to Butler Shotokan Karate Students...
Carrie Rugh for completing her 8 Kyu test, Grant Yurisic, Nick Peffer, Kelsey Wetzel and Jessica Morrison for completing their 7 Kyu test and Jacob Muir for completing his 6th Kyu test. Well done students, keep training!

Why is it important to do a little bit of training on your own?

As you advance in your karate, the techniques become more difficult. If you only train during class, you will only get a little better. But, if you practise the areas you are having difficulty with, you will advance and become much better. You must remember, the foundation of good karate lies with your stance. If sensei is constantly telling you to get longer and lower, it is for your own karate to get better. A longer and lower stance will not only provide you with good karate, but you will become much stronger... stronger to endure more rigorous training, stronger to take on more techniques and if you ever need your karate for self defence, you will outlast your oponent and win.

So, the lesson this week is... Longer and Lower... Get Down, Get Better!